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Welcome to Someone Talked, the official podcast of the National D Day Memorial, where leading experts spill all the secrets of the Second World War with your host, Doctor John C.

McManus.

I'm doctor John C.

McManus.

Welcome to Someone Talked.

In this episode, we pick up our conversation with video game designer Luke Hughes, creator and a command.

And now we could show a little segment, maybe show the French one.

Do you want to do that because that's again interesting ones?

Yeah, okay, all right, I don't care whichever.

How do you want to go?

John, did you have a question.

I'll make a point that I think we'll answer some of our listeners because they're probably wondering by now, why are you talking about a video game?

And because we have a lot of you know, history buffs and uh, you know, the the uh, the kind of guys that are going to read everything, John McManus writes, and uh, they may not realize.

Yeah, and and they come to visit the National D Day Memorial, but yeah, but uh they may not realize the extent to which this is an entry point for a lot of young people into the subject of World War Two.

Uh.

They are that we're talking about a generation.

And I see them all the time during the school year.

They come through you know, field trips.

They probably have never met a World War Two veteran, never never heard their story.

Uh.

And you know, we can present this history at the memorial or they get it in the classroom, of course.

But for a lot of kids who and especially males, I have to say my experience, they they really become interested in World War Two because of these games.

Uh.

And there are a lot of kids that are going to play your game that probably aren't going to read John McManus's book at least for a long time.

Well exactly.

And it really is.

Once upon a time we were introduced to World War two history from movies, from TV shows.

Probably when I was ten, everything I knew about World War Two probably came from uh, you know, John Wayne movies and Hogan's Heroes.

But today we get a lot of kids who really know maybe not big picture, you can give a an outline of the events of the war, but boy, they know what it was like and and so I imagine that's one of your goals in doing this game is to introduce the next generation of World War two buffs, and I was I was joking earlier.

Today we want to get them engaged so that become owners to the National.

D Day Memorial.

They go on.

And write as the donation checks, but.

What keeps the stories exactly?

But really our goal is to teach history.

And this is a method that I think some of our listeners may not realize how important it is for a lot of these young people.

John probably say saying about students in a moment, but I want to commence John first.

So remember I'm the son.

I'm in historian, so I had a lot of exposure to academic life.

And you know, I had my own doctorate, so I saw academic life and professional academics.

They want their careers to succeed, they want tenure, et cetera.

And there's a game to be played in terms I don't mean the too nastally, but they need the approbation fancy term right, the approval of their peers often judged by how many papers or books are published.

I remember how critical it was from my father to get his career going to get a book published.

By the way, he was a young fellow professor with the author of Band of Brothers, JOHNS.

Hopkins, and I just remember, you know, the stories getting my point.

My point is it is risky to put yourself out there in the public eye as an historian or any form of academic because your peers may judge you as not serious, the lesser ones, I would say, and my father had to, you know, judge those risks when he because he wrote some more public books, et cetera.

And John has shown maybe it's not the courage and that we're talking about on the battlefield, but it is a different kind of courage career courage to allow himself to be associated with the game.

And I don't mean this in a casual sense.

It is a real risk.

I saw that living within an academic family.

When I would approach older historians, I got the clear sense, even though I could reference my dad and they were pleasant, that to them game was not a credible thing to do, nor are sent They would tarnish themselves or diminish themselves in their reputation to be associated John was the opposite.

Interesting enough, the youngest historians now are on the out and completely opposite side of the tier where they're playing games a lot, and they're going out of their way to connect the dots.

But I'll yield to John to talk about the classroom.

But I remember my my bo I have three boys coming coming to me and shocking me in the kitchen one day and saying, so, Dad, you know, we used that we were playing Total War and we used the turtle tactic, which is a Roman tactic of shields to make yourself into sut of a physical turtle shields and protectors.

And I was like, oh my god, my kids are talking about turtle tactics.

Things have changed in the world, right, they're talking about our kick Long did Roman tactics.

That's a good thing.

But that's a great thing.

Yeah, I mean I find you, I know you do too, John, that video games are great at Gateway Drug, you know, kids to get into World War two and to study.

And I mean I see that all the time that that you know, these young people have played various feetdeo games and they're just kind of interested sometimes to explore a little more of the real history and see the context.

Maybe because a little more insider in the game maybe they get better at it.

Maybe you know, maybe they kind of grow beyond the game and start to get interested in doing historical research too, or maybe it helps them get into games that much more.

I had one of my advises a number of years ago.

You know, now he works full time in video games.

I mean, because he put his history degree to work on that side of the house.

And as I say this all the time, I mean, if it comes down to the movies and miniseries and TV and video games and books and podcasts, and I say all the above, you know, let's do it.

That's the whole point is to enhance understanding, to get interest out there, to learn new things, and to use the history.

So to me, it's really from the beginning of my career, I was determined not to do history just for ten other scholars or whatever, you know, whatever it might be expected in that sense.

To me, history should be you know, universal and useful and practical and pragmatic and admirll and fun and enjoyable and you know so.

So to me, burn a command is just a really good opportunity to use to be teaching history, I suppose, just maybe in another context which takes a different kind of skill set to make happen.

Like like Luca, I'm going to take a slight risk and talk about something modern and present in a history podcast.

But I believe in I suspect much of our audience made too.

Look, we know that young males are struggling to some degree in at least us.

That's perception.

I think of many older people, and one of them is around role models.

Now, there are many forms of role models, you know.

I hope my mother was a role model, and ceramics and so forth, and art commitment.

On the other hand, obviously, I hope that people we talk about in John's books and so forth are in some sense implicit role models of behavior, of taking responsibility or maybe sometimes not, but hopefully mostly taking responsibility and tearle situations like we've been describing.

And I see interests from young people.

I think they're hungry to see some of these situations and to test themselves at least in some sense.

Right, I would say, there are quite a few young men who came, and we have women come too, but there is a preponderance of young men come who are saying I'm going to you know, rotc soon, or I'm going to be going to boot camp soon, and I'm really interested in your game, you know, and so testing myself because here's a chance.

Right, they're wondering how they will be as a leader.

Uh, and maybe by putting them in the situations that John's books have conveyed.

I mean, those are real situations.

So we are putting somebody in the audience last night asked about well, you know, could you take some of these situations.

We may show in a little bit later, these unusual things dealing with civilians, soldiers in Iraq, are Afghanistan, other places deal with these are complicated moral situations to decide how to behave as a person, And I think it's a it's to the great benefit of the country, frankly, to educate people not just on the battles and who won and where was fifth pans or a third division, but how do people comport themselves in hard situations and handle them.

That's I think while that movies engaged too.

I mean, Bilberg's a morality play story, not just a battle.

Yeah, let me throw out the caveat That's just like a World War two movie that you know, might get a kid interested in World War Two.

It might be a good movie or it might be a bad movie from a historical spandpoint.

And I think the same thing I said of the game.

Some video games are you know, more instructive of history and some are less so.

And so I will say congratulations on producing something with actual you know, his images, actual characters, actual circumstances, even oral histories you know played in which, by the way, Luke, is probably a good opportunity for you to throw in another of your clips.

Yes, I will.

And John, let me say one more thing what you said about how we understand war.

So there's a really interesting book I recommend called What It Is, What Not Sorry, World Within War, and it's basically a look at what was the psychological, emotional, social experience primarily US army but other ones going to war.

And in World War One, people understood the war and civil war, they understood it saw through the metaphor of the Bible because that was their core prism for thinking about the world.

And then in World War Two, though like you said, they were going to war thinking it was going to be a John Wayne movie and they were shocked to get descripted shocked when they go on the battlefield and you're somebody's dying here maybe and you can't see the enemy who shot them, because strangely enough, the enemy doesn't really want to be seen.

Right.

So the disconnect between how the movie betrayed the war and their experience and then modern same thing happens soulteris it's very clear.

Now they go to war and their metaphor for wars games and think about some of the games were talking about earlier.

They are going to be some very unpleasant shocks for what war is opposed to is what some games may have taught.

So those I don't want to get too are Christen.

But we can all think about that's very interesting, problematic issues about what lessons are they taking to the battlefield or not, about what it will be like, talk about a complicated situation not trained for probably yes, okay, And again, while this will be in the game, it's thanks to John that we knew about these situations and it's drawn quite directly.

Change context and time a little bit, give you something a little different.

So now we're in it was summer.

Now it's November forty four, and we're in Alsace, French province near the German border, and let's see what's going on, Hey, get your hands off her.

A deep voice one you know, well, echoes down the street ahead.

You can see it's rather a miserable weather or in some little town.

Like we talked to them.

Yeah, oh oh, well, I'm tempted to mouse over, but I think i'll let John and Paul comment on what this picture could mean.

Your head around the corner.

Sergeant Crossley was shoulder squared and bar aimed at a crowd of locals.

So the narrative will get it across.

But we're seeing historical pictures here, not what you'd expect for a war game.

You're seeing obviously some villians.

They're something they're upset about someone.

It looks like it could turn violent, and that's kind of what the picture is conveying.

I'll back it up with it.

But after this I may mention the pictures, but you'll hear the narrative in this choose your own adventure situation from their reading.

Aimed at a crowd of locals who look mad as hell, they cry out a naked malice, not at Crosley, but the young woman and a torn coat who shelters in his lee.

She looks no more than nineteen.

There's Crossley.

I said leave her alone.

You hear Crasley bellows, but they yell back and thick Alsatian accents muddled by rage.

Only the muzzle of the cotton dealer's automatic rifle keeps a human tied at bay for now.

Jesus Christ's grant mutters under his breath, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself?

And do now, you dumb ocks?

This could be a job for an officer.

We're one Stalwarts sergeant.

So now we've got a choice.

Let's go find out what's going on.

You do I have Crosley, stand down, don't get involved, walk away.

Well, part of me is attempted just to not get involved.

We've got a war to fight on her hand.

We are some of the new Law and Order movie in right, the troops right, So I do feel certain responsibility.

And regardless, I'm realizing as a leader that Crosley, you know, one of my reports, is in some situation.

I can't just blow it off.

Well, I guess I could leave, but I'm gonna let's go over and find out what he's got himself.

In direct leadership.

Lightly along, Crosley stiffens when he sees you approaching.

Captain, I can explain the crowd turns towards you.

They might not understand what Crossley's saying, but they sure as hell understand this looty sends your way not to mention the firepower you and your men.

Sorry, I got a little technical issue there, but the sure as hell understand this louty sends you a way not to mention the firepower you and your staff carry.

I didn't mean to cause trouble, Captain.

Your barman insists, but these people were attacking this poor girl.

Someone in the crowd shouts something dark.

The damn breaks.

A torrent of voices rise again.

Despite the accents and strain, you pick out the words poutin and set up more than once.

Not sure what those words are, but kind of guessing I have a sense of them.

Marie turns to you.

Now, this is Marie on the left.

She's actually she's a fictional French resistance.

Leader, but we model her off several.

Female French resistance leaders, so she does connect to the historical realities, and she's been guidiance.

Marie turns to you, and you know, that's a whole interesting sub issue with the conn Baylor's dealing with French resistance, your regulars.

Marie turns to you, her eyes tight with ray.

You saga may have as they say, hit a rake.

They're saying she's a collaborator, a German's hw The young woman in question shouts something back and blinks back tears.

She doesn't deny it.

Maurice has gravely.

She claims she was in love and the others have no right to judge her under other circumstances.

I decree I've done my chef foolish things at her age two.

But she tilts her head towards the crowd that isn't likely to change their minds.

The young woman remains to find and she shouts to be heard above the crowd as men and women edge forward with nods and shears in hand.

Oh boy, okay, I've got decision to make.

I want details exactly she do.

I'm putting her under my protection, or give these people their justice.

Well to comment and then we can everybody.

I hope you think about what you'll do, and then we'll finish when.

I've got a lot of comment about the context of this whole thing.

It is, this is just so real to the situation on so many levels.

So, first thing, when the seventh Infantry invade South France in August nineteen forty four and they begin to advance north up their Rhwan Valley, they begin to liberate major portions of France.

Of course, they're working with what are called the f FI, the French Forces of the Interior, and the Maquis, which tend to be like, you know, sort of like resistance militia, often in mountainous areas and whatnot.

So you know, who knows who these guys are, what's their training, what's their what's their political orientation?

Many of course were communists, many were not.

Are they really affiliated with the gall Are they subject to a military command?

How do we work with them or not?

Do they have their own agenda when they go into a town.

How do we sell up our authority versus them?

Okay, so we've already got that dynamic, and that's very challenging, and that's kind of a civil affairs thing, but it's really also kind of an operational commander thing too, in terms of the tangible way we operate wherever we're going as squad leaders, platoon leaders, company commanders.

Okay, Well, once you're into ascess.

The whole subplot to that is this is a dual heritage province that's gone back and forth between Germany and France over the course of many, many generations.

So during World War Two, Alsatians had had very difficult choices to make, you know, many of them had most of them had dual heritage of some sort.

Which side were they loyal to?

How have we handed where the Germans are not?

And so who's a collaborator who's not?

Well?

Of course, in you know, in Europe as a whole, a civil war is going on, you know, in German occupied places in that sense.

But I may look like a collaborator, but I'm really trying to sabotage the Germans secretly, like my neighbors can't or don't know that.

Who knows.

Maybe this young woman, maybe she really was in love, and of course that happens too, but maybe she has some other agenda for dating the German.

Maybe she was gathering intel for some FFI cell that she can't talk about or whatever, and that these other folks don't know about.

I mean, there's a million different variations of this.

And so now here we are as young infantrymen trained to fight.

Yeah, and here we are in the middle of this, this social complexity nineteen to do.

What do you do exactly?

And so we could certainly you might say, well, come down hard judgment.

Oh she's a Nazi.

She's a Nazi, this without the other thing, and let's go help people cut her hair off or whatever.

Well, she could be a scapegoat, and there may be a lot of people in that crowd who now find it very very convenient, and maybe they were cozy with the Germans too, like, oh, let's blame her and you're helping them now.

And on the other hand, you could put down your boot and say uh uh, we're going to protect her.

And now the population maybe isn't so good with you.

So this is you know again, I think you know earlier we were wondering what seth Burn and Command apart.

It's this kind of scenario which isn't trading bullets.

This is very real and this is what the Seventh Inventry is actually dealing with in the fall in nineteen forty four, especially if you get closer to Strasbourg.

And of course eventually they're going to fight in the Kolmar pocket, which incorporates major portions of assas.

That's in like January Trevor of nineteen forty five.

So so it's like, okay, well, what do you do?

Well, not just the seventh Infantry, this is happening everywhere, Belgium, Netherlands.

How many situations, how many stream.

Situations are so, John, what would they do?

I've always had the impression this sort of thing was left largely the local control in American forces didn't get all that involved.

They usually didn't get involved, and they would usually kind of step aside because the urgency is usually to whatever is the next practical mission that we have, and it's like, okay, that's a local thing, and then we go on.

Now that's the seventh Infantry.

Of course, the backfill is the civil affairs people and all that who are going to get a little more involved and trying to investigate the counterintelligence core of people, trying to figure out whether there's Nazi spies in the town and all that kind of stuff.

But yeah, you're right, John, As infantrymen, you know, we're probably going to lean toward the not get involved side of this.

And maybe try and move on.

Usually, but you may have some immediate right, the crowd may about do something.

You might have to act at that moment, but you're probably, as John said's going to do that.

But also, you know, there's also what you might want to do as a civilian player versus what a soldier's been trained.

So we had an interesting question last night, of which the gist was time to keep it all.

But there's a decision we gave the audience last night, and without exception, everyone picks rather nice options to handle her difficult situation.

The historical commander, Lieutenant Spears and Bander Brothers actually chose shooting an offending sergeant and as exonery a court martial.

My point is, no one in the audiences ever when I've asked that situation ever picked the one that was picked by ten Spears.

So here, a civilian player may want to be nice and help and do better things, but really maybe you have to be a little hard about it.

Only John subscribing and leave something unpleasant going on because you have greater responsibilities, right, You have a responsibility to the mission, not in this case, to the people.

As a general theme in the game, we have men versus mission, but that's a broad concept.

So for example, maybe you have responsibility to other units to hold a hill, and your men must die so some other company or a regiment can do what they must.

Maybe we put you in a very difficult situation on John's books, that's a spoiler bit.

And some of you'all remember first golf for the Highway of Depth, where many Iraqis are fleeing on a highway and frankly they're being butchered by American airpower at this point, just slaughtered on the highway, and the first President Bush decided to call it off at some point for humanitarian reasons.

And now it was always controversial.

Maybe it was the right decision that maybe it left too much souls around difficult.

I'm not saying what was right, I'm saying it was a hard decision in well, do you want to describe that situation.

Happened at Montelli mar and by the way, the game to the Highway of Death incident in the desert storm, the seventh Infantry was yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, not on the air power side, but later on the the quote mop up side and trying to enforce the lack of movement on that.

Highway and whatever.

But in this context, in World War Two, you have a place called Montelli Mar that's this is part of the South France campaign, and you know the Vallet's pocket and Normandy is very famous Germans trying to escape and getting raked over by like firepower.

Well tell Amar is that, but on a smaller scale, and the seventh Infantry is a huge part of that.

So again it's like how much is piling on a lot of what you're killing in that pocket are animals because most of the Germans mobility at that point's horse drawn, but also too, there are locals who are trying to get out with them.

Mistresses, yeah, women who have you know, girlfriends who are German soldiers, women who maybe feel that they're perceived to have collaborated and leaving, and men too.

So how much firepower do we pour in there?

Do we really fight to the finish there?

Do we mop them up to try and take their limits?

Slaughter and responsibility to the enemy soldiers right because you know, for instance, we believe you shouldn't shoot down people surrendered, so we do recognize some level of responsibility, some burden ranemy lives.

That's complicated too in war.

Let's let's just finish here within a minute or two to see what happens.

This is a good decision point.

I'd love to just handed this to John and Paul, but i'll forge your head.

I guess I did a little bit there.

Hum well, I just I feel like I've involved myself and we are as the law and order now so and I'm tempted to just get more details.

But I'm wondering if I take more time, maybe things will happen too fast.

I could just put her under my protection.

Maybe I'll put her a protection, then ask from our details.

The marine turns to the crowd and shouts what you've assumed to be a translation of your decision.

They don't quiet down.

A cobblestone is thrown, Grant dodges.

Oh boy, the crowd says they want justice kept in.

Marie remarks, because someone has to say the obvious crosslink.

Grant looked for your orders.

Okay, so here's burden a command not on the battlefield, which of course the real captains and commanders had to deal with, and sergeants and the rest stand down.

Let the girl crowd out of the girl drive a the crowd.

With warning shots.

Okay, well, the situation is obviously deepening and thickening and getting more critical.

And I'm a cool guy.

I am.

We're gonna leave as a cliffhanger here, but maybe John and Paul's will tell us what was typically done, weren't the policies or what they do.

Does it feel a little different John having to actually make the decision as opposed to write all right.

So obviously canned Luke doesn't know that we already did this question.

Stupid King Lake.

So I think we're sort of done.

Anything else you want to add, John, or the last point on me before?

Who is Marie?

Right?

That's the other thing too.

Marie might be the greatest hero we could possibly imagine all these decades later that she'd been resistant in the Germans since nineteen forty or whatever.

Or she could be somebody else.

I don't know.

I don't know.

She seems legit.

Here, by the way, is a footnote for those who see the screen looks like a little book icon.

And again, you may just want to play the game, but if you're wondering what happens storically, if we were to mouse over, I can't on the video here, but in the game you might actually get We often quote John's book in the game, and you know, we thought we were taking pretty huge risk putting footnotes in the game, but turned out to be one of our most popular features.

People love the credibility right that.

Okay, this is not made up.

It's not some cool, fun neat situation.

It's a real one.

Real people had to confront this.

What will I do?

Who am I as a leader?

Right?

Let's see?

So let me cancel the video.

Did I did I clearing night and kill things?

I think I've survived?

Am I no longer sharing?

Yes?

Wow, okay, I got to keep a word.

I didn't actually crash something.

I know we still have a lot of questions.

I know we want to get to purchase Garden here soon, but I but before we do that.

I did have a couple of quick questions when you all were putting this game together.

Did you did you test it out with various age groups as you were working on it to kind of see and and also ultimately, what was your hope for players to learn from this experience from the game?

What do you hope they take away?

Well?

I answered that first briefly, I hope they take away something about themselves, our ambition is it's a leadership journey for you individually that you'll find out who you are.

And we did get feedback to people.

You know, it's fun thing to read a book or a movie and say, okay, well I would have done something differently.

But then when you're in situations like you're given and even the responsibility, suddenly maybe the historical character wasn't so stupid after all, and maybe now you see why they did that thing that themed at a distance so obviously wrong.

Right on my experience in reading history and then studying or studying something, is you hear some decision, you think, oh, how stupid you were to do that, commander, Obviously in hindsight you should have done that.

Then you go read the history from something like John you're like, oh, well there is that factor.

Oh and they didn't know about that factor and they were under pressure at that time.

Wow.

I don't know if I went on differently.

So the game, we hope is sort of I would say two things, teaching you something about yourself and then maybe connecting, like we talked about early in broadcasts, to real people, which to me is what history is a connection to real people in a way that gives you empathy, and I hope not just for the historical figures but for modern soldiers.

Right.

That's why the Vets who served helped us in the game, because they want people to understand what it means when we send people off to Iraq or Afghanistan, which may be the right decision, I'm not taking a position.

We are putting them in situations like you just saw, not just that they're obvious terrible ones of the battle, but very complicated ones that may affect the rest of their lives.

We were talking last night about the movie Warfare, which about marine fighting Fellujah in Iraq and done by real vets and very powerful.

At the end of that movie kind of pseudo documentary, the real Vets are there, and then their connections and the costs, their family and there's a guy in a wheelchair from the fight, right, and real costs, brutal costs, and so understanding what we're committing to when we make these kinds of decisions as well and connecting.

Now the first part of that question of different types of people and so forth, that's interesting.

So we hoped our goal and to answer your question one more way, was to reach a broader audience around historically careful games.

So the first person shooters are hugely popular, but obviously they have some issues on history connection.

We have the war games which are very sober and geek out on trying to get the history right, but attract a pretty niche audience.

We hope by this human connection, like a movie like Thaving and Private Ryan Our Band of Brothers does, we could connect people, we could attract or broader audience.

And what we've seen with the people applied to be playtesters, made about six hundred people apply, was very urging that only twenty percent were so of the hardcore war game history types that you might have thought would be the majority.

We had lots of people who are role players who might have been very interested in playing.

I like D and D by the way, playing fantasy role playing, but I thought what would it be like to be a commander in World War Two?

And are attracted to that.

So some of our most committed people have stayed on the team as volunteers are young people who had never played a war game, a historically sober and it's not a war game, right, This is not a war game.

It's a leadership role playing game.

But I'm just referencing that for the parts that are a little more hardcore, a little more tactical decision making.

They they had learning curves, right, A short story on that.

So there's a situation from Jones books.

Maybe you can tell me which battle is I'm playing.

It's in the forest.

They're going down the roads and you get a Sherman tank.

That's pretty cool.

You've been fighting with grunts, right, rather vulnerable targets.

Now you got a Sherman.

You set it down the road blown up by an event, which is German land mines.

And players were very angry at us for this.

They so that's completely unfair.

You know, I had no control.

I sound the road and they're just blown up, And they're right, it was completely unfair.

Guess what.

The Germans had no interest in making it fair.

On the other hand, it was kind of a teaching moment for us, right, that's all very nice, the real history, but the players haven't been trained for that.

A lot of games teaching.

Oh, well, the German the tank takes some damage and you know, you put it in the magic spot where it rebuilds itself.

Some of you may know Company of Heroes, which a great game has many very good qualities around these rounds, but some of the odd things like that.

So but what we realized was that was a teaching moment and what we need to do is search and have searching grants pop up.

See, yeah, that sucks because the empathy right connection we learned them from other game designers, right, you want to connect to what the players see only emotionally, and then they'll bond with your point.

And it does suck.

And you know that sucks, sir, And I guess you know these German bastards are just putting.

Of course they're going to be in minor roads.

I guess we're gonna have to avoid the roads are with our vehicles and tanks in future.

So you learn that.

And when we taught, players are actually kind of appreciative, like they felt they'd learned something about will Oh my god, I guess that's the way it did work, and they became physigating.

I remember one individual, Paul, who had no experience these kind of games, but by the end it was one of our best players and he was like, oh, no, I'm not going down that road.

I know what you're planning, or oh, nice open field, good try game designers.

I'm sure you've got a German machine gun on the other side on that field of fire, and real commanders do that.

They read the terrain.

So we had a lot of people who were not tactical or war gaming people.

I will say, there's one more audience.

I want to close on it.

I think particularly, I hope interesting in this audience.

There's a group of what we would call story players.

They play things are called interactive fiction, which is a fancy industry term for choose your own adventure games.

There was a game that went on on the cover of Time called eighty Days about Jules Hearne's adventures millions of players.

There's a company Choice of Games that does these purely tax adventures.

Our lead writer has one out right now where you can run a Stuart Little Stewart tank and Operation Torch.

Alan you got you gotta pay me later for the plug called Let's see Well, I don't.

I don't want to get the name wrong, but if you have a choice of games, you'll see it.

Alan Geese as a writer for it, and Well Armored Recon I think that's it.

World War two anyway, These players are not tactical players.

They don't really want to run around little hex maps and do weird tactical things like x comm ce something we'd like to serve them.

And we get Steam reviews, which I will say are very positive in the technical sense, eighty one percent positive, and they say, we get reviews like I love the situations, like you all just saw it.

I'm really interested in what you're you know, teaching me or I'm experiencing.

But I'm not a big tactical player.

So we've been paying attention to that that maybe there's a part what we know there's a percentage of players, probably twenty three center of our audience who really don't want to do the tactical fighting stuff, the very gamy stuff.

They want to do the situations, and so we are going to be a this is actually reveal for your audience.

We have been talking about since except last night and now publicly.

We have planned to do what we'll call story packs, which would be like you just saw, there's no training involved to just do what you saw play there, right, you just have to make some decisions and see the outcomes.

But they're historically based.

Were plan for release story packs that will be a set of things like that we've had suggestions.

I hope the audience here will make suggestions about complicated and interesting situations, aren't maybe real big tactical battles, but engaging.

For instance, we think one that will be coming.

Here's a spoiler Pegasus Bridge.

British paratroopers taking a bridge at D Day.

It's not a big tactical fight.

It's over pretty quickly.

There's sort of one German squad at the bridge.

But there are a lot of interesting a decision we made at that moment as the paratroopers, and a lot of interesting decisions the civilian context leading up to it, or civilians have to decide how much they'll risk their family with the Gestapo to help this invasion with the French resistance, like and who do they trust in the village?

Who is this French resistance person approaching them for help that may help the British paratroopers.

Are they really who they say they are?

Right?

I mean, my god, dangerous gray areas.

And if you're a wonderful person, well maybe you get to see your husband or your wife or your children marched off by the Gestapo as was done.

So my point is we will be leasing for that audience, a different kind of audience.

We hope something that they can engage in without having to play a tactical game.

To close on that, one of our vets made a suggestion of a very unusual John I think I haven't said this to you.

Interests you example of a burden of command situation.

He suggested the Baton Death March, which is a terrible march after the fall in the Philippines of Garrigador, where the Japanese, not having sympathy for surrendering people, marks them brutally with high percentage of people dying on the road.

Now, that is actually a leadership situation, or must have been, right, I mean, how are you keeping morale together?

Those of you who've seen Bridge over the River Kwai as a flavor of that, that is a burden of command situation.

But it's not combat.

But my god, those are decisions.

And a vet suggested that interested in it, right, So maybe we'll just see some things like that, or things in the spirit of Bridge of the Require or are dealing with, you know, the Great Escape, which were historical situations, right, there are many interesting situations.

Masters of the Air covered what's it like to be captured in a German prison camp.

Let me put John on the hot seat for a moment and point out in your book you take on conventional wisdom and you take on even Hollywood by asserting that it was the seventh Regiment that was the first unit to arrive at book Disk Garden at the end of the war.

So enlighten our listeners on why they think, why what they think they know was probably wrong.

Oh it's not probably wrong.

It is wrong.

It's just like it's like if we were saying does gravity exist on this planet or not?

I mean, it really is that simple.

So what happened is what happened is this At the end of the war, there were two major objectives for the Allied armies that they were thinking of, you know, obviously Berlin, but also Hitler's home and complex and Burchess Garden, which certainly was powerfully symbolic.

You know, Hitler's home is where a lot of his ruminations and machinations took place and whatnot.

But beyond that, there was concern that some hardcore Nazis would hold out in the alpine terrain prevalent there.

And it's a prestige objective of course, so as things hashed out as part of seventh Army, there were three divisions that were within striking distance that could get to Burchas Garden first, the French Second Armored Division, the US hunter first Airborne Division, and the third Infantry Division, of which of course the cotton balers were apart.

So the orders were really for the French and the paratroopers really to take the lead.

But the way it actually turned out is that the third Infantry Division took the lead.

And the major reason this happened is because the division commander, General O'Daniel wanted his guys to get there first, and he makes this happen by the fact that the seventh Infictry Regiment and the lead for the third Division, captures Key Bridge as over what was called the Salac River, and then o'dano's orders were to them, no other unit gets through here until we are at Burchess Garden and we take everything.

And that is precisely what happened on the afternoon of May fourth, nineteen forty five.

The seventh in Dry Regiment gets to the town first.

Then these guys go up to Hitler's home, which is like kind of overlooking the town, and then what's called the Eagle's Nest, which is another area like a It was like a tea house built atop the tallest peak, and it's very hard to get up there.

You got to take a special elevator today, and you did back then.

Hitler only went up there a handful of times in his entire life.

So a lot of the famous pictures you see from Burtwick Gardner from the tea house, the home and the complex had been bombed by the RAF on April twenty fifth, so you know, several days before this, So all of this happened.

I mean, it's indisputable.

Because the interesting thing is that it's in the hundred first Airborne records that had happened this way.

And their commanding officer, Max Taylor, their commanding general, said the same thing in his memoir.

The Army's official historian, Charles McDonald said it this way.

So it's not just the seventh Infantry saying, oh, we did this.

So where did the mythology start?

Well, the course in Band of Brothers, because unfortunately doctor amber So of course, was a great influence on me, and I think he's done incredible things for the study of the history.

I made in a colleague of your father.

He just kind of took the one hundred first airborne veterans at their word because they believed they had been their first.

And you know how that goes.

Veteran sees what he sees and just knows what he knows, and in a unit a lot of times that you get this thing.

We were the first to do this.

We were the first to do that.

They believe it.

Of course, they're not lying, that's just what they believe.

So Antorian has to actually, oh, I don't know, corroborate to say, okay, well let's see if this is actually factual.

And unfortunately doctor Ambrose in that instance did not do this, and so then it ends up in his book, which ends up in his miniseries, which, of course I'm not saying those aren't worthy.

Those are amazing historical pieces, and I.

Look up to them.

But I think it's terribly unfortunate that this mythology was spread on this.

And the reason I say this is I knew so many seven Divifjury Regiment World War two veterans, including the company commander of the first unit to go in there, Sherman Pratt.

It was a good friend of.

Mine, and and you know, that was a big deal to them.

This was something they accomplished in World War Two that could live for the ages, and then to have someone come along decades later, and absolutely, I'm sorry per portrayed a falsehood.

They really were deeply upset about that, and I completely understand why.

So that's why it's something important to me to kind of set their record astray.

And I hope I wasn't being too flipping earlier and talking about gravity, but it's just it's it's it's an actual fact.

And the funny thing about it is it's not just the seventh Infantry and the third ID record to say, it's the hundred first record.

So yeah, so all doctor Ambrose had to do was actually look at the hundred first records.

So what happened then the seventh Infantry didn't stay there for very long, and so they moved on to Salzburg and the hundred first came in.

The French, by the way, we're not happy at this outcome either, and so there's a tension over that, and so they had a like a joint ceremony the next day with the French, and then the hundred first really took ownership of the area, and so you know, those guys certainly were there, but not first I found there was tension between the hundred first and the cotton bailers.

Uh the some one of the paratroopers shot a cotton bailer who then was wounded and had to be evacuated, and that was in the original records, so I'm sure, but I think probably alcohol was involved there.

But yeah, so anyway, obviously I wrote about that pretty extensively, and not just me, others have written to a guy did a whole book about Purchase Garden and talked about it, and when you go to Burchase Garden, you know they have the actual factual relating what happened, which is good.

So I just wish that that's That's one of the downsides, of course of popular films and mini series that you know, see someone see something on the on the screen, they think, oh, that's percent is actual and and it's a story.

And sometimes I have to be the buzzkill and say no, no, I'm sorry, that's that's just so two things.

I want to add there.

First, that does show the cower of some of the media, right that that becomes because you saw it happening in the show.

By the way, plug for John.

John did a wonderful only one point three million viewed videos, so a few people have seen it.

Assessment sometimes buzz going.

I think on saving Private Ryne you can find on YouTube.

So that's a fun one when he's in his uh, let's be accurate mode.

But also there are many things that are remarkably accurate.

And remember the beach scene was the first very accurate portrayals of what that experience was.

I want to say something on the game.

In Arctis Garden, we covered Partus Garden.

We cover that race a little bit, and you're kind of trying to make a decisions, so you make sure you are there first.

But then interesting game design problem.

So you get to a map.

We did a zoomed in map of Arctus Garden.

You get to be walking around the really clip you're pushing my luck, you know, I'm going to script man really captured it.

Well, it's three minutes.

We get to the phone, just do a shorter okay, and the terrain that picture they're really dead on, right, So there's for those who can see it, we're seeing a postcard, actually German postcards, so I can't translate it very well.

Of the eagles nests, et cetera.

Seen from a distance.

We immediately put you into context.

You essentially get a briefing along line sean, just describe and what your responsibilities.

You better get there first, and then you make various choices and I'll just zoom ahead and there's I'm gonna but your name pink kiss again.

Give me your orders right, and you better get them done.

Here's a perfect example.

Actually, here's a digitization of an after action report, the logs or the logs at the time of what you know is happening, so you can connect to that real history, some contextual maps, etcetera.

But let's close.

Oh, this is a wonderful picture.

So here they're showing actually I think it is three idea this photo.

If you look at the yeah it is they're on a Sherman probably and I'm not sure that is a Sherman.

No, that's the tank destroyer.

Yeah, And they're going by a very emotionally charged German farmhouse or something or.

In.

But on the side it shows a very very interesting iconography.

There's Jesus on the cross and on one side it says nineteen fourteen.

On our side it says nineteen eighteen, and yet it's Jesus.

So there's some Obviously John can probably drain app but that was probably a very emotional story world War One for the Germans or whatever that's going to say to them.

So you're driving by that in the way to the nest and there's a picture of Storco, picture of Guren and Hitler, you know, when everything was going their way, where they're browbeating the people before the war started.

And then you get in there and here's the last thing I want to say in this one.

So this is a map of Arctis Garden.

You wander around as when we first designed it.

You can see things like the battered shell a because the bombing.

John talked about a glass structor a ruined house, some barracks.

First, as aness, you know, we're biased towards it's going to be some tactical situation.

So we're trying to think, well, the problem is there really weren't many German troops, if any, around there to fight.

How can we deal with that?

So maybe we'll have You think you're hearing false reports, you know, rumors that they're German squads around, so then the player's treating is tactical.

Honestly, we did tons of feedback to produce make the game work right.

Many iterations we got feedback, you know, it just wasn't working.

They weren't taking very seriously.

It seemed very odd.

So and we would meet weekly with playtesters and get their feedback and have discussions, and I think they helped us get to the right way to understand this landscape, which I would say to be a positive and band of brothers that conveys it to Really what this landscape is is it's a landscape of reflection.

So when you want around here, it's not a fighting situation.

So we got rid of that and you're under no combat stress.

You're wandering around, But what you're thinking about is, you know the magnitude, like John alluded to for the convect, My god, you are connecting with history as a twenty two year old or whatever.

You're walking around Hitler's.

It's all of his sacred ground, right, you're finding his on the fasive side like Manner Brothers get across.

You know, his his wine cellar, et cetera.

But you're also thinking, and we do that in the game, you're thinking about who you've lost.

The war is over, you're thinking about who died.

We tried to carry that.

We know the game knows who you've lost, and we remind you that maybe you lost.

Youar born in Morocco and too bad he's not here to share this, but he paid in blood so you could be here.

And of course, like they get across in Banded Brothers, you're also thinking, oh my god, I I survived the war.

What am I doing next?

Do I in fact want to be who I thought I wanted to be before this war started.

Maybe I want to stay in the army.

Maybe I never want to touch the army again.

I want to take care of a farm like Winners wanted to do, but someone to stay in.

Or maybe I'm going to the Pacific, et cetera.

Yeah, and along those lines.

Sherman Pratt, whom I mentioned a moment ago, who was the company commander the first unit into the Burgess Garden at Hitler's home and whatnot.

He had started the war in North Africa as a sergeant, and he got in the battlefield commission and he become a company commander by the end of the war, and so to Luke's point, just think about how many friends, yeah, Sheran would have maybe thought about that day, who he left behind in North Africa and Sicily, Italy, Anzio, so South France, the Bouge which is in eastern France, the Alcess Colmar Pocket, so many places.

Nurembered just a couple of weeks before, which is one of the biggest urban fights of the war and is kind of overlooking.

The Seventh was a big part of that.

The Siegfried Line, the Rhine land on and on it goes.

And so if you've read the you know, the end of the Rainbow in Wizard of Oz terms in a way, you know it's it's you are such a fugitive from the law of averages and you've had this capstone moment in World War two that the combat and war rarely offer you.

Uh to go and capture closure, this closure, to capture the home of this beast in a way as you would have thought of it.

He had alf Hitler, who is it was plunged the world into this terrible conflict, and then they kind of have that taken away from you.

In posterity, I think would have been very difficult.

But at the moment, it would have been a little bit of a vindication on some level.

Closure things very interesting, right.

So there's an interesting book out there called The Connected, Connected Soldier.

It's about the modern by modern cotton villages too, but it's by colonel who's who served in Iraq, and I think the first in the second if I got it right, find book.

Anyway, some of the vets may resonate if they're listening to this topic.

So one thing that's changed technologically is now modern soldiers are connected to the home front directly, right.

They could come from a brutal situation with an eye you know, bloat, a device and brutal death like it was shown in a Pallujiah moving right, and suddenly they're back in barracks and they could go talk to their wife or their husband.

Right.

That's very charged.

That's obviously in many ways, and I'm not making my claims.

I'm really in what the book says.

There are many good things.

Obviously.

On the other hand, maybe you're sitting there and maybe I want to protect my wife or my husband at home from this.

Maybe or I just can't talk because they wouldn't understand classic, right, But what's strange is you've been drawn into conversation with your family, tricky, awkward that may distance you from your family in some ways.

But maybe he made this argument, it would have been better if you hadn't had that opportunity at that moment in time, and instead you'd had to sit there with the people who shared that terrible event and tried to figure out together you reach your closure as a team about what that meant.

And so his take on this was, you know, you have to be careful.

Maybe it's controlled when you have fact this.

Maybe the culture of the army around this technology says, well, no, not right now.

First you're going to spend the rest of the day with your men or your peer soldiers, so you can figure out your position.

Then of course you can go talk to your family.

So they've been figuring out things.

But other examples and when these soldiers went home, they went home on ships, and these might it might take you know, days, five days to get home on ship.

That's a lot of time to process and to talk to others going through a very concrete journey back to a domestic context.

There's I can't remember the name of the movie.

There's a movie came out in America a few years after the war about all the bets trying to adjust.

But you had a journey years of our lives.

Thank you, best yours of our lives.

You had a journey.

But now you might be back, you know, in seven hours or you know.

The people do drones or not run you know, remote vehicle, remote aircraft and have to kill people and they go home that night to the family, and that's not much time to adjust.

So we have very complicated situations in modern warfare around closure.

One thing these soldiers have.

They didn't have connection to their family directly is easily, but they had sometimes things like this that gave them clear closure.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely a great point.

And so we've we've sort of reached the end of our rainbow here in terms of terms of time.

So with a very very quick concluding question, Luke, working folks get the game.

Well, first, I think we should be sure everybody knows where they can get the buck.

See, I've got to say it, look exactly on Amazon and Barnes and Noble are other many fine places I will not mention because that would be self promoting that on the back.

No, No, I'm promoting me here John on the back of the book.

I won't mention see.

Oh, I'm sorry, I got it wrong, John, Oh, let me turn the book around.

I shouldn't read the part that says the book that inspired the immersive Burden of Command video game.

I would never want to self promote like that.

My wife thinks I might have a career as a very bad used car salesman.

Okay, but not very long career.

American Courage, American Carnage, seventh Infantry.

Here it is, go get it now.

It's your cheat sheet if you play Burden, which you can get on Steam twenty five hours or nineteen nineteen ninety nine.

If you act soon under the next discount, we're going to go off just you and just you if you act now.

This is a cheat sheet where we hope will happen as you play the game, and maybe you'll go read right afterwards, but the real commanders did and connect more, and maybe you'll be corrupted have and find that you're reading many history books for fun.

A lot of concept time.

You can't have that very terrible, dangerous.

Corrupting me on.

I will say, by the way, all age groups, we have many people who are playing a game not just for everybody like history.

All right, that's the beauty of it.

That's absolutely so Luke u'es.

It's been amazing having you today.

Thank you so much.

Question thank you all, thank you?

Luke.

Wait wait wait, come on, use car salesman.

I hope everybody has gone or is going soon to the D Day Memorial.

I hope I will get a cut.

I go there.

If it's not free, is it free or not?

What's the story?

Well, it's a very nominal fee to come, and so we're not we're not betterly funded or state funded.

So it's nice to have a little bit of funding.

But but yeah, come on and see it.

It's a wonderful, wonderful Yeah.

Absolutely, you can drive on down.

You you can bring your book and have your esteem, get on there and download the game and then visit the memorial, all three at time.

You can do it.

That's right.

That's the perfect day, isn't it?

For some of us?

For all of us, all millions of us.

Well, it's been amazing.

Thanks so much.

Questions you can email our team at podcasts at dday dot org.

Again, that's podcast at dday dot org.

If you're enjoying our discussions on World War Two and it's lasting impact.

Please subscribe to this podcast, share it with your friends, rate it, leave us a review, help us share the lessons and legacies of D Day and World War Two.

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Everybody take care of you.

Someone Talked is a production of the National D Day Memorial Foundation, recorded at Media Squatch in Bedford, Virginia.

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