Joseph Dean Reilly was born in May 1921 in Janesville, Wisconsin. He was the oldest child. He had a younger brother. His father was a farmer. His parents were married on 7 January 1914. His father was born just north of Dublin [Annotator's Note: Dublin, Ireland] in 1880. His father's family migrated to America in 1886. His grandfather's brother fought for the Yankees [Annotator's Note: nickname for the United States Army soldiers] in the American Civil War [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861 to 1865] and lost his leg. One of Reilly's favorite movies is "Blazing Saddles" [Annotator's Note: an American film from 1974]. Reilly grew up in Wisconsin. Back in the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], things were tough, but he lived on a farm. They were not suffering like the people in the city because they had plenty to eat. He went to a one-room country school from first to eighth grade. Reilly's mother was a schoolteacher. She had to quit because she got married. When World War 2 started, they needed the schoolteachers to go back to teach, but his mother did not. Franklin Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] became president and started programs to help people get on their feet. Roosevelt was the first president Reilly had ever seen. While he was at Camp Robinson [Annotator's Note: in North Little Rock, Arkansas], President Roosevelt came to review the troops in April 1943. Reilly was impressed with him. The economy was starting to recover when the United States started to get involved with the war. Roosevelt started to have ties with Winston Churchill [Annotator's Note: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill; Prime Minister, United Kingdom, 1940 to 1945]. The United States started to build armaments for Britain. The war started in September 1939 for Great Britain when Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] invaded Poland.

Joseph Dean Reilly had a deferment [Annotator's Note: postponement of military service] because he was working for a factory that was making parts for the Norden bombsight [Annotator's Note: Norden Mk. XV tachometric bombsight]. They also made fuses for the shells. Reilly graduated high school in 1939. All his classmates joined the National Guard, and they were immediately sent to the Pacific Theater. Most of them died in the Bataan Death March [Annotator's Note: Bataan Death March, the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war, 9 April 1942]. Reilly volunteered for the draft. He went to Milwaukee [Annotator's Note: Milwaukee, Wisconsin] to get inducted into the Army. Then he was sent to Fort Sheridan [Annotator's Note: in Lake Forest, Illinois]. At the time Clark Gable [Annotator's Note: William Clark Gable, American film actor] was there going through gunnery school. Gable was over 40 years old when he joined the service. Reilly was sent to Camp Robinson, Arkansas [Annotator's Note: in North Little Rock, Arkansas] for basic training. He went to paratrooper training at Fort Benning, Georgia. The first five times he jumped he had to pack his own parachute. After the fifth jump, he got his parachute wings and then they would get their trousers that showed off their jump boots. He got 50 dollars a month as a private and then 50 more dollars to jump. Reilly was 21 years old. After jump school, they were put into the 541st [Annotator's Note: 541st Parachute Infantry Regiment (Separate)], then they went to jump school at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They were going into maneuvers to have on-the-field experience. Then they were allowed to have furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. Reilly went home to Wisconsin. He got to see his girlfriend who lived in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. Then he went back to the camp and started advanced training. His regiment was disbanded, and they were transferred into different divisions. He went to Maryland and then sent to Virginia to ship out for the European Theater of operations. He spent 13 days on a British ship. They landed at Belfast, Northern Ireland. The commander of the troops had seen combat in North Africa. Then they boarded a train and went on a ferry to Glasgow, Scotland. Half the men went with the 82nd Airborne [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] and the other half went with the 101st Airborne Division. Then they boarded a train and went to southern England. Reilly saw men with the "screaming eagle" on their uniform and knew he was a part of the 101st Airborne Division. He was assigned to the headquarters 3rd Battalion 501 Regiment [Annotator's Note: Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division].

Joseph Dean Reilly was part of the first replacements to join the 501st [Annotator's Note: Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division]. The 501st got to Europe in December 1942. Reilly got there in late February of 1943. They trained and they did maneuvers at night and in the daytime. They did practice jumps. In April [Annotator's Note: April 1944], there was a combat mission called Slapton Sands [Annotator's Note: More than 1,200 Allied soldiers were killed over two days off Slapton Sands in Devon [Annotator's Note: Exercise Tiger, or Operation Tiger, rehearsal for invasion of Normandy in Slapton Sands, Devon, England, April 1944], where they took artillery, tanks, and airborne to southern England. The Germans heard about it and brought in their submarines and Navy. The 501st lost about 200 men during that mission. It was a disaster. The authorities learned they needed to be more secretive with the security. This was helpful with the real thing in June for D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] had to make a hard decision because of the weather. The weather had turned bad two days before, but then the storm lifted. Eisenhower got his men together and said the mission was a go for 6 June 1944. Reilly was sent to an airport. He had to learn the terrain where he would jump by studying sand tables. He had to memorize the landscape. They were used to eating K-rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals], but when they got to the airbase, they were fed steaks and other good food. They did not have to do KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police]. They watched as three white stripes were painted on the tails of the planes. They loaded into the planes late in the evening. He jumped with his own weapon, ammo, and equipment. The noise was very loud up because of the number of planes in the air. They circled around the English Channel for a few hours before heading to Normandy. As they approached Normandy some of the pilots panicked and took the troops back to England. There was a court-martial waiting for the pilots that returned because they did not take the troops where they were supposed to go. When the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] started over the English Channel some pilots hit the green button and the troops ended up in the channel. After that, the men had bad feelings toward the troop transports.

After Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], Joseph Dean Reilly and the others [Annotator's Note: Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] were offered a seven-day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. Troop transport offered to give them a ride to Scotland. The troop transport was trying to make up for what happened in Normandy [Annotator's Note: Reilly describes this in Segment 03 – D-Day Disaster of this interview series]. Some of the men took the offer, but Reilly did not. Reilly decided he was going to go to Manchester [Annotator's Note: Manchester, England]. The truck he was riding in had a trailer full of carbines [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. They were driving fast and when they went around a curve the trailer flipped over and the carbines all fell out in front of a pub. The men got out and picked up all the carbines and then went into the pub for a drink. When they got to Manchester there was an amusement park near the base. Reilly met a girl there and she wrote him every day. In August [Annotator's Note: August 1944], she came to visit him at his camp. After this, he jumped in Holland [Annotator's Note: Operation Market Garden, Netherlands, 17 to 25 September 1944]. When he was on the plane some of the troopers were shooting themselves in the foot so they would not have to jump. They did not want to experience what they had in Normandy. Two guys in Reilly's platoon did this. He was later a guard during their court-martials. They got six months [Annotator's Note: in jail] and two-thirds of their pay [Annotator's Note: as a fine]. They were fighting under the British in Holland. The British did not trust the Dutch underground [Annotator's Note: Dutch resistance fighters]. The Americans did trust them because they always knew where the Germans were. Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] had to keep the peace between Montgomery [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery] and Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.]. The 82nd Airborne [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] and the 101st Airborne Division were put into combat positions in Holland. They took the bridge at Arnhem [Annotator's Note: Arnhem, Netherlands]. Reilly was now a radio operator. He had the heaviest equipment. His job was to get to the observation points and call back for fire support. They jumped on 17 September 1944. When they landed, they were approached by a Catholic priest who had 30 or 40 inmates of an insane asylum that needed to be removed if the Germans were coming in. They helped him move the people to a safer area. Then the Germans came and opened up fire. The men were put into a defensive position.

Joseph Dean Reilly and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] met up with the British land forces in Holland. The Germans had blown the docks and flooded the country. They did the best they could, but Market Garden [Annotator's Note: Operation Market Garden, Netherlands, 17 to 25 September 1944] was a terrible disaster. There were two troopers that blew up a Dutch man's safe. They took all the money. They did not want to give the money back and ended up getting a dishonorable discharge and six years of hard labor. Reilly spent 73 days in Holland. After that, they went to Reims, France. A lot of the guys got furloughs [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to go to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. On 16 December [Annotator's Note: 16 December 1944], they got the call to go to the front. They were going to Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium for the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They had to load up on trucks at two in the morning. They put straw in the back of the trucks. The men were going to have to stand because there was no room to sit. At this time in Europe, they were supposed to drive with blackout lights, but these trucks had full lights on. They were on the trucks for 13 hours. A colonel went to Bastogne after Holland and made a map of all the roads. Then when they got the call, the colonel was told they were going in first because he had a map of the area. As they reached Bastogne, a large crowd of people was coming their way, retreating. The men set up their defenses. Their colonel told them to go out and find the enemy. It snowed and then the krauts [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Germans] started to come. They were outnumbered four to one, but they held their ground. There were over 200 men in the company, and they ended with less than 100. Reilly was a radio operator for the 81-mortar platoon [Annotator's Note: M1 81mm mortar].

Joseph Dean Reilly [Annotator's Note: with Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] was in a foxhole and got a call to help G Company [Annotator's Note: Company G, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division], who was in a firefight. His friend was wounded in Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. After Bastogne, they were in the Hurtgen Forest [Annotator's Note: Battle of Hürtgen Forest, 19 September 1944 to 10 February 1945, Hürtgen (Hurtgen), Staatsforst (state forest), Germany]. General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] had brought his tanks through Bastogne. Reilly thought it was nice being with the tanks because it was warm with the engines in the snow. The bad part about the tanks was when they hit a mine [Annotator's Note: stationary explosive device triggered by physical contact] the fragments would fly everywhere. They rolled the tanks for a couple of days. The Germans had the Tiger Tanks [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI main battle tank; known as the Tiger] which were powerful. When they got to Bastogne, they were short of all supplies. When they were in the Hurtgen Forest, their commander was Maxwell Taylor [Annotator's Note: US Army General Maxwell Davenport Taylor, commander 101st Airborne Division]. Taylor was back in the States [Annotator's Note: United States] spending Christmas [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1944] with his family. The regiment did not know this. A German officer came with a white flag. He had a written note from the German military asking them to surrender. They wrote an answer and sent the German man back. When he returned to his unit, they unloaded their ammo on the Americans. General Maxwell Taylor returned after Bastogne. The men did not like General Taylor. General Taylor got a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is an award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy] after running from the Germans and getting shrapnel in his rear end. A lot of the officers were from West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy in West Point, New York].

Joseph Dean Reilly [Annotator's Note: with Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] heard about the massacre at Malmedy [Annotator's Note: Malmedy Massacre, German war crime against American prisoners of war, 17 December 1944 near Malmedy, Belgium] when he was in Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. After they heard about the massacre, they stopped taking prisoners and shot the Germans on the spot. Around the same time, there were some colored [Annotator's Note: an ethnic descriptor historically used for Black people in the United States] soldiers who got lost from their unit. They were staying in a house when the Germans took the area back over. When the Germans found them, they took the men out to a field. They made the men dig their own graves, cut their fingers off, and then shot them. There is a memorial set up where the massacre happened. The Greatest Generation [Annotator's Note: Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation, nonprofit, Non-Governmental Organization dedicated to veterans and their legacies] took him back to Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] because he was a paratrooper that jumped at Utah Beach [Annotator's Note: Utah Beach, Normandy, France]. He was one of the only paratroopers that landed where he was supposed to on D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. They took Pouppeville [Annotator's Note: Pouppeville, France] and Reilly saw a dead German soldier sitting in a cart. They lost seven paratroopers taking Pouppeville. They came across a medic working on a wounded soldier and a German sniper shot at him. The first lesson he got in combat was they would fire on the unarmed medic as fast as they would on him. Reilly got pneumonia [Annotator's Note: an infection of one or both lungs] during boot camp. He got sick with infectious hepatitis-B [Annotator's Note: inflammatory condition of the liver], yellow jaundice [Annotator's Note: condition caused by high level of bilirubin in the liver] after Bastogne. After he got out of the hospital he joined the unit in Linz, Austria. From Linz, they went to Berchtesgaden [Annotator's Note: Berchtesgaden, Germany]. The war ended on his 25th birthday in May 1945.

Joseph Dean Reilly [Annotator's Note: with Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] captured a lot of Nazi big wigs [Annotator's Note: slang for important people] at Berchtesgaden [Annotator's Note: Berchtesgaden, Germany]. While they were in Berchtesgaden, they had to contact all the people in the area to start a government. This area was very SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization; abbreviated SS] sympathetic. The people here were Hitler's [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] favorite. The hospitals there were beautiful there to help build the Aryan race [Annotator's Note: a term that denoted Indo-Iranian peoples in ancient times; Nazis used it to refer to describe a Germanic, pure, race of people]. The people were die-hard Nazis and hated the Americans. They were able to get the people to start a de facto government for the area. Then a few days later the war ended. General Maxwell Taylor [Annotator's Note: US Army General Maxwell Davenport Taylor, commander 101st Airborne Division] told them they were getting ready to go to Japan. The men booed him because they had enough of killing and wounded. The men had to have so many points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to get discharged. Some of the guys had been in the service for six or seven years and they were sent home immediately. Reilly did not have enough points. The 501st was broken up. All the men had to go into different units. Reilly was sent to the 327th Regiment [Annotator's Note: 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division]. Reilly got married on Easter Saturday, 31 March [Annotator's Note: 31 March 1945]. This was right before he went to Berchtesgaden 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. In October [Annotator's Note: October 1945], he got a seven-day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to visit his wife who was pregnant. In November [Annotator's Note: November 1945], he got another seven days to visit his wife. In December [Annotator's Note: December 1945] he was sent to Camp Lucky Strike in Le Havre, France. On the 13th of December [Annotator's Note: 13 December 1945], he boarded a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] in Le Havre. When he was in combat, he had picked up a German rifle. They told him he could have it shipped back to the States [Annotator's Note: United States]. He went through his company clerk and had it shipped to Wisconsin. The company clerk lived in Wisconsin as well. Turns out the guy had shipped all the rifles to himself. When Reilly boarded the Liberty ship in Le Havre the guys were dropping the weapons into the channel [Annotator's Note: English Channel]. He saluted the guy that gave him his discharge papers.

Joseph Dean Reilly went back to work when he returned home. He could use the GI Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] to become a journeyman. He worked for the Parker Company [Annotator's Note: Parker Pen Company]. They opened up a shop in England. They were a writing instrument company. They made pens. Reilly was sent to MIT [Annotator's Note: Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts] for conferences. The Greatest Generation [Annotator's Note: Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation, nonprofit, Non-Governmental Organization dedicated to veterans and their legacies] helped him go to New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] and talk about his D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] experiences at Normandy.

Joseph Dean Reilly went from England to Holland in an airplane [Annotator's Note: with Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division]. He saw the bombers above him and the fighters below him. Getting married in the military makes for a lot of paperwork. The priest in England wrote the priest in Wisconsin asking about Reilly's character. There were two guys who misrepresented what they did in Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Some veterans have to be double-checked on what combat situation they said they were in. Reilly got a deferment [Annotator's Note: postponement of military service] from the draft. He volunteered for the draft. After combat, he wanted to find a drink. Alcohol was available to them. The ones who went to Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] got addicted to narcotics. Some guys were addicted to alcohol after World War 2. Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] was the worst combat situation because they were surrounded by the krauts [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Germans]. They did not have much ammunition. They had to make sure they used it wisely. Reilly learned how short life is. He learned how serious a wound can be. He was lucky to make it through the war.

Joseph Dean Reilly thinks it is important to have the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. If they do not learn from history, they will repeat it. In 1943, Washington [Annotator's Note: term for politicians in Washington, D.C.] was not set on the Airborne. The Germans had good luck with their paratroopers, so they thought they would give them a try. After maneuvers in Tennessee [Annotator's Note: series of seven large scale training exercises in Middle Tennessee, 1942 to 1944], the men from Washington decided they could use the paratroopers. After the war, he went back to work, and they were making x-ray tables for the people who had been wounded in the war. He never wanted another thing to do with weapons after World War 2. He retired at 63 years old because of his wife's health. He worked the night shift so she would be sleeping when he was working. He liked his job. He went to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] for the first time the previous year. Some of the men did not know where they were. They spoke to school children. One of the men was there when Pearl Harbor was bombed [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. The man was saying he was in a foxhole for three days and they had to bring him food. Reilly does not know if his memory was bad or if he had Alzheimer's [Annotator's Note: Alzheimer's disease is a progressive disease that destroys memory and other important mental functions]. Over the last ten years [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview] people have started to realize what they [Annotator's Note: the World War 2 veterans] did for America. If they had lost, they would be speaking German or Japanese. If the children are taught about the past, they will have a brighter future. Reilly is proud to be a Catholic. He was born into his religion. When he joined the service and met the chaplain, he was proud to know him. Their whole unit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] respected him because he stayed behind with the wounded. He was captured in Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] with the wounded and got away. He was captured in Holland [Annotator's Note: Operation Market Garden, Netherlands, 17 to 25 September 1944] with the wounded and got away. At Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] he was captured and sent to a POW camp [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war camp]. They were going to put him with the officers, but he insisted he had to stay with the enlisted men. After that, the chaplain went to Iowa and established his own parish. The Bishop of Omaha wanted him to stay in the military. Father Sampson [Annotator's Note: Father (Major General) Francis Leon Sampson, Archdiocese for the Military Services,] went to Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] and Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. He became the head of all the chaplains in the military [Annotator's Note: Chief of Chaplains of the United States Army from 1967 to 1971].

Catholic nuns looked after the wounded in Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France], Holland, and Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. Joseph Dean Reilly [Annotator's Note: with Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] was in a foxhole in Bastogne on Christmas Eve in 1944 [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1944] when the Germans bombed a hospital and first aid station. There were a lot of wounded in Bastogne. There was a basement full of wounded. The women milked the cows and put the milk in bottles. The Germans would pee in the bottles of milk so the children could not have milk. Reilly's friend Art [Annotator's Note: no last name given] was a guard at the Nuremberg Trials [Annotator's Note: Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, military tribunals Nuremberg, Germany, 20 November 1945 to 1 October 1946]. The head of the German hierarchy was Hermann Goring [Annotator's Note: German Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Göring, or Goering, commanded the German Air Force and was second only to Adolf Hitler in the Nazi chain of command]. He was in cell number one. Goring would shake his head to the other men on trial to let them know if they were supposed to answer the questions or not. Many of the Nazis committed suicide after they were captured. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] committed suicide with his wife in a bunker [Annotator's Note: 30 April 1945 in Führerbunker in Berlin, Germany]. The trials went on for a long time. In Lima, Peru people can get a copy of Mein Kampf [Annotator's Note: or "My Struggle", 1925 autobiographical manifesto by German dictator Adolf Hitler]. The people in South America did not have an aversion to the Nazis because they sent them a lot of money. Some of the Nazis escaped to South America.

Joseph Dean Reilly was a Private First Class [Annotator's Note: PFC, with Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division]. The Greatest Generation [Annotator's Note: Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation, nonprofit, Non-Governmental Organization dedicated to veterans and their legacies] asked him to go to California with six other veterans. They were going to have an interview with Larry King [Annotator's Note: an American television and radio host]. One of the veterans was a woman. She would fly the planes from the factory to the military base. Larry King wanted 125,000 dollars to interview six World War 2 veterans. They did not pay him that. Reilly saw a lot of combat. King brought this up. Reilly told him he was making the same amount of money as a Staff Sergeant. Reilly met Tom Brokaw [Annotator's Note: Thomas John Brokaw, American television journalist and author] in Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] in December 2014. Brokaw charged to hear the veteran's stories as well. Reilly participated in a reenactment event. The Greatest Generation has grown into a big organization. Reilly has gone back to Europe several times.