Richard O'Hara was born in Chicago, Illinois in July 1925 and lived there until he was about 15. He considers Watervliet, Michigan his hometown. His father bought a creamery there and they moved. He met his wife there. He graduated in June 1943 and became 18 in July [Annotator's Note: July 1943]. He had to register for the draft. He spent a semester in college and came home in December [Annotator's Note: December 1943]. His brother was injured at Tarawa [Annotator's Note: Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands] and that upset O'Hara. He decided to join the Marines. He was 18. In those days, you could only enlist if you were 17. He went to Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan] and took all the tests and passed. When he was set to take the oath, a sergeant called him over. O'Hara had changed his birth certificate to make himself 17 but he got caught. Once registered for the draft he could not be taken. O'Hara was devastated and cried all the way home. His father asked what was wrong and then said he could fix it. His father was a good friend of Herman Bunsen [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] who issued birth certificates. His father got a new birth certificate that showed O'Hara was born in 1926. His father took O'Hara and the new certificate to the sergeant. They told him to go home for Christmas [Annotator's Note: December 1943] and then report for boot camp in January [Annotator's Note: January 1944]. Before he left to catch a train, his mother gave him a silver dollar and told him she wanted it back with him. O'Hara went to Detroit. He only weighed 148 pounds and you had to be 150. A sergeant met him and gave him six bananas to eat, told him to drink all the water he could and not to pee. He made it at 150 right on the button.

Richard O'Hara took a train with eight others to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. They did not know what to expect. They got into boot camp and the training was excellent. They were on the parade field stacking M1s [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. The guy behind him put his stack close to O'Hara. When O'Hara stepped back, he knocked over the stack. The D.I. [Annotator's Note: Drill Instructor] told O'Hara to report to him in his barracks. The D.I. laid down on the sack [Annotator's Note: slang for cot or bed] and had O'Hara hold an M1 straight over his body, telling him not to drop it. O'Hara was almost down on his knees when he told him to rest. He got 30 seconds rest and then held the rifle for nearly 15 minutes. The Marines are tough. They exercised in the sand near an airport where B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] were being built. The sand was ankle-deep, and they had to carry a body 50 yards on their soldier across it. After boot camp, he went to Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] which was the Santa Margarita Ranch [Annotator's Note: Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores, San Diego County, California]. They killed dozens of rattlesnakes. They were there about three months. A ship has a fantail [Annotator's Note: overhang of the deck extending aft of the sternpost of a ship] and a tower they had to jump off into the water. They were told to pack their gear one rainy morning. They loaded aboard a ship. There were 16, including O'Hara, who were put in the hospital area to sleep. It was beautiful. One day someone stole his sights [Annotator's Note: off his rifle]. O'Hara stole some himself. They sailed into Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. There was an aircraft carrier docked and the sailors were saluting them as they came in. They got supplies overnight and went to Eniwetok [Annotator's Note: Enewetok Atoll, Marshall Islands] to wait for the 5th Fleet. They were there for three weeks and ran out of food. Two destroyers showed up and escorted them to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands]. One morning, it looked like a P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] was strafing. They were the third replacement draft and not an outfit yet. The ship docked outside the area, and they went over the side in nets. Guys get hurt doing that. About 20 of them were put off to the side and put into the 18th Artillery Battalion [Annotator's Note: 18th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion], which was on Saipan with the 16th [Annotator's Note: 16th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion]. On 24 July [Annotator's Note: 24 July 1944], they went into Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands] in the fifth wave [Annotator's Note: of the Battle of Tinian, 24 July to 1 August 1944, Tinian, Mariana Islands]. The enemy thought they were invading in Tinian Town [Annotator's Note: on the southwest coast] where there was a beach and had it covered well. They had no resistance for about four days. The Japanese Army was on Mount Suribachi [Annotator's Note: on Iwo Jima, Japan] where the water was. The 8th Marines went up into there. It was only a four- or five-day battle.

Richard O'Hara and his outfit [Annotator's Note: 18th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion] saw very little action. When they invaded an island, there were a lot of enemies in the fields. Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands] was being set up like Manhattan [Annotator's Note: Manhattan is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York] with streets and roads. The Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] were wonderful. O'Hara's group was above West Field [Annotator's Note: now Tinian International Airport] on Gurguan Point. There was an island across from them called Aguigan [Annotator's Note: also called Aguigan, Aguihan, and Aguijan, Northern Mariana Islands]. The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] were still on Pagan [Annotator's Note: Pagan, Northern Mariana Islands] and that is where the air raids came in from. When the B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] or B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] came in, they would load bombs to drop on Pagan and it was pretty well annihilated. O'Hara was a fire team leader for patrols. He was in the rear. One of his best friends was a BAR [Annotator's Note: M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle] man. The gun hung on a branch and flipped a hornet's nest onto O'Hara's face. He was stung everywhere. He was taken to a field hospital close to death. They would get to cane fields and take the expeditionary cans [Annotator's Note: gasoline cans] off and burn the fields. One Marine named Madden [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] went out with a lighter and it blew up. He was burning and O'Hara dragged him out. He was burned badly. O'Hara was burned too and returned to the hospital. One night they had a movie. They were with the 268 radar [Annotator's Note: SCR-268, Signal Corps Radio, or Set, Complete, Radio 268 radar system] and with Charlie Battery [Annotator's Note: Battery C, 18th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion] who had 40mm guns [Annotator's Note: Bofors 40mm antiaircraft automatic cannon] and 75s [Annotator's Note: M1 75mm Pack Howitzer]. Every night they would get together and get everything working. O'Hara was on the .50 caliber machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] on watch. The movie was "Bomber's Moon" [Annotator's Note: 1943 American wartime propaganda film]. O'Hara saw a pair of hands come up on the bag in front of him. He yelled and got back into the zig-zag area [Annotator's Note: zig-zag pattern of trenches with sandbags around the gun emplacements]. O'Hara now only had his .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and he shot at the hands. When he shot, all of the other men ran there. The guy started to run, and O'Hara emptied his .45 into him. That scared the daylights out of him. After the island was secured, it got boring. The war ended when they were loading ship to go to the Philippines to prepare to invade Japan. They all thought they were going home. O'Hara had 38 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] and you needed 35 to go home. He got called to Headquarters and told to report the next afternoon with his gear. There were three of them who were going to be sent to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] to join the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade [Annotator's Note: 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, III Amphibious Corps].

Richard O'Hara and his outfit [Annotator's Note: 18th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion] saw very little action. When they invaded an island, there were a lot of enemies in the fields. Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands] was being set up like Manhattan Richard O'Hara got called to Headquarters and told to report the next afternoon with his gear. There were three of them [Annotator's Note: from the 18th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion] who were sent to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] to join the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade [Annotator's Note: 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, III Amphibious Corps]. They were loaded onto a British aircraft carrier to go to Guam overnight. There was no training. After three or four weeks, an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] came, and they boarded it. Their mission was to disarm the Japanese islands that were not overtaken but were cut off from supplies. They did that on Wake [Annotator's Note: Wake Island, United States possession] Marcus [Annotator's Note: Marcus Island, Japan; or Minami-Tori-shima, Japan], and Truk [Annotator's Note: Truk Atoll; now Chuuk Lagoon, Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia] and Japtan [Annotator's Note: Japtan, Marshall Islands]. They ended up in Eniwetok [Annotator's Note: Enewetok Atoll, Marshall Islands]. There were about seven or eight, radio-controlled B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber drones] there they had to guard. Once O'Hara was behind a jeep with a radio of some sort with people pushing buttons on it. A B-17 would take off with a crew aboard and they did this day after day. They found out there was going to be an a-bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon] dropped in Bikini in the Marshalls [Annotator's Note: Operation Crossroads, two nuclear tests, Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, 1 July and 25 July 1946]. That was about 75 miles away from them. He later found out they loaded the B-17s with monkeys, fruit, and other things and flew them through the mushroom cloud. Before the test happened, O'Hara and the others were replaced by brand new Marines. They were then taken to Kwajalein [Annotator's Note: Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands] where they boarded the SS Starlight [Annotator's Note: USS Starlight (AP-175)] and went to Oakland [Annotator's Note: Oakland, California]. They got new uniforms and gear then. They each went to different places and O'Hara was discharged at Great Lakes [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks O'Hara if he knows of a Marine named Jimmy Dyer who was with the 15 Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division.] O'Hara was attached to the 5th Marine Division during the war. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer tells O'Hara that Dyer had also been in the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade.] There have been something like 12 1st Provisional Marine Brigades going back to 1776. O'Hara has looked it up, but there is nothing about their work with the B-17s. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer tells O'Hara of another Marine who was part of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade.] There was only 100 people when O'Hara was part of it, with about 14 officers. It was a funny outfit. One night he was on guard duty as Shore Patrol [Annotator's Note: military members who provided security for the Navy, Coast Guard, and Marines]. One guy who O'Hara knew quite well, had too much to drink and was on a recon when it rolled over and killed him. A lot of stuff like that happened after the war. It was so stupid.

Richard O'Hara had one brother three and a half years older than him who went in the Marines earlier than O'Hara. He grew up in Watervliet, Michigan, about 80 miles from Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. They had nothing to do in town, so he and his brother would go to Chicago. His father owned a creamery that made cottage cheese and butter. They sold it in 1955 for a half a million dollars. They used it to build houses. They heard there was a dairy for sale in Elkhart, Indiana and bought it. O'Hara ran it. It was known as O'Hara and Sons. His father had retired. They ran it for 21 years and sold it in 1968. O'Hara then went into the mobile home business and he and his partner in Parkwood Homes became the fourth largest in the United States. They had a Learjet [Annotator's Note: name used for any aircraft built by Learjet, now Bombardier Learjet of Bombardier Aviation in Wichita, Kansas]. O'Hara was in Moultrie, Georgia and the head of sales wanted to leave. O'Hara took him to the airport and as the man was boarding the jet, he grabbed O'Hara into the jet with him and said they were going to the Bahamas [Annotator's Note: Bahama Islands]. They landed in Fort Lauderdale [Annotator's Note: Fort Lauderdale, Florida] and stayed in a hotel where the Yankees [Annotator's Note: New York Yankees, American professional baseball team] used to stay. O'Hara did not have any clothes with him. They brought him some. The pilot said he was taking the man to the Bahamas. O'Hara did not want to go and wanted to stay and work. O'Hara went to the airport to await their return from the Bahamas on their Learjet, Triple-Tango Fox, which was very well known. When O'Hara got on the airplane, the boss man had a girlfriend with him. They took off and O'Hara heard the girl hit the boss on the jaw four or five times after she threw food at O'Hara. The boss said to turn the plane around and take her back. The copilot had the maps out to figure out where to land. When asked if they had a mayday, they said they had a sick passenger. The pilot and copilot were not looking out of the plane, but O'Hara was and saw a TWA [Annotator's Note: Trans World Airlines, Incorporated], four-engine plane jet coming just off their port side. He yelled and the pilot dove. O'Hara thought the tail would come as they went under the wing. The TWA pilot had not seen them. They landed and the pilot thanked O'Hara. He had not been afraid then, but today it bothers him. They ended up taking the girl back on the airplane and returned home. Three days after that, he left Parkwood Homes. [Annotator's Note: O'Hara tells the interviewer he has a binder of stories of his past and that he has done interesting things.] O'Hara was a volunteer fireman for nine years. He has done a lot. He owned a record company and recorded Jan and Dean [Annotator's Note: William Jan Berry and Dean Ormsby Torrence, American musicians].

Richard O'Hara and his father were in the kitchen and heard the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] on the radio. That scared his mother. The son of a current neighbor of his is in the Marines and his mother is so worried about him. O'Hara never thought of his own mother who had two stars in the window [Annotator's Note: Service flag, or Blue Star Flag, official banners displayed by families who have members in the Armed Forces during any period of war or hostilities] and what she was going through with two sons in the Marines. Today he understands it. O'Hara did not think the Japanese attack would have much to with him as he was still in high school. His brother wanted to go in right away. Most people wanted to enlist. There were lines at the recruiting areas. His brother went in in the Spring of 1942 and was injured on Tarawa [Annotator's Note: Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands]. O'Hara thought he would then go in and get those Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese]. He did not know much about the Marines. On Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands], his friend Gordon Walker [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] was there too, but O'Hara never knew it. O'Hara was assigned to the 18th AAA Battalion [Annotator's Note: 18th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion]. They had 175s [Annotator's Note: unable to verify platform] and 268 radar [Annotator's Note: SCR-268, Signal Corps Radio, or Set, Complete, Radio 268 radar system]. He started out operating the searchlight and then moved to the machine gun. The 270 radars [Annotator's Note: SCR-270, Signal Corps Radio, or Set, Complete, Radio 270 radar system] would pick up the planes out in the distance, and 268 would be for 12 to 15 miles for planes that were low flying. They would go to General Quarters [Annotator's Note: term for battle stations] then. One night, O'Hara was on the .50-caliber machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun]. He tripped going to his position and fell into the trench, busted his head open, and had to have stitches. The Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] would be on West Field [Annotator's Note: now Tinian International Airport, Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands] with their bulldozers and the Nips [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] would be strafing them. They would not even stop. Most of the raids were on Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands] and Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. Tinian had all the B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. The B-29s were loaded to the maximum weight they could carry. Some of them could not make it [Annotator's Note: off the runway]. O'Hara and his outfit were at the end of the runway. The pilots used to make bets if they could get up over the mountain. They could not. The Air Force guys were fantastic. They ate with them a lot because their food was better. The ships that brought in the supplies had Merchant Marines who were always looking for souvenirs. The Marines would often take sheets and paint the meatball [Annotator's Note: slang for the Japanese "rising sun" emblem] on them with some Japanese writing around them [Annotator's Note: to fool the souvenir hunters into thinking they were Japanese flags]. Two of them were around and O'Hara and his outfit did not know it. They heard gunfire. There was a cave below them they did not know about either. There were 17 Nips in it, and this was long after the war ended. The Japanese were also grabbing ammunition. A guy in his outfit, Barnett [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], went to pick up a wounded sailor. The 8th Marines [Annotator's Note: 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division] came in to take over with a tank. They were telling the Nips to get out of the cave. They came out. The Navy were giving them ham sandwiches which the Marines could not get.

Richard O'Hara was on Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands] when the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, 6 August 1945] was loaded. The Indianapolis [Annotator's Note: USS Indianapolis (CA-35)] brought the bomb, but they did not know anything about it. They knew something was big was happening. They heard about it the next morning. The Marines do not know anything and that is why they are successful. [Annotator's Note: O'Hara laughs.] He knew men who were on the Indianapolis when it was sunk. Sharks got them. O'Hara was scared when they were preparing for the invasion of Japan. They were never in the first waves due to being in artillery. They have a lot of gear to bring in. O'Hara and the men [Annotator's Note: 18th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion] did not like the Japanese. Once on Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands], when he was in a replacement battalion, he was put on a carrier to take ammunition into the field as a guard. He was scared most of the time. He does not believe anybody who says they were not scared. They had prisoners on Saipan. They made them wear shorts with a ribbon fastened to them. Red was Japanese and yellow was Korean. You could not tell the difference between the Japanese and the Koreans and the Japanese would say they were Korean. O'Hara and another guy were going to the front lines to bring back prisoners in a six by six [Annotator's Note: two and a half ton, six by six truck, also known as deuce and a half]. He did that for a while before he was sent to the 18th. A lot of Marines were lost in Saipan. When he joined, they went to Tinian.

Richard O'Hara was pissed off that he was not going home when the war ended. His wife, who was his high school sweetheart, was waiting for him to get home. They offered him two ranks to stay in. He got married in 1947. He was discharged on 5 July 1946. He had gotten home about three weeks before that. He had 11 guys and all their records with him on the return trip. He was told not to let the guys see them. He had to take them to Great Lakes [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois] in late June [Annotator's Note: June 1946]. He was discharged as a Corporal. He was up for Sergeant. He was moving around, and the paperwork could not keep up. When he was on his way back, he was on a beat-up LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank], and they all had to sleep on the deck. They lost a screw [Annotator's Note: propellor] and the LST was going in a circle. The captain was an ensign [Annotator's Note: lowest rank of commissioned officer in the US Navy and Coast Guard; O1]. O'Hara does not recall how they got out of that. O'Hara did not take advantage of the G.I. 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], but wishes he had. He did get a degree in Animal Husbandry from Michigan State [Annotator's Note: Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan]. He also attended Notre Dame [Annotator's Note: University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana]. He had no trouble transitioning to being a civilian. He is gung-ho [Annotator's Note: unthinkingly, or overly, enthusiastic or eager, especially about taking part in fighting or warfare] today but was not back then. O'Hara sold all of his uniforms and other memorabilia to a collector. O'Hara late joined the National Guard and then he got into it. He has been on Soaring Valor [Annotator's Note: program of the Gary Sinise Foundation, a charity and veterans services organization] and an Honor Flight [Annotator's Note: a national network of independent Hubs working together to honor our nation's veterans with an all-expenses paid trip to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to visit the war memorials]. O'Hara and his son were late to a dinner by Soaring Valor and there was no place to sit. There was a table on the side with empty seats where some girls were sitting. Gary [Annotator's Note: Gary Alan Sinise; American actor, director, musician, producer, philanthropist], Latrell [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], and Mary Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: Mary Jean Eisenhower; American humanitarian and daughter of General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] came over and he learned he was at the VIP [Annotator's Note: very important person] table.

Richard O'Hara went into the Guard [Annotator's Note: Indiana National Guard] sometime in the 1960s as a Second Lieutenant [Annotator's Note: lowest rank of commissioned officer in the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps; O1]. There was a tornado in the Elkhart [Annotator's Note: Elkhart, Indiana] area. He got promoted for working with the Guard after that. They were putting the dead bodies on railroad flatcars. There were a lot of injuries. He spent ten days there and became a First Lieutenant [Annotator's Note: second rank of commissioned officer in the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps; O2]. He worked up to be the assistant to the Colonel [Annotator's Note: sixth rank of commissioned officer in the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps; O6] who was a Chief of the Police Department. O'Hara eventually replaced him and made it to Lieutenant Colonel [Annotator's Note: fifth rank of commissioned officer in the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps; O5]. He was commander of the upper third of Indiana and was over 14 armories. He was still running his dairy, so he retired in 1979. In the Marine Corps, you are in the Reserve for ten years after you get out. He and his brother were almost called into the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953].

Richard O'Hara's most memorable experience of World War 2 was sailing into Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] and having sailors' salute. That tore him up. They had a dinner days later and got the best food they could put on the ship at the time, the USS General E. T. Collins [Annotator's Note: USS General E. T. Collins (AP-147)] which was brand new from the Kaiser shipyards [Annotator's Note: Kaiser Shipbuilding Company]. When they got to Eniwetok [Annotator's Note: Enewetok Atoll, Marshall Islands], the fantail [Annotator's Note: overhang of the deck extending aft of the sternpost of a ship] was broken. O'Hara fought in World War 2 was because his brother, Thomas O'Hara, was in the Marines and was injured. O'Hara followed him. O'Hara just went back into civilian life after the war and just blanked it all out. He is more gung-ho [Annotator's Note: unthinkingly, or overly, enthusiastic or eager, especially about taking part in fighting or warfare] today than he was then. He sold all of his stuff and wishes he had it back now. He has fond memories and is trying to find his closest buddy from Greenville, Michigan. They were sworn in together and went to Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands] together. They lost touch when O'Hara went into the 1st Provisional Brigade [Annotator's Note: 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, III Amphibious Corps]. About 1975 or 1976, their correspondence stopped. O'Hara thinks America has forgotten the war. He takes in kids to mentor. One kid he met was 17 and he asked him what started World War 2. The kid had heard of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] but did not know about it. The veterans are all going away. O'Hara is 92. The war is not being taught. O'Hara has discussed it with the principal of the local school. O'Hara did a Soaring Valor [Annotator's Note: program of the Gary Sinise Foundation, a charity and veterans services organization] and an Honor Flight [Annotator's Note: a national network of independent Hubs working together to honor our nation's veterans with an all-expenses paid trip to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to visit the war memorials] presentation recently. O'Hara mentored a nice, Black [Annotator's Note: African-American] kid named Brian Smith [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. They got along excellently. [Annotator's Note: A loud fire alarm goes off at 1:16.28.000.] In Japan, they are told that the United States started the war. O'Hara is impressed with the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] and thinks it is absolutely important. The Sinise Foundation people are outstanding. O'Hara has never met better people. It is hard to get veterans today. One of the ladies on the Honor Flight works at the Dallas government cemetery [Annotator's Note: Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery in Dallas, Texas]. She said they are burying 36 people [Annotator's Note: veterans] a day there [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview]. On his flight, they went to the caisson [Annotator's Note: funeral caisson, a two-wheel, horse-drawn cart or wagon used to transport caskets to their gravesite] building and toured it. They bury people all day long. O'Hara watched a Gary Sinise [Annotator's Note: Gary Alan Sinise; American actor, director, musician, producer, philanthropist] segment, and they were talking about guys who are multiple amputees. They would not have lived in World War 2. O'Hara questions if it is fair to have these guys live without limbs. He would not want to do it. Today, they get injured, they get taken out and operated on. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer talks about the advances in prosthetics now.] His Honor Flight had five nurses, a doctor, a physical therapist, and two EMTs [Annotator's Note: emergency medical technicians] who traveled with them. One guy was Polish and had been in the Polish underground [Annotator's Note: general term for resistance movements in Poland during World War 2] who had joined the Army in the United States. He had a heart attack at midnight in Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington, D.C.], and had a stent [Annotator's Note: tubular support placed inside a blood vessel to help heal or aid an obstruction] put in. They saved his life. The guy has a Bronze Star [Annotator's Note: the Bronze Star Medal is the fourth-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy].