Episode 437 Rodger Friedman Unheard Tales of Veterans Transcript
This transcript is from episode 437 with guest Rodger Friedman.
Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we are focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community. Whether you’re a veteran, active duty, guard, reserve, or a family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show.
Hey everyone, welcome back to Drive On. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and today my guest is Roger Friedman. Roger is a retirement strategist and wealth advisor with over 40 years experience and the author of seven books, including the bestseller Erasing America, Broken Politics, Broken Country, and he’s also a proud member of the Sons of the Legion.
And today we’re going to talk about his father’s army story and how veterans can share their military experiences with their families and the importance of preserving these stories for future generations. Before we get into that though, Roger, uh, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here.
Rodger Friedman: Scott, [00:01:00] thank you. I’ve been excited about being a guest on it, and today’s the day.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, let’s start off, just share a little bit about your, your background and your father’s, uh, uh, kind of what inspired you to write your father’s army story.
Rodger Friedman: Well, uh, I’m a New York City kid. My dad had a laundry and dry cleaning Uh, store right at Times Square, so he was kind of a Times Square entrepreneur, um, when he was, uh, called up for the Army, the Army Air Force, um, he was attending Pace journalism classes, and, uh, that got interrupted by, uh, World War II, and, uh, when he came back, He ended up not going back to school, but helping his parents with the laundry.
And at the time there was, I think, one employee, you know, with, with a washboard, you remember those things?
Scott DeLuzio: I think, yeah, I know what you’re talking about.
Rodger Friedman: first came the rock, [00:02:00] then came the washboard, you know, then the washing machine. So, uh, and, and I watched, I had a bird’s eye seat watching as he grew that business to several dozen employees.
a couple of trucks and he became one of the best laundry and cleaners in New York City. He did work for hospitals and other laundries that did not have their own machinery, but he was also doing Broadway shows because we were literally 20 feet from the Lyceum Theater on 45th street and we did the Macy’s Day Parade.
You know, the Thanksgiving parades and I remember trying on Mr. Green Jeans jeans that were gigantic, you know, for a seven year old. But I, I basically had a ringside seat to watch him succeed [00:03:00] as an entrepreneur. And mentally, I took careful notes and he worked like a dog 12, 13, 14 hours a day, six days a week.
And, um, I remember. A long time ago, I remember reading an article about Trump when he was still running the Trump organization, he was in Trump Tower, and he, they said he had a spiral notebook on his desk and a pen, and every day before he went home, he wrote down the most important things that needed to be accomplished the next day, you and I would call that a to do list, okay, and he would prioritize them with A’s, B’s, and C’s.
Guess what? My dad did that also. Did Donald learn it from Andy or did Andy learn it from Donald? I will never know.
Scott DeLuzio: Well, I think that’s a chicken and the egg kind of thing, you know, which one came first, right? So, um,
Rodger Friedman: bird’s eye seat [00:04:00] to that.
Scott DeLuzio: well, and so it seems like, so you, you were pretty close with your father then, you know, growing up
Rodger Friedman: I was, but after a while, see, I was the kid with the behavior issue. I was never arrested. Okay, but I did have behavior issues. My mom passed away when I was 12. So, my dad had to keep an eye on me and my brother and my sister were not up to the task. So, many days after school, I went to the store to help out.
In other words, he keeps an eye on me while I do everything wrong, okay? And uh, for summers and Saturdays, I worked at the store for years and years and years. And Scott, I got to tell you, I hated it.
Scott DeLuzio: Mm
Rodger Friedman: I hated it. Think of the summer in a laundry with all the steam and the washing machines, 110 degrees, you know, kind of like Arizona or Texas, I guess.
Scott DeLuzio: Except for with the humidity. Yeah.
Rodger Friedman: but, but you had all the humidity. And so [00:05:00] I hated doing that. And I would always find a reason to go up to the air conditioned office where my dad had his desk, because he was on the phone all day with customers. And I said to myself, I don’t want to do this. The business was eventually handed to me on a silver platter.
And I said, Nomás, you know,
Scott DeLuzio: Mm hmm.
Rodger Friedman: I don’t want it.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Well, and so, so you spent a lot of time with him, obviously, um, you know, whether, whether you wanted to or not, you were, it was, it was, uh, one of those sort of situations. Um, and so did, did your father ever really talked about his experience in the army?
Rodger Friedman: you know, he never ever did and Let me show you my dad. Okay, that’s Andy Friedman sergeant and Here are my dad’s dog tags. But other than showing me [00:06:00] the dog tags one day. He never ever spoke about his time in the service. And I didn’t know enough to ask, Scott. You know, to, to me, you know, the name of the store was Norton’s Laundry.
To me and everyone else, he was Andy Norton. Okay. Um, and you didn’t screw around with Andy Norton. Okay, things had to get done. Okay. And that was just kind of how I viewed things. He was a loving father, a great provider and successful, but he never spoke about his military service.
Scott DeLuzio: Interesting. So you, you down the line, uh, like. Many people that I talk to who have, uh, you know, older parents who served in, you know, World War II, Korea, Vietnam. And they, um, those, those folks just never really [00:07:00] talk about their service. It’s a very common thing that I I’ve come to find that that folks just didn’t talk about it back then.
Um,
Rodger Friedman: to put it behind them.
Scott DeLuzio: they wanted to put it behind
Rodger Friedman: And I don’t blame them.
Scott DeLuzio: Right, exactly. Some of the stuff they probably saw was, was probably pretty terrible. And who wants to. Bringing that up. And, and, and quite frankly, who wants to, uh, expose their loved ones to some of those tragedies and those terrors and things like that. Right. But as you get older, you know, as now, obviously as an adult, um, it’s one of those things you look back on and it’s like, well, I, I wish I knew more.
I wish I had all of this information. Um, so when was it that you really took an interest in your father’s military service?
Rodger Friedman: Well, it was actually a couple of years ago. So when I moved from Maryland to Florida, I was, you know, going through all the boxes in my unfinished basement in Maryland and boxes and boxes. And I remember taking out one small box and [00:08:00] my dad’s Dog tags clanged to the concrete floor, and it was kind of just like a frozen moment in time.
And I just stopped, and I was kind of thinking, why don’t I know anything about his military service? And as I started going through the box, I came across some interesting stuff. And you can see I have it in plastic. So, I have his enlisted record and report of separation, honorable discharge, um, his honorable discharge certificate from the army.
Um, his separation qualification record and the Air Force technical command. You’re going to love this, Scott. This is, let it be known that private first class [00:09:00] Andrew, no middle initial, Friedman has satisfactorily completed the supply clerical course. Okay. So, so Scott, these four documents. are the only facts that I have about my dad’s military career. There are no other facts. So, after looking at them and studying them, I told myself I wanted to write a story about my dad. And it’s only 8, 000 words, around 16 single spaced pages. You know, it’s not war and peace, okay?
And I would interweave facts With what I kind of thought might have been reasonable to happen.
Scott DeLuzio: Okay.
Rodger Friedman: You could say it’s made up. I could say it’s near fact. We’re both partially correct.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. It’s, it’s about as close as you can get when you’re, when you’re trying [00:10:00] to juice a
Rodger Friedman: there’s no one to tell me, Oh, Roger, you got that wrong.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,
Rodger Friedman: Okay. So, you know, I wrote it and I knew that You know, my mom was waiting at home, and they got married after, you know, he came back, he worked in the laundry, they moved to Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan, which was, think of this for a minute, I don’t know if you’ve ever visited Manhattan.
Scott DeLuzio: sure. Yeah.
Rodger Friedman: Okay, on the Lower East Side, from 14th Street to 20th Street, there is a sprawling project called Stuyvesant Town, and a smaller one called Peter Cooper Village. So Stuyvesant Town sits on about five or six hundred acres, prime Manhattan real estate. Eighty apartment buildings, each twelve stories tall, in a park like setting with fountains and Playgrounds.
It’s [00:11:00] literally a self contained city with its own maintenance and guard force. It was built and run by Metropolitan Life Insurance for returning servicemen,
Scott DeLuzio: Oh, okay.
Rodger Friedman: And this was in the 1940s and a two bedroom apartment was between 50 and 90. Now, I remember when I was growing up and I was a busy body that looked at things I should not have looked at, but when I was in, I don’t know, when I was like 13 years old, I remember seeing the rent bill.
Which came in the mail, you know, every month, and it was 165 for a three bedroom apartment with one bathroom. There was no air conditioning in Stuyvesant. Everyone had the double Hunter fan in their kitchen. That was the only thing that kept you cool. in the summer, but 165. Now, a three bedroom in Stuyvesantown is [00:12:00] around 6, 000 a month.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I was going to say that’s significantly higher at this point. Yeah. Um, well, interesting. So, so you piece together what you could, I mean, there’s some, some stuff that. Wasn’t explicitly written in those documents, but just based on things like dates, you were able to kind of deduce that, okay, they got married after
Rodger Friedman: around all those dates. Yes.
Scott DeLuzio: Oh, so you worked around all that stuff and you, you pieced together to the best of your ability. What you, you suspect might be the story that your, your dad would have told had he had it, uh, you know, had that, that kind of
Rodger Friedman: enlisted December 8th of 42, and it was in the Army Air Force for just under three years.
Scott DeLuzio: Well, do you know? Whereabouts he served, was it
Rodger Friedman: Oh, yes.
Scott DeLuzio: or, you know, where, whereabouts was he,
Rodger Friedman: So, um, at times he [00:13:00] was in the Rhine Valley, but initially He was in the 18th Bomb Squadron at RAF, Royal Air Force, Mendelsham, uh, near Suffolk, England.
Scott DeLuzio: Oh, okay.
Rodger Friedman: And it was a U. S. Army Air Force shared base with the Royal Air Force. And he was there for a long, long time.
Scott DeLuzio: So even with that little bit of information, it’s not a ton of information, but you could probably deduce a little bit more
Rodger Friedman: googled RAF Mendelsham, and I learned it was a sprawling air base, literally the size of Dallas,
Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Okay.
Rodger Friedman: Yeah, and I googled a lot of facts to back up what I was writing about in the story.
Scott DeLuzio: So the desire to write the story, um, you know, to, to put that out there in a, uh, in a written form. Where did that come from, uh, for you?
Rodger Friedman: even though I’ve been a financial [00:14:00] professional for 42, 43 years, I like to write. I’ve written seven books. Most of them are on retirement, wealth planning, wealth accumulation, things of that nature. My last book, Erasing America, is was the first one on politics, but I enjoy writing and I write every week.
I probably write every day. So, you know, putting it down on paper, you know, you could tell I got a face made for radio. Okay. So, you know, the point is I figured I wouldn’t be a television star, but I could write. Now, I don’t have any grammar skills, mind you, I send everything to an old English professor in Minnesota, and she basically takes the scalpel to everything I write, because otherwise if you showed it to an English teacher, she’d have a stroke, you know, in between taking her red pen.
Ha ha
Scott DeLuzio: I, I, I laugh the way you, you said that before. I, [00:15:00] I always tell people I have a, I have a face for radio, but a voice for print uh, yeah.
Rodger Friedman: Yes, I get it.
Scott DeLuzio: Um, but it’s interesting because you, you mentioned how before the war, your dad was going to, uh, school for journalism,
Rodger Friedman: to be Clark Kent.
Scott DeLuzio: right? And, you know, when you think about it, um, you know, that, that seems like that’s in your, in your blood, in your genes, because it’s like, maybe that
Rodger Friedman: know, I hadn’t thought about that in a long time, but you’re absolutely correct.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And,
Rodger Friedman: Score one for Scott.
Scott DeLuzio: you still enjoy doing it. Right. And, and I think that’s kind of an important, uh, thing to, to think about too, because, you know, just because your career is one thing, um, you may have a passion for something else in your case, it’s writing and you, you really enjoy doing it and you do it, you know, it.
Whenever you can, um, you’ve written, obviously you’ve written several, several books. You, you, you and I were talking before about your, your blog. You have, you have [00:16:00] lots of, uh, information out on there and you’re, you’re, you’re writing constantly. Um, and it’s like, that’s okay. Like that, that’s okay. In a way it could be a, you know, a hobby or it could be a side business or
Rodger Friedman: release. I like to lift weights four to five days a week. I like to walk down by the water, and I like to write.
Scott DeLuzio: And, and that’s, that’s wonderful, you know, and, and I think there’s a, the reason why I bring that up is because I think there’s a lesson there for some folks who, uh, they, they’re, they go to their job and it’s, it’s maybe not fulfilling. Um, you know, it’s maybe, maybe not the, the, the thing that really scratches that itch for them.
And they have these other interests and other hobbies. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be a career, uh, per se. It could just be, like you said. You, you like to
Rodger Friedman: And, and you
Scott DeLuzio: walk by the
Rodger Friedman: don’t have to be good at it,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,
Rodger Friedman: You know, no one’s going to look at it. You could just, you know, make your own journal. You know, get a book of blank pages, for God’s sakes. Uh, and no one’s going to [00:17:00] correct your grammar. It’s just your own thoughts to be shared, you know, with you.
If you want to share it with anyone else, All fine and well, but there is nothing that says that is necessary.
Scott DeLuzio: No, exactly. And I think perhaps even better, um, you know, because if, if it was your job and you weren’t all that great at it, but you enjoyed
Rodger Friedman: of like a 13 year old girl’s diary, you know.
Scott DeLuzio: why not? You know, and let it, let it be that. I mean, maybe, maybe with fewer hearts drawn in the margin and
Rodger Friedman: and, and, and here’s something to think about, you know, a lot of veterans, you know, I, I belong to the Sons of the American Legion, and the meetings are at the American Legion Hall. Uh, our post and I, I get to talk to a lot of vets and a lot of sons and daughters of vets. And, you know, I hear the same thing many, many times that they’re very, very proud to have served or their parents have served, but they know very, very little about what [00:18:00] actually transpired with their parents.
And if they keep, if the parent, the veteran were to keep their own diary just for their own self, but one day. Stick the damn thing in a safe deposit box or safe with a note to be opened after my death. They don’t have to get up in front of their family and say, I did this or I did that, but their family at least could understand what transpired.
While on active military service and have an appreciation and that knowledge is not lost with the next generations.
Scott DeLuzio: that’s right. And I, I think a lot of us, uh, recognize that. Our military service changes who we are as far as our personality and the way we handle things. Um, you know, especially if you’ve experienced any sort of traumatic incidents like on a deployment, um, there’s a lot of stuff [00:19:00] that, that does change who we are.
And other people may not necessarily recognize that in us, but
Rodger Friedman: You know, you raised a very interesting point. So have you ever heard of Sam Brown?
Scott DeLuzio: uh, no.
Rodger Friedman: So Sam Brown was deployed, I think it was, it was either Iraq or Afghanistan, and he was severely injured in an IED. Uh, accident. And he had dozens of surgeries. He is disconfigured, disfigured. And he’s running for Congress.
Scott DeLuzio: Okay,
Rodger Friedman: Um, and I put money to his campaign not, not two or three weeks ago. Um, and he’s a proud serviceman, uh, and looking at him, it’s kind of hard to look at him, uh, because, you know, but, you know, But I have to give him all the credit in the world for standing up and and coming to the [00:20:00] conclusion that even though he has faced all these traumatic events and dozens of surgeries, he has a strong voice.
It is best to be heard in Congress and to help shape, you know, policy
Scott DeLuzio: well, you know, I, I think there’s one thing, there’s a lot of people, uh, who served in the military and then, then go on to serve, uh, whether it, on the federal level, in, in Congress, or, or the Senate, or, um, you know,
Rodger Friedman: I met Cory Mills in Florida about a year ago. I was very, very impressed with him.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Even on the local level, they’re, they’re, they serve, you know, in their, their local, uh, you know, city council and, and other, uh, capacities like that. Um, I think there’s something in a lot of service members that, um, there’s that key word service, you know, they want to continue serving in one capacity or another and people who, uh, you know, like, uh, Sam Brown, who you’re mentioning, who, uh, maybe.[00:21:00]
So, um, you know, I don’t know the specifics of his background and everything, so I’m making that assumption, um, but there’s, there’s other ways to serve, right? And so, so for those folks who maybe are struggling in that, that capacity, there are other ways, there are other things that you can do, and, um, you know, maybe, maybe politics isn’t that thing for you, but there’s other, there’s other things that you can do as well.
Um, I want to get back to, um, You and your family and, and your, your father’s story and, and all of that, um, for you, um, you know, what would you have hoped that your dad would have been able to, uh, share with you about his military experiences? Uh, as far as like maybe some holes that, that you had in the story that in his story that you wanted to, uh, to fill, like if, if you could just be like, Hey dad, tell me about this thing.
You know, like what were some of those things that, that you could have
Rodger Friedman: first I have [00:22:00] to figure out when that would have been because when I went off to college, me and my pop were not really getting along all that well. And I put the onus on me. So, um, um, I went to a state university school. in the armpit of Rochester and Buffalo, New York. Uh, it was kind of cold and, uh, there were, um, two, two things that made me go to that school.
Number one is I was invited and I was not invited to many schools. Uh, number three, number two was it was far away from my dad while still in New York State in the public school system. So, um, but over time we became friends again. Okay, you know, basically toward my junior and senior year and after Kawa, but I understand that he was [00:23:00] a clerical person.
He was in charge of payroll, making sure that if somebody was killed in combat, that the family received all of the benefits. that were due them. He was in charge of 25 people. They were in charge of payroll for over 3, 000 people in a division. And he was skilled in the typewriter and the mimeograph, not a carbine, carbine, carbine, or three different pistols, although he learned that at basic training in Atlantic City.
But his days were the mimeograph, and the typewriter and bossing around 25 men.
Scott DeLuzio: Okay.
Rodger Friedman: Not everyone is a Rambo, I get it,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
Rodger Friedman: okay, but what I wrote about in the story was I’m sure that he went through times of absolute boredom, interspersed with [00:24:00] terror. And I tried to piece that together in my story. You know, they’d be having lunch in the mess tent, and all of a sudden, bombs would be dropping, fuel depots would be exploding, planes would be exploding, and people he worked with every day would be dying around him. And that’s what I believed. occurred, and I wrote about that.
Scott DeLuzio: You know, and, and, and it’s interesting too, because like you said, there’s a lot of unanswered questions that you, you know, things that you piece together and you could have gone a lot of different ways with, with the, the, uh, the short story that you created. Um, But based on the information that you had available to you and, and kind of just your, your thoughts, your feelings and, um, you know, and everything that, that went into it.
And I think it’s great that you were able to put something together [00:25:00] like that. Right. Um, now for the veterans who might be out there who are listening, um, you know, are there any, uh, any piece of advice you might give them as far as, um, you know, You know, how to share their story or, or maybe, maybe from another perspective, um, you know, from the family members, um, who want to support those, those veterans and sharing their stories and preserving their legacies.
Um, you know, I, I know you mentioned before, you know, write it down in a journal and stick it in a safe deposit box and don’t open it until
Rodger Friedman: and that’s just one way to do it. Another way comes to mind because, you know, years ago, um, my grandma Rose, my dad’s mom, um, we interviewed her with a cassette recorder and a microphone, um, in the 90s, [00:26:00] and she told us how she was You Born a day’s carriage ride from Minsk. Okay. I think that’s about 100 miles, maybe, maybe less.
Um, but we just kept asking her questions. Now understand Grandma Rose had no clue Where she was or what she had for lunch the day before but she remembered the village near Minsk She remembered that mom and dad had a a country store and that no one worked for anyone Everyone, you know was the butcher or the candle maker or the leather tanner You know, there were no corporations, okay?
Everyone was solopreneur. So, you know, my sense is that a family could gather around and say, Mom, Dad, you know, we would like to understand more [00:27:00] about your years in the service. Would it be okay for us to Write down some questions and maybe you could answer them, you know, while we have the iPhone going or a tape recorder or, you know, whatever, so that we can have this as your legacy when you’re no longer here.
But the biggest thing is to ask permission, to be very, very humble and loving about it. And if the answer is no. I don’t know, maybe go back in six months and try again.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, some degree of persistence without being obnoxious about it, I think is, is good. Um, you know, because that initial, uh, can I do this, uh, type of thing, they may, That might catch them off guard. Maybe, maybe they need to sit or sit on it and think about it for a little bit and say, you know, maybe I really do want to share it, but [00:28:00] maybe at that moment, wasn’t the right
Rodger Friedman: Yeah. And, and you want to be thoughtful in the questions that you ask. You probably don’t want to say what was your most terrifying moment because you don’t want them to relive that, but you know, ask them what their days were like. What was it like carrying a 40 pound sack through the rain, fire, you know, whatever it
Scott DeLuzio: Wherever. Yeah.
Rodger Friedman: You know, tell me about your day to day, tell me about the friendships that were created during that time. Did you stay in touch with those people? My Uncle George, who was not really my uncle, did you serve with him?
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. I remember my, before my grandfather passed away, uh, he, Well, he grew up in Poland and he was there during, uh, the World War II time
Rodger Friedman: had a grandmother and grandfather in Poland,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and he didn’t serve in the, the [00:29:00] military, um, but he was captured by the Nazis. And, um, so he saw his fair share of the, uh, the atrocities that, that took place over there.
But, um, one day just, just about his, just his life in general, it was just, You know, how did he get to school? Um, and he talked about how it was this, this long walk that he had to go to school and they, they were poor, they didn’t have any money. So, uh, a lot of times he didn’t have shoes to wear and in the winters, he’d walk barefoot in the snow and, and his feet would be like, felt like they were about to fall off and anybody that, that he was talking about that and I, I had it all recorded and then after he passed away, I had that, um, you know, that I was able to share with,
Rodger Friedman: Oh, that, that’s wonderful. And, you know, our young people, as I like to call them, have little to no appreciation whatsoever for American history and for all the veterans who gave [00:30:00] everything so that they could sit on their ass at Starbucks or whatever.
Okay, don’t get me started. Um, but the point is, um, when I was a kid in junior high school, Scott, there was a course called civics. Does that ring a bell?
Scott DeLuzio: Yes,
Rodger Friedman: Okay. And it basically attempted to teach us how to be a good American citizen. Okay. What was expected of you? You should register to vote when you’re 18 or 21.
You should pay taxes and not be a criminal. You should raise a family and be honest and all that good stuff. And I remember the girls at the same time as the civics course, they had home economics. Which was a nice phrase for cooking, okay, but I remember that we came away with an appreciation of what it was to be an American as opposed to the people that were in the [00:31:00] USSR, because at the time we were scared stiff of the Soviet Union.
Scott DeLuzio: yeah,
Rodger Friedman: And Manhattan was target number one,
Scott DeLuzio: I’m
Rodger Friedman: or the Pentagon was target number
Scott DeLuzio: yeah, sure. It was pretty, pretty, it was up there on the list. It was,
Rodger Friedman: the target
Scott DeLuzio: yeah,
Rodger Friedman: And, um, my sense is that today’s junior high, high school students, and college students need civics classes. Because it ain’t there.
Scott DeLuzio: and, and I think part of the appreciation, uh, that you’re talking about, like the, the lack, sorry, the lack of appreciation, um, comes from maybe just not having these stories available to them,
Rodger Friedman: That’s an excellent point. That’s an excellent point.
Scott DeLuzio: you know, if, if you never knew the struggles that somebody went through, Then you may not appreciate how good you have it, if that makes [00:32:00] sense.
So, um, you know, when, uh, when you, you think about like, if everything is rainbows and unicorns and everything’s fine and dandy, um,
Rodger Friedman: You get complacent.
Scott DeLuzio: you get complacent. Yeah, very much so. And then, uh, you, you don’t. You don’t appreciate, uh, the struggles that somebody else may have had, um, and, and you don’t, you may not even recognize in yourself that, hey, that could be me, if I’m not careful, right?
Rodger Friedman: have two ideas about this. Number one is I know that Israel has a compulsory Military service. I think it’s between two and four years. I’m not sure. North Korea, I think is 10 years. Okay. Um, but I think that with the diminished size of our armed forces, I think a compulsory Service requirement of four years is absolutely [00:33:00] doable and in the country’s best interest for a variety of reasons.
Scott DeLuzio: Okay.
Rodger Friedman: And to take it a step further, I’m also in favor of, so you want to be a U. S. citizen. Okay, here are five doors. You know the five doors I’m going to tell you. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard.
Choose one of those five doors, and you’re going to serve for six years to become an American citizen. And at the end of six years, We give you a free ride to any state university or college, not Harvard, state school, okay? And you will be a American citizen with a honorable past and a college degree or trade school degree.
Scott DeLuzio: It’s an interesting way to, to look at it. There’s a lot of ways to, uh, I guess skin the [00:34:00] cat and, I’m sure there’s other ways to go about doing this as well. Ultimately at the end of the day, I think, um, that we’re going back to that, that appreciation.
Um, you know, if we don’t know the stories, um, just tying this back to, you know, kind of what we started talking about, um, if we don’t know the stories and then we can’t necessarily appreciate the struggle
Rodger Friedman: You’re, you’re exactly right because kids don’t have struggles nowadays.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. It’s, it’s, Not, definitely not the same. It’s, it’s, it’s hard for them to know these struggles, though, if these stories aren’t being told. And, and nowadays,
Rodger Friedman: an iPhone 16 is not a struggle.
Scott DeLuzio: no, it’s not. Uh, but nowadays it’s so easy to Be able to share a story in one way or another if, if you don’t
Rodger Friedman: all the social media and everything else.
Scott DeLuzio: exactly. And if you don’t want to even make it public like that, if you, if you don’t like physically writing, whether it’s typing or handwriting or whatever, if you don’t like doing that, it’s [00:35:00] fine.
You have a phone, you have, you know, a camera on your phone and you can record it and you can speak, uh, into it or you can record yourself with a video if you, if that’s what you prefer. Um, and, and you can take that and you can save that file somewhere and, and lock it away, um, you know, and, and people
Rodger Friedman: it to your attorney.
Scott DeLuzio: It’s somewhere. Yeah. You put it on a thumb drive and put it in a safe or something, you know, whatever. Yeah. There’s so many different ways. Um, and even I think back to, uh, folks from like your father’s generation, um, where if. If he was so inclined to write a book about his story, which, you know, obviously he wasn’t, but,
Rodger Friedman: I wish he did, Scott.
Scott DeLuzio: but if he, if he was so inclined, the amount of hoops you’d have to jump through and, and money and all that stuff to find a publisher to be able to publish the book and all that kind of stuff, uh, it, it was a lot more prohibit,
Rodger Friedman: have gone on a Royal or Underwood typewriter,
Scott DeLuzio: It could have done something like that, right?
Rodger Friedman: you know, typed out 20 pages and [00:36:00] stick it in his drawer with a paperclip.
Scott DeLuzio: It it, but it, it wasn’t quite. As easy as it
Rodger Friedman: Oh, I know.
Scott DeLuzio: and so these days the story can be told, I guess that’s my point. And, um, trying to get that out to, uh, other veterans, I think it’s important. And, and, and just from your perspective and hearing your side of the story, uh, I love hearing, um, you know, the, the other side, the, the family side, like, I, I wish I knew more, you know, and, um, and kind of to encourage the, the veterans who have served to share your story.
Um, and. And like we, I think we’ve covered, there’s so many different ways that you can do it. You don’t have to sit down in a, you know, round table discussion and, and have a whole, uh, big thing or present your, your case to your family or, or whatever. You don’t have to do it even in person. You could just, you can tell it in one way or another.
Rodger Friedman: To become involved in whatever way suits you. So for example, you [00:37:00] know, I joined the Sons of the American Legion. I go to the meetings once a month, once a month, they have barbecues and I man the grill, you know, smoke at my eyes, but give me a cheeseburger, you know, we’ll call it even, um, but I also give generously to the Gary Sinise Foundation, the USO, uh, Wounded Warrior Project, Team Rubicon, and, you know, and those kind of.
Places where I know that my money is being used to help veterans and a lot of times there are veterans in need. And I am more than happy to share, you know, what I’ve created.
Scott DeLuzio: And that, that’s amazing too. Um, and, and being a part of those organizations, uh, you know, um, You know, whether or not you, you’ve served being part of an organization like that, it, it gives you, uh, that, that camaraderie. There’s other
Rodger Friedman: Yeah, I acknowledge your service and I want to help.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, exactly.
Rodger Friedman: I can’t pick up a gun. I’m 68 years old. You don’t want me picking up a gun. [00:38:00] But I can provide financial assistance. That I could do.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and, but just even just being there showing up, I think is important too, because that, that shows people that, that you actually give a damn, um, that,
Rodger Friedman: Who was it? Woody Allen said 50 percent of success is just showing up.
Scott DeLuzio: I th I thought it was a Yogi Berra quote, uh, where, no, no, maybe
Rodger Friedman: Yogi Berra quote that I remember the most is Oh, that restaurant’s too crowded. No one goes there anymore.
Scott DeLuzio: Well, Roger, it’s been a pleasure having you on, sharing your story, sharing your father’s story, um, you know, and, and all the, uh, work that you did. Um, tell us, uh, where people can go to find out, uh, more information about you, your work and, and your books. Uh, you know, tell, tell us a little bit about that.
Rodger Friedman: my, my bestselling book on Amazon is called The Racing America, [00:39:00] Broken Politics, Broken Country, and obviously it’s available on Amazon, which I think is the last bookstore on the planet. Okay? I’m not sure, but I think it is. Um, I do have a website, EOcritic. com, short for Equal Opportunity Critic.
There’s a link to Amazon on there. You can sign up for my bi monthly update, which is about 2, 500, 3, 000 words, uh, sent to you automatically by email. I have a number of videos, YouTube videos, blogs, uh, and fun stuff like that. No cotton candy or anything else. Okay.
Scott DeLuzio: Excellent. So I’ll have a link to that in the show notes, uh, you know, both to the book and also to your, your website.
Rodger Friedman: Sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for a great interview. I really appreciate it,
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for taking the time to come on and thanks for sharing your, your story and, and your father’s story as well. I
Rodger Friedman: very [00:40:00] welcome.
Scott DeLuzio: Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to support the show, please check out Scott’s book, Surviving Son on Amazon. All of the sales from that book go directly back into this podcast and work to help veterans in need. You can also follow the Drive On Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.