BLOGMay 02, 2017

Feminism Run Amok: So-called 'Rape Culture' Redefines and Trivializes Real Rape

The Factual Feminist Christina Hoff Sommers, former philosophy professor and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, joined Glenn on radio Tuesday to discuss contemporary feminism and how it's damaging to both women and men.

"The feminist establishment is not celebrating the empowerment of women. They act as those things are worse than ever and getting worse every day. I find this baffling, and it's very destructive. It's very harmful to the young women who are told to be victims and taught to be paranoid," Sommers said.

Sommers also addressed her fear for mothers of sons, as well as her theory that the purpose of many college classes is to tear down Western civilization.

GLENN: Hello, America. Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. We're glad you're here. We have Christina Hoff Sommers with us. She's a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She hosts a series on YouTube -- fantastic -- called The Factual Feminist. Each episode corrects a feminist myth.

And tomorrow, she is going to be giving a lecture at St. Olaf College. She joins us now to talk about the state of feminism and the -- this new push into the -- into the realm of, I think, insanity.

Welcome to the program, Christina, how are you?

CHRISTINA: Hi. Nice to be here.

GLENN: Thank you very much.

So where do we even begin on this new rape culture and what we're teaching and what millennials are now believing about this rape culture?

CHRISTINA: Well, it -- it's all fiction. It's a fantasy. It was created by radical feminist scholars with an agenda eager to indict the average man in a social atrocity. They have exaggerated statistics. And they change definitions beyond, you know, the meaning of words. And most of us do think of rape as a horrible crime. They now have definitions that include seduction. So if you're willing to do that, you will get a rape epidemic. There is a lot of seduction.

GLENN: So doesn't this -- doesn't this -- you know, I've said for 20 years with the Al Sharptons of the world and then in the last eight years, you know, the cry that everything is racist -- to say the word Chicago was called racist. To do that takes all of the cries of actual racism and makes them meaningless.

CHRISTINA: Exactly. It trivializes it. This is what happens with rape. And the students are not asking that the cases be turned over to the police, which would be reasonable. Because they have the ability to investigate. They turn it over to a campus tribunal that then determines guilt and innocence through what look to be kangaroo courts. And we have over 100 young men suing. And if you read through these cases, it's absolutely terrifying if you're the mother of sons because a boy can be accused -- he's perceived to be guilty because he's accused because along with this idea of a rape culture is the idea that women don't lie. You have to believe women.

Well, women lie. Not because they're women. But because they're human. Human beings lie, especially about sex.

GLENN: Christina, may I take you to probably a different place than you expected.

I am really concerned that we are imploding as a species because we are -- hear me out for a second. I know that's a crazy thing to say.

CHRISTINA: No, no. I worry about that too.

GLENN: Right? We're imploding as a species. We're taking technology and we're going to give you the ultimate pleasure by creating your own little sexual world. You can live in it any way you want. You don't have to interact with anyone. And the -- and the more we go down that road, while at the same time making common sense completely driven into the wilderness, you won't want to have a relationship with somebody. Because it -- you'll be accused as rape. You'll be --

CHRISTINA: Oh, I know. You'll be brought before a tribunal and told that every --

GLENN: Right.

CHRISTINA: -- and told that -- you know, without any possibility of defending yourself.

You can't -- you're just presumed guilty, and you are shamed. They've created a shame culture on campus, based on these strange definitions. And it's -- it is very disturbing.

I worry because our colleges are now just so carried away with this so-called social justice agenda, but it's an agenda of -- of authoritarianism. So this is where we are.

STU: Christina Hoff Sommers is with us. And legitimately one of the bravest people you're going to find, talking about this.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: Any issue --

GLENN: You must just be a pariah. Why do you hate women so much?

CHRISTINA: You know, I have been a feminist in the reasonable sense of the word for more years than I care to mention. I was a philosophy professor. I encouraged the young women in my class. I watched as women surpassed men in education. And only to turn around and find that the feminist establishment is not celebrating, that -- you know, the empowerment of women. They act as though things are worse than ever and getting worse every day. And I find this baffling. And it's very destructive. It's very harmful to the young woman who are told that they are victims and taught to be paranoid.

And I will also mention -- I don't want to say most. Many college classes. No one has done a good study of this. They should. The purpose of the class is to tear down western civilization. It's not something to be proud of. Don't be proud of American history. It's a rape culture. It's -- and it's defined by its worst injustices. Don't be proud.

So they're replacing pride with shame. I don't know that this is a way to progress. I don't think people react well to being shamed. They recoil or they -- you know, in this case, at the campus, they're acting out these -- lots of mob justice. So it's very unhealthy.

STU: Christina, let's take on one of the big ones here. People hear this all the time. That depending on who you hear it from, one in four or one in five women in college will be raped when they're there. Can you walk us through that statistic and what it actually is talking about?

CHRISTINA: Yes. That sort of statistic comes from -- not from the Bureau of Justice statistics. Not from the FBI. Legitimate data-gathering organizations. You know, they use careful methodology. And they will come up with a figure like one in 50. That's still too many. But it's far different from one in four. One in four is worse than war-torn Congo. They're telling us that, you know, your daughter enters Wesleyan or Bard or Stanford, and she's basically entering a -- you know, a society more dangerous than anyplace on earth for a woman.

How do they get that? Well, the first thing to know, they don't ask on these surveys, were you raped? If you ask that, you get a fairly low number. They describe events, and then they say, did this ever happen?

And some of them do sound like a -- every woman agree that someone said, "Yes, I was violated. Assaulted and penetrated." You would agree that's rape. But they would include things like, did you have sex that you regretted because you were drunk? And if you say yes to that, that counts as rape.

So they change the definition from, you know, an assault to a bad -- a bad hookup, essentially. So that's one thing they do. They enlarge the definition. They ask a nonrepresentative sample. A lot of these studies are computer generated. And they will go send it out and see who responds. They'll send it out to 200,000 people and maybe 1,000 respond. But that's a self-selected group of respondents. It may be people that feel more strongly about it. So you have to be very careful. So they do that. They ask a nonrepresentative sample. And then they project it on to all college students.

So bad definition. And a bad sample. And you can have an epidemic of anything that way.

GLENN: How do we --

CHRISTINA: Claim to have it.

GLENN: How do we look at things like what's happening with Fox News? Where I believe -- we don't know the facts yet. But I believe that there were bad things that happened at Fox. I worked there. I never saw anything. But I believe that some of these things happened. Some of these things most likely also did not happen. And that's for the courts to work out.

But they just fired Bill Shine yesterday, who was the vice president and really one of the stabilizing factors of Fox News. There's no charges that I -- that I'm aware of, that he was assaulting anybody or coming on to anybody.

When you have this witch hunt, nobody wants to stand up and say, "Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute." Because it's just -- it just becomes, I want to protect women. And we should believe the women. And men are bad. And all of a sudden, anyone can be swept up into this.

How do we stop that?

CHRISTINA: Well, it's a moral panic. And those -- you know, it creates a lot of hysteria. And going back to what you said. There was a problem with some people at Fox News.

CHRISTINA:

GLENN: Yes.

CHRISTINA: And here's what -- and here's what distresses me the most as an equity feminist, an equality feminist. Is if we want to help women, we should tell the truth. But it shouldn't be done in an atmosphere of panic and hysteria. Women who are victims need sober analysis. They need truth. Not hype. Not spin. Not panic. We have too much of the latter. So if you want to help people who are at risk for sexual harassment, for sexual assault, these are real criminals -- if we want to help them, then we should tell the truth and not cry wolf and not get hysterical. That helps no one.

GLENN: But how do you do that when -- I mean, I found as a father of three women, I am -- I was -- I found it beyond offensive what President Trump said about women when he was on the bus with Billy Bush. Just like shocking. I thought that was the end for sure.

The left, of course, came out against that. The right suddenly was quiet. But when this happened in the 1990s, they were musical chairs. They were on the opposite side, when it was Bill Clinton.

CHRISTINA: Oh, when it was Mr. Clinton.

GLENN: Yeah. How do we -- how does the average effect something when these big powerful groups don't really care? They're just using it.

CHRISTINA: Exactly. They're using it. And in this case, it's a little harder to fight because it's -- the source are these scholars in the gender studies department. People have to realize, their work is not carefully reviewed. They don't even -- many of them don't even believe in the basic protocols of scientific research. They have their own methods they've invented of just listening to stories and believing people.

And so -- but journalists and even legislators, they take them seriously. They take these scholars seriously. And I'm just saying -- I've been watching this for 20 years -- at the heart of the women's movement today is a body of recklessly false information, and it's not helping women.

GLENN: Is there a movement -- a legitimate movement that is out there?

CHRISTINA: You know, right now, there are small groups. There are groups like the Independent Women's Forum. There's a group called the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education. It's a civil libertarian group, not exclusively about women. But it addresses these issues.

Both of those groups are very good, FIRE and IWF. But they're small. It's nothing compared to this juggernaut of women's organizations. And they're all marching in solidarity. And they reinforce one another's messages. It's in the colleges. I've never seen anything like this. It's -- you know, usually, people can only go so far with -- that are alternative facts. And their concocted studies and pseudoscience. This has gone very far because I think a lot of men hesitated to correct the bad scholarship. They would be called sexist. A lot of women didn't want to belittle a cause they believed in at heart. They just thought they would be quiet. And so, well, now we're copying with it. Now we've got this rape panic. And it's very -- it's very destructive on campus. It's leading to fanaticism.

GLENN: Christina Hoff Sommers, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She hosts a series on YouTube called The Factual Feminist, where she corrects in each episode a feminist myth. And it's fantastic. It's really good. Tomorrow night, she's going to be giving a lecture at St. Olaf College. It is great to have you on Christina. Thank you so much.

CHRISTINA: Thank you.

RADIO

The ONE “forever war” Glenn Beck supports

This Fourth of July, Glenn Beck reveals the only “forever war” he supports. It’s the war Americans have been fighting since our nation’s founding, and we must continue the fight…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Two hundred forty-nine years ago, I think it is tomorrow. Right? Is tomorrow the second, or is it the first?

What day is it today?

So it was 200 -- 249 years ago, tomorrow, that somebody sat alone, in a -- in a one-room hotel room.

And scratched out the words, when in the course of human events. Those are the first six words of a document that is so dangerous!

Still today, so revolutionary.

It was whispered in those candle lit rooms by men who knew. Knew. That if I signed this document, that's a death warrant.

I'm dead!

I'm dead.

But in the course of human events, shh.

Jefferson wrote them!

33 years old. Adams would later say, you do well to revere Jefferson. But he didn't write alone. Basically, I was there too.

And so was Ben Franklin. The ideas were forged in the minds of men like Franklin, who is old enough to know better. And Adams, who was stubborn enough, not to care. And they weren't perfect men. But I love this about the left. They try to make you think.

That you think are perfect. I don't think they were perfect! I mean, Ben Franklin used to walk around naked in his house a lot. That shows, I mean, for as smart as that guy was. It shows, maybe he had a lack of mirrors. But they weren't perfect!

They owned slaves. They argued. They compromised.

How does that make them different than us?
I mean, we should be able to relate to them!

What is it that we tolerate right now?
What is it that we compromise on?

What is it -- what are our failures that future generations are going to go, these people just didn't get it? Perhaps what we should notice is that they, unlike most of us. They were willing to gamble their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

For something that had never, ever been done before. Something entirely new!

The idea that rights don't come from a government, or from a king, or from a parliament.

They don't come from the majority voting. Everyone has certain rights.

You know, for all these people who are, you know -- going in Macy's, and burning down towns. And then stealing clothing. And they're like, because I've been oppressed!

And you can't -- I've got rights, you know.
Yeah. Yeah.

You know who the first people were, to articulate those rights?

You know the only country that actually has stood for those rights?

And we're imperfect!

That idea came from the Founders, that you say you hate.

But the actual rights come from God, which you dismiss!

Think of this. Just ponder this for a second.

That all men are created equal! That their rights are given to them, by a creator.

It's not a political assertion. It's a genius. That's eternal truth!

That's theological dynamite, lobbed straight in to the thrones of Europe.

All over the world, it's still dynamite.

They knew what they were doing.

And I don't mean like, they knew what they were doing.

They had it. No. They knew that the British crown had the largest military force in the world. And these guys, they were farmers. They were printers. They were lawyers. They were a ragtag collection of intellectual and idealists, facing down an empire, where they said, the sun never set on the British empire. Meaning, the colonialism was everywhere!

You could not escape England. And yet, they declared it. We're leaving, without apology!

And they said that when a government becomes destructive of the ends of liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness, it's not only the right of the people, it's their duty to throw it off!

Wow. And you know what is amazing? That's not rebellion.

That's -- that's not revolution. That's -- that's responsibility.

That -- that kind of language today, that would have you flagged, shadow banned. Labeled an extremist. In most countries, disappeared!

But that is the foundation of what we call America. The American experiment. And it's that. The American experiment.

And it's just that, an experiment. We didn't know if we could get it right. And we haven't gotten it right. But isn't it worth experimenting?

Isn't it worth trying to get that concept right?

When you fail on that concept, you're like, eh. That's a stupid idea.

That's not a stupid idea. That's the greatest idea of all time.

Why are so many people willing to just quit?

The experiment is self-rule. It's not perfect.

Never has been. Slavery. Jim Crow. Internment camps. Assassinations.

My God! Forgive us, for what we have done.

But at the same time, what nation has done more to correct its own errors?

What people have shed more blood, not for conquest, but for freedom.

Twice in the last century, we crossed oceans. Not to claim territory. But to liberate that territory!

Our sons and daughters fought and bled on foreign soil to push the darkness back, to fight against Naziism and fascism and Communism. And here we are. Here we are today.

After 249 years tomorrow of that experiment, standing at the lip of the very abyss, those men feared.

A godless chaos, rising in the east and a cold atheistic utopia, clawing at the foundations of the Western world. Islamism and Communism, two ideologies that have killed tens of millions of people. Now dressed all in new robes, selling old lies.

And we can't even teach a child where their rights come from. We have replaced Jefferson and Adams with TikTok influencers and bureaucratic groupthink.

We're raising generations to not even know the truth about their own identity.

But to question their identity. And they could be, oh, you're a funny, funny colored unicorn today. What do you want to be tomorrow?

We don't teach them anything about truth, or their inheritance, most importantly. Their inheritance. What good are hot dogs and fireworks, if the soul of the nation is up for auction? What is the meaning in Fourth of July, if we have forgotten the why? If we don't even call it Independence Day anymore. Most people don't even know who we fought against for independence.

They think we fought for its independence! Most people think we fought the South!

And yet, we'll light the sparklers, or blow our fingers off, because we're just that stupid.

This Independence Day weekend, would you do me and yourself and your country a favor, and read the words out loud. Speak the words out loud.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with one another.

And to assume among the powers of earth, the separate, but equal station, to which the laws of nature.

And nature's God entitle them.

A decent respect to the opinions of mankind, requires that they should declare the causes, which impair them to the separation.

What are they saying?

Look, we want to be decent people.

We want to be decent people.

And we have to separate them.

But we believe it's only right that we tell you why we have to separate. And it's not because of all the bad things you've done. We'll get to those later. It's because we're different. And you don't understand. You have been telling us all of these things, we no longer believe in. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal, and they're endowed by their creator with certain inalienable. Unchangeable rights.

And just among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That to secure these rights, government are his instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

My gosh. Read those words. And let your children hear what thinking and courage sounds like.

That to secure these rights, I'm telling you, the king, who thinks that your government was given to you, by God.

And you are the ruler.

And you will tell everybody what to think, what to do. What to buy. What to sell. What to tax. What not to tax. Who gets land. Who doesn't get land.

No, no, no. Government are his instituted among men, deriving their powers, their just powers, from the people. And that government is only there, established by those men to protect the rights that God has given each of those men.

Let them feel the chill, that runs down the spine, when Jefferson writes, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government, or from the governed. Let them hear the words, of -- of responsibility. What responsibility sounds like, with courage and freedom. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

And to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their a lot of and happiness.

In other words, you have the right, you have the responsibility to stop tyrants. And if the government has gone bad, to throw that government off.

But reconstitute a government, that will do a better job at protecting those rights. Not to form a communist government.

Not to do anything else. But you want a new government?

Fine! Let's find the way to make men more free. This is not a metaphor. This is a declaration of war on tyranny in all of its forms.

I mean, I said, yesterday, freedom isn't free.

It was paid for by somebody's blood. But you have to remember, they paid for their freedom, not for our freedom, necessarily.

We -- there comes a time, we have to pay for our freedom. And God forbid, that it comes down to blood.

But at least shake off the apathy. We -- we must renew this promise of this experiment of America.

We need to fight for it as well. An out-of-control government that seeks to rope us into forever wars, over and over again. We're all against forever wars. I'm against it.

I hate them.

But there is one forever war, that is required in a free society. A different kind of forever war.

A war against ourselves, a war against human nature in each of us. Because of human nature, we get fat. We get lazy.

We get tolerant of abuses. Let your children hear you speak these words. And when you speak them, ponder them yourself.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes.

And accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind is more disposed to suffer while the evils are sufferable than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms in which they're accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a sign to reduce them under absolute despotism.

It's their right. It's their duty. To throw off such government. And provide new guards for such future security.

In one paragraph, we make the point twice. And they tell us, look, we've studied people.

We know you're going to get fat and lazy and apathetic. And you won't want to do stuff for transient causes. Because this is really not good.

But when push comes to shove. And everything is moving towards absolute despotism. Absolute tyranny. Then you must stand up.

I ask you to ponder this. This particular part, when a long train of abuses and usurpations. Prudence will indeed dictate that governments long established should not be exchanged for light and transient causes.

And accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind is more disposed to suffer while the evils suffer, than to right themselves.

Aren't we exactly the same people, that their experience was talking about?

Aren't we the people that are more disposed to suffer, than to right ourselves? Because we're too comfortable. Or we're too afraid, just to stand up and simply say no to lies.

No!

There is a difference between men and women.

No! Communism is to be feared. It's killed over 100 million people, in the last 100 years.

No!

Muslims aren't bad. Islamism is!

It's evil. No!

You can peacefully protest, any time, any place. And I will fight to the death for your right to do that.

But when you start burn cities down to the ground, no!

We're just a few days away. And we have marked our 249th birthday. Maybe. Just maybe, this year, can we stop asking what America was, and start deciding what America will be?

Where it just slips quietly into history. In the dark of apathy and ignorance.

Because the only thing more dangerous than tyranny is the people who have forgotten what it took to break its chains.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

We need REAL jobs in America — Trump should do THIS now!

It is clear we need to create more productive, high-paying jobs for American citizens. But that doesn't mean bringing back the same exact jobs of the past in massive numbers. It means creating and supporting jobs of the present and future that will better the lives of Americans. Glenn Beck and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts break down exactly what this entails and how President Trump can make it a reality.

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts HERE

RADIO

The most INCREDIBLE World War II story you’ve NEVER HEARD

One of the biggest American World War II cemeteries in Europe is in a small town in the Netherlands, where thousands of Dutch people continue the tradition to this day of “adopting” a fallen US soldier and checking in on his family. “The Monuments Man” author Robert Edsel joins Glenn Beck to tell this incredible story, which he documents in his new book, “Remember Us.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Robert, welcome back to the program. How are you, sir?

ROBERT: Great to talk to you!

GLENN: It's great to talk to you.

Can you remind me? You were on with us, after Monuments Men. And you talked about this great service that is still going on, where people that -- they were still looking for paintings and pieces of art, that had been taken by the Nazis.

And if I remember right, didn't somebody in our -- our own audience reach out to you, and say, I think we found one of those paintings?

ROBERT: Yes, sir. Absolutely.

The Glenn Beck audience. And Glenn Beck, you yourself deserve a lot of credit.

Because I hadn't walked out of your studio last time. You know, in Dallas at Las Colinas.

Headed back to our office at Monuments Men and Women Foundation office, before someone in my office contacted me and said, we've already had a lead, as a result of your interview with Glenn. And it turned out someone whose aunt had been given two paintings during World War II.

She had worked for the government overseeing Germany, and these two paintings were missing.

We were able to identify who the rightful owner was, and get them back.

So it's a great thing that you performed. And, you know, it's a magnificent conclusion, though obviously a very difficult part of history.

GLENN: What was it like to give that back to the family?

ROBERT: It was a deeply moving experience. We -- the foundation found and returned more than 30 works of art, from paintings to documents, ancient books. Tapestries, to museums. Individual collectors, and so on.

And, you know, when we see, oftentimes, the people just stand there, and they cry.

They don't even know what to say. Because they may have worked 50 or 60 years, trying to find some work of art that's been missing. And they haven't had leads. And to -- to see us standing there, with something that belongs to them.

Not asking for anything in return. Don't charge anybody for doing it. Because we feel like everybody who went through World War II already paid enough.

Words -- words just fail. It's just pure gratitude.

GLENN: I can't wait for you to tell this new story.

Tell me the story of the care takers. The care takers of --

ROBERT: Well, it's a story that found me, just as Monuments did.

I have written about -- in the Monuments Men, I told the story of two Monuments Officers who were killed in combat, one British soldier and one American, Walter Huchthausen. And Huchthausen was killed. He once did a last casualty at war. He was killed in the last month of World War II, and is buried in the American benevolence, American cemetery, in Margraten in the Netherlands. I knew that story, and I had made mention of a young girl who was harbored in September '45, asking for the address of his mother, wanting to write her and tell her, that she walked 5 miles, several times a week, from her house to the American military cemetery. It was called then. To put flowers on his grave. Because her family knew them. And they were grief-stricken to know that they were killed.

And I knew that story too. I mentioned that. And then in 2015, the nephew of Huchthausen wrote me and included a photograph of this elderly lady with this crown of white hair. And he said, here's a photo with Frida, and I couldn't place who this was.

I had no idea who it was. And I realized, my God, this is that 19-year-old girl that is still alive. So I flew to England. She married a British soldier after the war. And I went to meet with her. She started showing me photographs of when the American -- Americans liberated her area of the Netherlands.

And all these American soldiers that they knew.

And she said, you know about the American military cemetery.

She said, have you been there?

And I said yes. And she said, so you know about the great adoption program?

And I said, what? She said, the great adoption program.

I said, I have no idea what you're talking about. So I started doing some research on this. And learned, at the end of World War II, our largest World War II cemetery in Europe, was not Normandy. It was the Netherlands American cemetery, where 17,800 boys and a few women buried at this cemetery by May 1946.

And by that time, every single grave had a Dutch person, a local person, who volunteered to be an adaptor of that brave.

Go out there on the first death date of the soldier, Veterans Day, Memorial Day.

And if they had the contact information for the next of kin, send them a photograph of the grave.
And a letter.

Because they realized, it was okay to adopt the bodies of dead boys.

But where the real need was, was to reach across the ocean, into the American homes and try to assuage the grief of the families.

And they knew some of these boys. And I found it the most heartwarming, uplifting, and certainly unique conclusion to a World War II story that I think has been written.

GLENN: So are they still some of them still doing this?

ROBERT: Not some. In fact, there were about -- in 1940, 748.

American families were given the choice to have their loved ones sent home, or to be left overseas in a military cemetery.

The Army had no idea, how many -- how many families would want their boys sent home, and as a consequence, they couldn't tell how many cemeteries they would need.

We thought almost everybody would want to have the families sent home. But it turned out not to be the case. So about 61 percent came home. About 39 percent stayed in Europe, which was about the numbers from World War I.

Although, the numbers in this area, in the Netherlands were higher.

The -- the graves that are there now.

There are 10,000 boys there. And four women.

8300 graves. 1700 names on the walls of the missing.

Every one of them has an adaptor for 80 years.

All those graves have been adopted, without interruption.

There's a waiting list of almost a thousand people in the Netherlands, to become a doctor. This is a -- not just a --

GLENN: This is --

JASON: A privilege. Because they take their kids out to the cemetery. They turn the cemetery into a classroom. And you go out there. And, yes, there's a somber element. They're instilling in their kids, you're able to think, and say what you want to. Because of the freedom that was given to you, by this American girl or boy. And we don't do that in our country anymore.

GLENN: So this is one of the most incredible stories that I've -- I've ever heard.

And I'm shocked that the world doesn't know this!

Is -- have you -- is there anything like this, anywhere else in the world?

JASON: No. We couldn't even find a comp of any nature.

There are -- that is not to say, the people in Normandy area, don't care about Normandy and other cemeteries. They do, of course. As do the Belgians in other cemeteries.

But there's no place that created an organic great adoption program, during the war, in January 1945!

These people in this area of the Netherlands were so grateful, having been neutral in World War I.

And having not lost their freedom for 100 years!

And they didn't like it!

And when the Americans liberated them in September 44. I'll never forget this woman Freda. This elderly woman I met, looked at me, the first time I interviewed her. I knew her for eight years. The last eight years of her life.

I delivered a eulogy two summers ago. She looked at me, there were the eyes of the 19-year-old. And she said, when I saw that first tank over the hill and I realized, we were saved.

I looked at my dad, and I said, Papi, these American boys come all the way across the ocean to say this. And there were tears in her eyes.

Because they didn't -- they couldn't imagine how we could have moved that equipment across -- across the ocean.

And why we would have cared so much.

So there isn't anything like it.

But January 45, these people in this little town of Margraten.

A mile from the cemetery, organized a meeting of the town leaders. The town who got 1200 people.

And they were trying to find an answer to the question: How do you thank your liberators, when they're no longer alive to thank? And they came up with this idea of this great adoption program, and it's a story that I tell, following the lives of about 12 different American combat soldiers.

Bomber recipients.

Tankers.

Because we don't know that story.

We don't what knows to an American story, when they're killed on the field of battle.

Because it's depressing.

We move on to the next scene in a movie.

Well, I want people to know, you started your program with freedom is not free.

It's ugly.

Let's talk about that. Let's talk about what the cost is.

Let's talk about the stripping line that the body goes through, and the removal of dog tags, one being put in the mouth, if there's still a head. And the other being nailed to the cross, because they don't have time to stencil the names on yet.

Let's talk about that, and let people know, it's not just a Marvel movie. Or a gang war.

This is real. This is painful. And, of course, at the end of the war, when we Americans declare victory, and move on with our lives, there's millions of family members in the United States, whose lives will never be the same.

So it is -- it's still happening today. It's still happening today.

GLENN: The name -- the name of the book is Remember Us.

And take us -- I mean, because that's really kind of the -- the -- the beauty of it.

Take us through the rest of the book, just briefly.

It starts with what?

ROBERT: Well, I follow -- I began what a nice life was in the Netherlands. Until May 10, 1940.

And the Netherlands does not get much attention from World War II, and yet everybody has heard of Battle of the Bulge. And Battle -- those are all within 50 miles of what we're talking about.

They happened around there. Of course, World War II, in western Europe, begins right here in this area. Because the German tanks roll across the border.

So I cover the life of these 12 different Americans. I interviewed all their family members. Some make it through the war. Some don't.

You read the book, you realize who makes it, who doesn't. But their lives converge around this area of the Netherlands. And when post-world War II stories end, with the war being over, remember us kicks into a transcendent moment when the Dutch come up with this idea of this great adoption program. The Americans refuse to provide the names and addresses of the next of kin.

So they're foiled with trying to achieve their ultimate objective. Which is to try to contact all the American families.

And frustrated, there was -- one of the key figures of the book.

A woman who is the mother of 12 children.

Who takes it upon herself. She's a woman of action.

She writes president Truman. And pleads for him to get involved.

When that doesn't work. She gets on the first airplane, she's ever flown on. She leaves her kids behind.

She flies to New York. Lands in LaGuardia Field.

She goes to Washington, and meets the members of Congress. Including a young guy from Texas, named Lyndon Johnson.

Who says, young lady, you need to go to Texas. Because there are so many military bases there.

She flies to our hometown. And lands in Lovefield.

In June of 1946. And is met by two family members. And for five weeks, she lives with American families, that lost somebody during a war.

And to each of them she says, leave your boys with us. When the election comes.

We will watch over them, like our own forever.

And they have done that. Now, today, these 10,000 Dutch doctors only have contact information for 20 percent of the American families.

They couldn't ever get the others.

GLENN: You're kidding me. Where is the list? Do you have a list?

ROBERT: Yeah. The Monuments Men and Women Foundation entered into a joint venture with the Dutch Foundation for Adopting Graves.

Not charging anybody for this. And we have created a website called foreverpromise.org.

And on that website is a list of all 10,000 men and women, more women that are buried at the cemetery, or whose names are on the walls missing.

And it's a searchable database. We're asking people to go and see. Do you have someone you know, or a relative, who is buried there.

And if so, we have a short questionnaire. What's your relationship? Are you aware of this great adoption program? Are you in contact with your adopter? Would you like to be? Would you allow us to share your contact information?

I connected a lady from Richmond, Texas. Saturday night. To her -- to this young Tammy, that's the adopter of her brother.

She's 93 years old.

She was in tears. At the thought when she leaves this world, there will be someone there to watch over her brother.

And that's what we're all about is this connecting.

GLENN: Rob, I have to tell you.

You've really done something with your life. I mean, I know you don't need me to say it.
But what a great job you have. And what a great service you have done for so many years.

Thank you so much.

Please, look this up.

The forever promise project.

You can find it at foreverpromise.org. Foreverpromise.org. Robert Edsel is the author's name. The book is Remember Us. It's a perfect read for this week.

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