D-Day Special with David Bellavia

Ken Harbaugh:

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David Bellavia:

Putin's not coming to D-Day, they brought Zelenskyy, and I thought to myself, “Well, that's almost a little subtext right there.” That even though we were allies, even though we should be able to look 80 years ago, we could put everything to the side.

These three countries, we disagree on many, many things, but let's commemorate all the lives that were lost. Let's honor the sacrifice made. Putin is that pariah now.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions. Today, we've got a special D-Day episode of Burn the Boats with one of my favorite people in the world, David Bellavia, who is in Normandy, France right now for the D-Day anniversary.

Most listeners of this show probably don't know that every week on Tuesdays at 11:00 AM I am a guest on the David Bellavia Show, which is an am radio program on a major conservative network. I started doing the show a while ago as a kind of public service, wanting to be a liberal voice in the conservative wilderness.

But I have grown to not just look forward to those Tuesday morning verbal sparring matches, but genuinely respect and care for David. I think that comes through in this conversation. And I can honestly say that David has restored my faith that conversations like this between people on opposite ends of the political spectrum are still possible.

It probably helps that David is a fellow veteran, an army infantryman who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in Iraq. But mostly I respect David because he's honest, he's sincere, and he's a person of integrity.

So, I wanted to share one of our many conversations with this audience, and I couldn't think of a better occasion than D-Day, a time when Americans of all backgrounds came together to defeat fascism.

This conversation is going to sound a little different than our typical Burn the Boats episode because David is actually interviewing me for his show, but I know you'll enjoy it. Thanks for watching. Here's me and David Bellavia on the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

David Bellavia:

We got Ken Harbaugh in here from the podcast Burn the Boats. And Ken, I got to tell you, I was so excited that Tuesday was coming around because I wanted to talk to you specifically, one of the things I learned, and you have to see it to actually believe the role that the Navy played in D-Day does not get enough credit. It does not get enough credit.

Ken, those boys aren't getting off the beach unless some folks that are controlling destroyers and cruisers get really, really aggressive and in shallow water and pound those bunkers that had to have saved at least 10 to 15,000 lives by just taking those things out. “God bless the Navy,” that's an army guy saying that.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, thank you. And not to mention those thousands of landing craft, which had to run right up onto the beach. I mean, so many of the casualties on June 6th were in the first few seconds when those landing ramps came down.

And the German machine gutters had their sights on those landing craft and just waited for the Army guys to spill out. And they were aiming for the boats, they were aiming for the drivers of those landing craft.

So, yeah, hats off to the Navy. Glad to hear it. Obviously, the Army won the day in the days and weeks and months that followed fighting off the beach and into the hedgerows and finally into Germany. But you're right, the Navy got there.

David Bellavia:

And I also want to mention Against All Enemies, the documentary that was number one for … I think I just looked it up, it was four and a half weeks number one on Apple and Amazon, and you name it, it's incredible.

Ken Harbaugh:

I mean, I'm proud of the film, but I never expected that kind of success. We clearly touched a nerve and thanks for the repeated shoutouts, I'm sure that had something to do with it.

David Bellavia:

Also, check out him on Team Harbaugh at X.com because those reports from Ukraine are some of the best I've seen, truly. I mean, you're out there right at the tip of the spear, your job in the Navy, it's almost impossible to be a pilot and not realize how much of a role that supply in the mechanics play.

I think a lot of times when you're infantry, you don't see it because you're alone out there, but you don't realize everything that's going on behind the scenes is adding to mission success.

We've got Rosie the Riveters out here, and that whole generation during World War II came together and black, white women that couldn't fight still join the Navy, the nurses, the people that were keeping the economy rolling at home.

And when you see D-Day, it's impossible to not acknowledge that that was a conveyor belt of humanity. I mean, those Higgins boats were rolling, everyone was fed ammunition, the injured were out. That's logistics.

And looking at Ukraine, Russia obviously is suffering in that because they were having problems with fuel, and you name it. But there are a lot of unsung heroes. D-Day is one of those battles that you could look at and think everything from the riveter at home to the Victory Garden that was all geared towards defeating an enemy that was evil.

Ken Harbaugh:

I would like to think that June 6th, D-Day, can be a reminder of what we are capable of as a country when we put our minds to something. I mean, just within the military, the ratio of support to frontline troops is something like 10 to 1.

Add to that, the entire economy behind that war effort to cross the channel and breach the defenses in northern France and finally make it into to Germany. General Milley has coined this phrase, and I think it speaks to D-Day and to every war sense that, “Armies don't go to war, nations go to war.”

And I think you're seeing that, you brought up Russia and Ukraine, you're seeing what happens when you don't have a national effort, when you don't have a reason to fight as a country when those reasons are all invented and fabricated and made up.

I mean, the morale, I just got back from Ukraine, the morale among the Ukrainians is pretty high given what they're enduring because they have something to fight for because they are an entire nation at war.

Whereas Russia under Vladimir Putin is doing everything it can to insulate its people from what is actually happening at the front and hoping that the military alone can win this war. And it flies in the face of Milley’s axiom that armies don't go to war nations do. And with that in mind, I think Russia is doomed to fail.

David Bellavia:

I was thinking not that Russia would have a role in a D-Day anniversary, but there were times after ‘91 when Yeltsin was running the country where Russia played a role in V-E Day celebrations and other things having to do with World War II, it was Russia, it was England, it was the United States, Putin's not coming to D-Day. They brought Zelenskyy.

And I thought to myself, “Well, that's almost in a little subtext right there,” that even though we were allies, even though we should be able to look 80 years ago, we could put everything to the side. We did this with these three countries.

We disagree on many, many things, but let's commemorate all the lives that were lost. Let's honor the sacrifice made. Putin is that pariah now, he can't even go to an allied celebration of what happened 80 years ago.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah, Zelenskyy being at Normandy isn't just a subtext, it is a bullhorn. It is communicating to Russia that their revisionism is not going to be accepted by freethinking people around the world and especially in the West.

If you talk to Russian historians, and we've done a lot of that on Burn the Boats and on the accompanying podcast, Against All Enemies, they will tell you that their version of events, even going back to World War II, is that they won it single-handedly and that they are this lone hero on the world stage.

And that carries through to today, their entire rationale, at least as its sold to the Russian people for invading Ukraine, is that they're defeating Nazism, which is insane given that the president of Ukraine, Zelenskyy is Jewish and that the real fascists are in Russia.

I saw firsthand what the Russian military had done in the occupied areas of Ukraine. And I really think that right now in Ukraine, we are experiencing a 1938 moment. And we know what happened after 1938, 1939, and a world on fire.

The difference is Ukraine, unlike Czechoslovakia in ‘38, Ukraine today has decided to fight. And if we can stop Putin in Ukraine now, we don't see a world on fire next year.

David Bellavia:

That seems to be a theme. One of the things I've noticed about the — everyone's just sending here, and you've got Fox and CNN and pundits, but you've got celebrities and you've got politicians and I'm noticing no one's saying German, they're saying Nazi. They're trying to make a differentiation.

And I understand look, there are a few Germans that are out here, and I can't imagine they bear no responsibility for what happened 80 years ago. Completely, these are our allies. These are a part of NATO, Germans are.

But there's this weird — at what point do you forgive a nation? I mean, you can't forgive a regime. You can't forgive the actions of Adolf Hitler. But at some point, 80 years later when five generations have been born in peace and have been your friend, they're walking around Normandy, and they just feel so awkward. It's so uncomfortable. It's so weird.

And we're using the word Nazi and I'm so used to everyone throwing Nazi around. We're actually talking about Nazis, like these are the Nazis we're talking about. There's no taking away that this is actually the original gangster of fascism and the Nazis that were doing their thing. But even the German citizens feel awkward and uncomfortable.

And I give great credit to the French who have been so kind and generous and just saying, no, I mean, sacrifice and valor can be respected and honored and they're kind enough to come here and honor our fallen.

Ken Harbaugh:

There are very few Germans alive today who had anything directly to do with the Nazi regime of the 30s and 40s. And I honestly believe … I mean, I grew up in Germany. I actually went to German school. I spoke it fluently as a kid. No nation in probably the history of the world has done more to atone for its sins than the modern German nation has.

It has had a full reckoning or a nearly full reckoning there. There are a couple of loose ends, but compared to any other nation, going back to Genghis Khan or the Romans, any nation that perpetrated the kinds of evils that Nazi Germany did, the modern German nation has done everything it possibly can to not just reform, but to atone, to try to change its national character and it has succeeded.

History has a way of repeating itself though and we need to be vigilant about that kind of extremism resurfacing. We're seeing signs of that in Germany. But I am incredibly heartened to see what a nation can do if it decides to honestly confront its past. And Germany is the best example of that.

David Bellavia:

What I'm also reminded, we've got all these, there's 107-year-old guy here. We have Rose, we have a Holocaust survivor. I'm reminded that we're never going to have a place to go to in the last 20 years.

We're never going to have a celebration, 80 years, we're not going to go to Fallujah. We're not going to go to Kabul. No one is ever going to thank us for our friends who died. No, we're never going to have that moment.

And I know it's narcissistic that I'm not trying to shoehorn our generation into the greatest generation, That's not my intent. But I'm reminded that our wars in the last 20 years will never have this appreciation from people that said, “Hey, thank you that this is hallowed soil.” We won't have that, will we?

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, let me get your reaction to something. I know what you're saying because I get choked up every time I see those American gravestones with the fresh flowers on them 80 years later placed by the Dutch and others who are keeping that memory alive. We're never going to have that on the fields where our brothers and sisters fell.

But while I used to be a skeptic about war monuments and memorials, I thought we should spend the money on scholarships and things like that. Visiting the World War II Memorial in D.C. and seeing all of the World War II vets who make that pilgrimage made me think that maybe we'll have something like that with the GWOT memorial.

It won't be like the actual fields where we lost our buddies, but maybe it will be a place we can convene, a place we can remember, a place where we can honor the dead. I hope it becomes that. And I've become a supporter of that when I used to be a skeptic, but I don't know, what do you think? Do you think a memorial-

David Bellavia:

A light bulb just went off my head when you said that. I think it is New York City, it's Pennsylvania, it's Washington D.C., those areas on — but then you get it clouded with a rack and it gets all … but you're right. It's a part of evolution. Our wars have changed, we're not going to have so much surrender.

Even in Russia, you talk about the atonement that Germany has to do. I mean, I'm not putting the cart before the horse, and we're going to get into this here in a second. A lot has to be done to push Russia out and to defeat Russia.

But I mean, the damage in Ukraine you saw for yourself, is there an organization, I mean, we're talking what, trillions has to be and the tens of trillions of dollars, and who's going to pay for that? I mean, the one guy's responsible for it. Is the world going to pay to rebuild Ukraine when the Russian economy is humming on oil right now? I mean, that should be their responsibility, should it not?

Ken Harbaugh:

I think it should be. And there is a recent serious push. There's been this simmering thing, but it's gotten concerted lately to use some of the confiscated assets from Russian oligarchs to pay for some of the reconstruction of Ukraine.

But it's a drop in the bucket because you're right, it's over a trillion dollars of damage. And that's not even counting the loss of life and all of that human potential that Russia has just snuffed out by its invasion and its massacre of the best of Ukraine.

I mean, I talk to these widows and these priests who spend day after day burying people from their parish who've been lost on the front lines. There's no way you can make up for that monetarily but who's going to pay for it?

I think the world, while Ukraine has its attention, will provide some help. Certainly, Europe will, I think the best thing that can be done though is to fully embrace Ukraine as a peer nation. Eventually, as a member of NATO before that, as a member of the EU.

And I had this epiphany while in Ukraine thinking about my time in Europe and growing up there, Ukrainians have a pride and a zeal and a belief in the future that I think has waned in other parts of Europe and around the world.

They have come together in the same way that the Brits came together in 1939 during the Blitz. I guess in the same way we were just talking about America came together to fight back Nazism in Europe, I think that will define Ukraine's future.

And I wouldn't be surprised if 50 years from now Ukraine is the most powerful nation in Europe because of its people, not because of its grain and its black seaport, not because of its poetry and those cultural or economic things but because it’s people are driving forward with the kind of zeal you only get when you feel your existence threatened.

David Bellavia:

When Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts, Biden came out and it really didn't hit the headlines. But his is basically green lit, a plan that has long been talked about, but it's now officially on the table where Ukraine can reach out and touch Russia on Russian soil with American munitions.

I go back to the beginning of this thing. I heard general screaming for that on day one. Is that enough to move the needle now?

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, it's about time. I mean, it will move the needle whether it will be decisive, I don't know. But the idea that you need to sit back, I mean, I'm trying to think of an analogy that people can understand.

You're getting punched, you're sitting inside your car and some guy comes up and starts punching you and you're not allowed to fight back, you're not allowed to throw a punch outside your car, terrible analogy.

But in the case of Ukraine, they're getting hit from missiles that are coming across the border and they're not allowed to take out those launching sites. They're not allowed to take out the airfields where those planes are launching those bombs at Ukrainian cities.

I mean, I would say unforgivable, but I think we'll get past it because the Biden administration has done the right thing finally here. But their excuse the whole time has been fear of escalation. You know who fears escalation most, the Russians.

If we hang back in terror of nuclear blackmail every time, they suggest it, what good is having the most powerful military and the best weapons in the world?

David Bellavia:

And we did it Laos, Cambodia, we wouldn't allow Ho Chi Minh trail to resupply. We should have done it in Afghanistan, quite frankly, far more than we did it in Waziristan in Pakistan. The ISI in Pakistan and the Taliban, one of the reasons why Afghanistan fell apart.

So, our military people said it was the right thing to do, this is going to disrupt their supply but the reinforcements too. I mean, if I can hit you with a HIMARS and you're not going to bring in 2,000, 5,000 reinforcements every month. I think it really could start moving Russians off the line in Donbas.

Ken Harbaugh:

I certainly hope so, because if this comes down to a battle of attrition, if you just let the masses meet each other at the front and square off in those trenches, Russia's got effectively an infinite supply of men because they don't care about their people.

Vladimir Putin doesn't care about the human meat grinder that he has created along that Ukrainian front. So, you have to disrupt it before they get there. And that's where you're absolutely right. It's about logistics. It's about concentrations of material behind the front lines. If you can disrupt that, you give Ukraine a chance. I mean, the bottom line is let them fight so they can win.

David Bellavia:

Ken Harbaugh, appreciate you. The documentary is Against All Enemies, you can still get it everywhere and Burn the Boats, the podcast, appreciate your time. You can also follow him on X and get those reports from Ukraine.

He's going back because he's a wild man. I don’t know what's wrong with you, but I love you and I appreciate you coming on the show, man.

Ken Harbaugh:

Honored to speak with you every time David, thank you.

David Bellavia:

Appreciate it. It's my friend Ken Harbaugh, you can check him out on Burn the Boats. I got to see his face now that I'm in France. We got this video thing. I kind of like this. It's a better conversation. I'm looking at you. It's cool. I appreciate that. Ken Harbaugh, thank you so much.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks for watching everyone. I have been so humbled by the support of this audience and the speed at which this show has grown. You are why I and the whole team here do this. If you're interested in bonus content, check out my Patreon page. It's free to sign up and there's an option to donate as well. The link is right there and in the show notes. Thanks again.

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We're always looking to improve the show. For updates and more, follow us on Twitter at Team_Harbaugh. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review.

Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia and David Moss. I'm Ken Harbaugh and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.