- Hello and welcome.

My name is Phil Luciano.

I'm a reporter for the Peoria Journal Star and WTVP thought for Memorial day, there'll be no better way to mark the occasion than have back a friend of the station.

And that's Lieutenant Colonel Buzz Hefti.

Colonel, welcome back.

- Thank you, Phil.

Honor to meet you.

- Oh, it's great to meet you, sir.

And if we were to go through here, your resume to explain to the viewers out there, everything you've done, why, we probably wouldn't have much time to talk about anything else, but suffice to say at the top of the list, maybe you, you are a Marine Corps veteran, a Vietnam veteran.

You've worked for the, the secretary of the Navy.

You've worked on Capitol Hill in various capacities.

You've been with multiple organizations that are connected with supporting the military.

And we're going to get to some of those in a while but I wonder if you had to have one word or one thing on your business card, what would that be?

What'd you put on that?

What - Buzz Hefti what?

- Right now it'd be retired.

- You emphasize that part, huh?

- There would be, I would say there would be a lot of other people that have other words that they'd put on there regarding that, but I don't think there's anything special, I guess.

It's that I go by Buzzer quite often.

Yeah.

But call me Buzz because I answer either one of them.

- Well, I think I'll go by Colonel today if that's okay.

- That's fine.

Okay.

That's fine.

- And as we were talking here earlier, we, which is the run-up to Memorial day, and I know this is an important day to you for, for many reasons.

And I think it does have a, have a, has a place in people's heart for military and non-military.

But I do wonder what, what, for someone like you who has served in combat, who is who is so connected to the military, what goes through your head on Memorial Day?

What are those things that you think of, or and or what are those things that you do to to mark the occasion?

- Well, I would just say that initially as a young kid growing up in a small town in Northern, North Central Iowa, town of 500 people, we had a little cub scout group.

We had a little boy scout crew.

And every decoration day, at that time, we were at the cemetery decorating each of them, tombstones that belong to a veteran.

We were there standing at attention in whatever group we were in and participating in the ceremony every year.

That was a big deal in that town.

And you, and this was, this was right after World War II, for example.

- Something you probably took very seriously.

- Yes, exactly.

And so I had to learn at that time, the poem which we're going to discuss here in a little later called in Flanders Field, The Poppies Grow.

We'll talk about that.

But those things were very important to you.

And you knew the families of the people who were there looking at their son's graves, and you knew them, and you knew how important it was to dedicate that to and to put flowers on it.

That's what we did.

And so that's always been an important day to me then especially when you became involved in the military and you had contemporaries who died, or you had a lot of troops who died, it's the day that you remember and you know, remember that you certainly have to take the time that day to mourn those losses.

One of the other things I think we could talk briefly about is those that call Memorial Day "Happy Memorial Day".

- In a greeting, they say, "Happy Memorial Day."

- Yeah, yeah.

- Well, we, we, we do that ever since we had a three, when, when it was dead, when it was only one day on the 30th of May.

We didn't call it a happy day.

And then once we had a three-day weekend on it, why it became time for people to barbecue and time for people to go to a big sale.

And we tend to forget the real reason for that day.

- It gets lost among all the other stuff.

- It gets lost among that.

And so there was a, a Marine a lady officer who wrote an article about how it's not a happy day.

And why.

Because particularly when the ladies I work with who've lost a husband, that's a day you mourn the loss of your husband again.

And so there's nothing happy about that.

And then I've had a friend who wrote an article that said yes.

He said, I take the time to mourn the people who died that I served with in particular.

I'll walked to the cemetery and I'll spend time with him.

But then, the other two days I will, I'll be happy because of the days that they helped us be happy.

If they hadn't sacrificed, we wouldn't be happy today.

And so I see both sides of that but I work more with the side that says, please don't call it Happy Memorial Day.

- So, you can do both.

You can mourn and celebrate but don't forget to mourn because that's the key part.

- Exactly.

Take time to do that.

Take time to remember somebody that you know remember the husband or the father who lost that or the mother or the daughter or the spouse who lost their husband or their wife in today's world.

Yes.

Take time to do that.

- Well, maybe a good way to get people to remember that would be to share the poem that you used to, You used to, you recited it at the - I had to learn it.

I had to learn it probably I think probably in sixth or seventh grade, I can't remember really what it was.

You had to learn the whole poem in case because somebody recited it every year at the cemetery, because, and so, so let me I could tell you the first paragraph but I brought it along just so I don't - Sure.

- But I, I would say it was written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCray, who ironically was a medic, a doctor.

And he was assigned to an artillery battalion.

I'm an artillery officer.

So I respect him very much for that.

And he talked about how for 17 straight days he didn't even change clothes.

He was, he was taking care of people trying to save their lives.

- This is World War I.

- World War I.

19 or 1950 18, 1915, excuse me.

And, and one day on like the 17th day a very good friend of his was killed by an artillery shell.

And he buried him that day because there was no chaplain around.

So he did the service and buried him and bothered him so much.

The next morning, he's sitting next to outside of an ambulance, waiting for his next, his next casualty to come in and he sits down and he writes this poem in 20 minutes.

He writes this poem.

And when he gets done, he reads it and he's not satisfied with it.

So he hands it to the young Sergeant major that was coming by delivering the mail.

He says, here, take this, get rid of it.

The Sergeant major, read it and said, he wrote, it's just exactly what it's like here today.

The wind is blowing.

The poppies are blowing.

And that's what we'll discuss.

Let me, let me read it for you real quickly.

- Gotcha, take your time.

- Okay, so it's, it's written by a Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, Canadian army.

His Eagle was born in 1872, died in 1918.

So I haven't found out whether he died in the war yet or not.

He says here it is.

In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row that Mark our place and in the sky the larks still bravely singing fly scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead short days ago, we lived.

Felt dawn, saw sunset glow.

Loved and were loved.

And now we lie in Flanders Field.

Take up our quarrel with the foe to you from failing hands we throw the torch be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep Though poppies grow in Flanders Field.

From that poem, you got poppy day ever after.

And so I remember as a young kid always on decoration day, having a poppy.

They were handed out to each of us in school and we wore them certainly for decoration day and thereafter for a few days.

It still is a, it's still used, not as much, I don't think because people don't understand what it is or why.

But it's a remembrance of people who died fighting for this country in particular and others.

- And, and that poem I think is, is so remarkable because it's neither, it's neither , it's neither overly sad, nor overly bombastic.

It just tells the truth, which is very, very Truthful.

- And he wrote that in 20 minutes.

It became the most famous poem of World War I.

And it still is used today.

Every Memorial Day, it's used today, particularly at Arlington National Cemetery.

- And that's something you must think about every Memorial Day.

- Oh yes, I do.

Yeah.

- Good.

One of the things about Memorial Day that, that I th- and all days involving soldiers and troops and regarding the aspect of, of loss is, is the one organization you were involved in and that's TAPS and that's the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

And that's just a remarkable group.

And, and they do so much impressive work and so much work but I don't think a lot of folks know what that is.

Can you explain a little bit about that and how you got involved?

- Can I explain how it started?

- You can explain all you need to explain.

- Well, I think I'll explain how it started because there was a member from Peoria who was very important in it getting started.

And that was General Shalikashvili.

Who was, for those of you that don't know was a Polish immigrant, graduated from Peoria High School, went to Bradley University, joined the army and ended up being the number one military person in the United States for four years as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

- Ran it all.

- And so I had a call from Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska who was this senior senator at the time in charge of Senate appropriations.

He said, "I want you to be at lunch with me tomorrow."

So I went to an, or to a, a restaurant called La Collina on Capitol Hill.

And as I walked in, I see General Shalikashvili, who I had not met before.

I'm awed by that, quite frankly.

I'm now retired and I'm working for a company called Allied Signal Aerospace.

And, and we had maybe four other people from the corporations there.

And I met General Shalikashvili and his wife who later became very involved in TAPS and the Senator was there.

And then, us four people, five people from the corporate world and a pretty blonde who I'd never met before.

She begins to tell her story about why we're here.

And that is because her husband was killed in an airplane crash in Anchorage along with five other people, I believe it was.

He was a Brigadier General at the time and was the head of the Alaska Air Guard.

And it had now been a year or two.

And these six widows just had not found the support that they felt they should get from the government.

So they put together a, a business plan that they presented to Senator Stevens, and he wanted to present to us.

And when I learned what, and then this blonde lady's name was Bonnie Carroll, who was one dedicated woman.

And she is the founder of TAPS and the president of TAPS.

- Still with them?.

- Oh yes, still with that.

And, and very, very dedicated.

Spends her, I mean, she is dedicated completely to this and extremely well-known.

She wears a medal of freedom that was presented to her by President Obama.

And I was there.

She, she had only a few people that she could allow to come with her and she invited me to be there.

It was a tremendous time to be there.

And she wears that proudly.

And that's because TAPS is such a good organization and nonprofit that's constantly four-star with charity navigator.

And always at the top of, if you want to give a dollar to TAPS as a donation, for example, 87 cents, I think or 88 cents, something like that goes to a program involved in taking care of the people involved with TAPS.

- Money well spent.

- And so TAPS primarily works with the surviving people, surviving spouses, and to work, to help you learn to live with your grief and learn to live, that there is still a life where you can honor the person that you lost and still loved them, and still carry on with your life.

Primarily dedicated also to young children.

I've always liked to tell the story of a five-year-old who says he his mother takes him to something we call, it slip my mind right now but something we call, I'll think of it as we talk.

And he says, "mom, I don't love daddy anymore."

She says, "you don't love daddy?

Why?"

"Well, he said he was coming home and didn't come home."

So they go to this good grief camp in Washington It would take over the entire hotel, a Marriott hotel there thousands, at least a thousand adults, 500 children.

Each of those children have a mentor with them primarily a military mentor who had to pass an extensive test before he could spend time, he or she could spend time with that child.

They say, now they'll stay with them for a lifetime almost.

Anyway, this young kid comes back and after the first day he says, mom, he says "I found somebody just like me.

He doesn't have a dad either."

And so he's got a new friend and the next day has got another new friend and it builds that way.

And so this becomes his new family, one of his families.

And he wants to come back all the time.

And the widow or widower, also, they, they have all different kinds of programs so that you can get involved in other things.

You learn all your new friends.

They'll go on the, I did a ride in Alaska.

They'll climb different mountains, wherever they are and they'll go on kayak trips.

And you, you've got this family that helps you remember and helps you get over this grief process.

And it's just tremendous, and - And that's something else to think about on Memorial Day.

Is it certainly it is this, this, this grief this mourning for those who gave their life in service to the country.

- Yes.

- But then there are the families that are, that are left and, and, and that's, it's, it's a lucky say a lifetime of, of trying to cope.

And it's unbelievably wonderful that TAPS is around to, to help with that.

Cause it's not easy.

- It is amazing.

It is absolutely amazing what they do.

The other thing, they were really involved in professional sports and college sports also.

And so, throughout the football season or basketball, NBA basketball in particular, they were, they would honor TAPS people at the game.

The last Olympics, they had, they were, they, they took TAPS children and each one of the players that was an Olympic player, adopted one of those children for about five weeks or so.

And every time they went and played a game through five cities before they went to Rio, I think it was, they wore this circle that had the picture of that father or mother and the child is with them that they're kind of mentoring during that period of time.

And so they are there and they are honoring those young men and young women and they became very close to each one of them.

And it was just really tremendous.

- Just see right there, that lesson that the children are learning, that you're having fun but that picture's there and you don't have to forget.

- Exactly.

- That's unbelievable.

- And so you always have that badge of the one you love.

For example, during the inaugural parade for President Trump, we had the TAPS was in the parade and I walked with him and I carried a picture of, of Robert Kelly.

Robert Kelly was son of general, John Kelly.

And he was, he was notified of that KIA by General Dunford who was also a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

They were close personal friends and he went and told his personal friend that his son is dead.

And so I had the honor of carrying that picture in the inaugural parade.

I was pleased to do that as a Marine to him before a Marine's son.

- That's a hard thing to do.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

But proud of it.

- This is something that you've done.

You started to do a long time ago, correct?

Back during the Vietnam time.

- Yes.

- Could you explain some of that?

So that people can understand maybe a little more as to how, just how heart rendering this can be?

- Well, I was, right after I came back from Vietnam, I was assigned to, to be in what we call an inspector instructor with artillery battery in Spokane, Washington.

Primary responsibility was to train that battery in case we get called up and go to Vietnam.

The, they also had a secondary duty and that was a Casualty Assistance Call Officer, CACO.

I was there less than six weeks.

And I had my first, first call in which I had to go notify the family that their son was dead.

There had, there was no manual to read.

There was no book to read.

And what I found out that day and the next three years I was basically a country minister with zero training.

And so you learned on the job training, I guess you'd say.

And I learned that, I always said Marines don't cry, but I was wrong.

And you're holding a mother who's crying.

How do you not join her?

So I did in that three-year period of time, I knocked on the door.

I knocked on the door and told 50 families that their son was dead.

And I believe that the process within TAPS doesn't really get started until someone knocks on that door and tells the family of this tragedy that I brought to have.

And there was nothing at that time, like TAPS at all.

You didn't have anyone that could help you grieve or teach you how you could grieve or teach you how to start loving yourself and your family even with this loss.

Nowhere that young child could have another family.

Especially I told a lot of people up in the boondocks of Idaho and Montana and Eastern Washington up in the mountains, and there was no place for them to go for help.

The only one that I really thought had helped was when I notified them at their church on Easter Sunday.

The church stopped singing, and they were there to help the family.

But it wasn't easy way for me to tell the family either.

- In that case, like you're saying there, there's an extended family with that church, but I'm just, I'm just curious how you, learning on the job, you knock on the door you give this very factual piece of information.

And then how did you navigate the next couple minutes or hour or however long you were there?

What did, what did, what did you do?

- I give credit to my mother and my father for the way I was brought up.

I was humble.

I'm a good Christian I believe in another life, for example.

And so I would work with the family and I'd come back.

I would help them prepare the funeral.

I would come back with my man and we would fold the flag.

We would have the American flag there in the Marine Corps flag.

And we would have a salute with the weapons and a flag would be folded and I would take and present it to the mother or father and give the words that you need to say but that we were very proud of them as a Marine.

And we're sad that he's gone or whatever.

And I would just say that was a difficult time.

And you just learned each time you learned.

I learned, I went the first time by myself and I learned you never want to do that again.

You need somebody else.

Ideally, if you had a chaplain to go along, you can do that but I didn't have a chaplain.

I always took one of my sergeants or gunnery sergeants.

I thought it was good training for them.

And it was good support for me.

It's just a learning process, I guess I'd say.

- And obviously that's still with you today with TAPS.

- I still get very emotional when I talk about it.

I don't know why, but I think it's probably because I felt I couldn't do enough for that family.

And so when I heard what Bonnie Carol had to say at this luncheon, I said, that's exactly what I needed when I was a casualty assistance officer.

I needed somebody they could turn to, I needed a phone call they could make.

So today, TAPS has a hotline that you can call through 24 hours a day.

And on that hotline, on the other end there's a live person.

And that live person is a survivor.

They've been through this process.

They know how you can handle that person.

That's grieving and crying.

And so that's the first step.

And so today's Casually Assistance Officer, it's quite often just given a class by people from TAPS.

So they know what to do and they don't, not cold like I was.

They've got some process that you can go through.

And they know that when they, when they see that family, they gave them a number, a phone number at the top one on that list is TAPS.

If you, if you get in trouble and need help call this number.

- And it's amazing too they also extend their services regarding suicide which is such a huge problem.

And that doesn't get a lot of, a lot of talk, a lot of discussion out there in the main - No.

And I would say, I would say that a large number of the survivors in TAPS are the result of suicide.

Up until this past two years, it was the number one.

First of all, of course it was, it was casualties from the battlefield.

But as the world moved into battles like Afghanistan and Iraq, where the numbers were much smaller from the battlefield, then it was suicide.

Now it's, it's maybe some other diseases.

For example, Agent Orange and cancer and the burn pits from, from Iraq.

Those in Afghanistan, those things are now key and suicide is still very high up there.

But our person that takes care of that is is, certainly knows why.

Her husband came back from a tour in Iraq and two months later committed suicide and left her with her two young sons who are tremendous sons.

And she's, she is now the leading person within the department of defense on suicide.

And they are, so TAPS will hold probably a session at least every quarter, if not every month, a on suicide itself and how you can come and learn how to get through the process of grieving the suicide.

And also how you can help prevent future suicides.

- Great organizations.

Great that that's there for, for anyone who needs that kind of help.

I tell you what we, we need to wrap up here in a minute.

I'm going to ask you - - [Buzz] Already?

Go time goes, time goes fast when you talk about stuff you're passionate about, right?

- I am passionate, yes.

- I tell you what, would you read that poem again?

I just think it would be a good good place to, good place to, to end this time together.

- Okay let's do that, okay?

In Flanders Fields The poppies blow between the crosses row on row that mark our place and in the sky the larks still bravely singing fly scarce heard among the guns below.

We are the dead short days ago, we lived felt done, saw sunsets glow loved and were loved.

And now we lie in Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe to you from the falling hands we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep though poppies grow in Flanders Fields.

- That's going to be echoing in my head during this Memorial Day time.

- Yeah, I hope so.

- Lieutenant, Lieutenant Colonel Buzz Hefti, thanks so much for being here for another Memorial Day.

I'm Phil Luciano from the Peoria Journal Star.

Have a - what kind of Memorial Day?

A meaningful?

- A meaningful Memorial Day.

- A meaningful Memorial Day.

- And you can have two happy days go before it, but don't forget to stop and mourn.

- All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.