Andrew Biggio
speaker
32 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Andrew Biggio’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Andrew Biggio is a Marine veteran and author of The Rifle. He spent years traveling around the country collecting the stories of America's last living World War II veterans, all of whom are now in their late 90s or early 100s.
Sure. And you asked me if I prefer to be called Andrew or Andy. And yes, my name is Andrew, but I go by Andy because... That was my grandfather's brother who was killed in World War II, Andy Biggio. And I'm named after him. So when I survived Iraq and Afghanistan, I was trying to figure out a good way to honor my great uncle. I came home from combat deployments, read his letters home.
And they really changed my life. And one of the letters he wrote home before he was killed in action in Italy was how much he enjoyed the M1 rifle, the rifle. So I went out and purchased one and then found myself traveling the country with it and putting it in hundreds and
hundreds of different World War II veterans' hands and arms and recording their story, recording their reaction and their memories. And little did I know, I was on this therapeutic journey for seven years meeting these men and women, over 500 World War II veterans.
90 what? No, 102.
Sure. There was once 16 million World War II veterans. The VA and the government judged that by the 16 million... medals given out, which were the World War II victory medals. So that doesn't even mean the 16 million that served may have even served in combat. They were just people who earned that medal. That's what the numbers they go by for World War II.
I think the VA now thinks there's less than 120,000 World War II veterans nationwide of the 116 million.
Over the past year, it's hard to say, but I think of the 500 names featured on my rifle, because each veteran I had actually... sign their name on the rifle to remember them. I would say maybe there's 40 still alive of the 500 that I came close to know, and some closer than others. I have a funeral this Sunday for a gentleman who was really close to me. His name was Ed Cottrell.
He was one of America's last P-47 fighter pilots. He died at age 103. And I was the first person to bring him back to Belgium, where he flew his 65 missions during the Battle of the Bulge. And we found his old runway. We found the crash site of some of his wingmen with pieces of their planes still in the soil that the German farmers had dug up over the years that they collected it in barns.
Oh, amazing. We located his wingman's grave, who was buried in Holland. And we took him to see his wingman, his best friend, Ted Smith's grave for the first time in 80 years.
Yeah, in those seven years that I was meeting the World War II veterans and placing that rifle into their arms, there was like one common denominator, and it was like over half of them had never returned to the battlefields they'd served on. And living on the Northeast myself in Boston, I said, well, hell, it's only a six, seven hour flight direct to Paris or direct to Rome or even Amsterdam.
And these veterans I'm meeting are alone. They outlived their spouse. They're trying to find a purpose in life in their late 90s. And I said, would you go back? Let's go back and visit this area. And I got over 60 of them to say yes in a span of five or six years. And I've done over 25 trips back to Europe with 60 different World War II veterans visiting their homes.
The villages they liberated, they're finding their foxholes, seeing where they were wounded. And then most recently, I went back to Stalag Luft 4 with an ex-POW who was 101 years old. I'm sure a powerful experience there.
You know, the most recent one was a gentleman by the name of Lester Schrenk, and he's still alive. Lester's still alive. He's 101. He'll be 102 soon.
And, you know, he was shot down. from a B-17 as a ball turret gunner. And he was held prisoner of war for 15 months. For 15 months, he was held prisoner of war, starved, beaten, watched his friends dragged off into the woods and executed. And he agreed to go back to his prison camp with me, which was located in Poland. And we flew back, back in March,
And when we visited his prison camp, they said, the Polish said that this is the first survivor of Stalag Luft 4 that they've seen in over 20 years.
That's what we would dream about. Unbelievable. This guy was just a symbol of strength. I mean, not only did he survive that prison camp, but when the Russians started to liberate Poland, the Germans pulled him out of this prison camp and forced them to march 800 miles.
in 80 days so it was 10 miles a day malnourished starved poked with bayonets this is a well-known death march this isn't you know fallacy made up stuff by a world war ii veteran with a crazy imagination this is true documented stuff that the men of stalag four had to march what was called the german death march 800 miles to not be captured by the Russians. And he survived that.
How it's changed me is... I definitely have a different perspective of life because many of these men and women who I didn't just grab a signature for and take a photo op. I became friends with them. I traveled overseas with them. Hell, I bathed them if I have to when we were overseas. Yeah. And it made me evaluate and appreciate life and slow down a little bit. I spend more time with my kids.
I'm more patient. I learned how to handle stress a different way. You know, all these guys saw combat in World War II and were able to live long, successful lives after combat well into their 100s. And so I tried to teach veterans, especially with my books, Rifle I and Rifle II, how
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