Paul Dans

And he made it to a military school, graduated college at 19 and then Columbia medical school at 23.

So he became like a leading man in medicine.

He was a,

in the Berry Plan, which is the doctor's draft back in the 60s.

They needed doctors for the military.

So my dad was drafted into that and did his Vietnam service in the NIH.

But this was, you know, at the time my grandfather was at sea and this is when New York was really its top mercantile existence where there were actually factories in New York City.

He was later on on the Murmansk run, which is the famous convoys in the North Atlantic.

And grandpa was in the engine room, which, you know, this is, if you want a definition of what a man is, because I know our culture struggles to define a woman, but you can imagine somebody like Popeye.

I think my grandparents literally looked like Popeye in olive oil, but he literally had a tattoo on his forearm.

But these were the people who were just brave and did it, you know, and, and,

He went to see in World War II, you know, Nazi torpedoes sunk in his boat.

These guys, when they came home, the merchant Marines, these were hardscrabble people.

They didn't even get veterans benefits.

So...

my family tradition is kind of like giving everything for this country and getting kicked in the teeth for it and then coming and loving it even more.

So ultimately they did give veterans benefits in 1989.

And I believe that Goldwater, Barry Goldwater was one of the chief champions of this.

So my grandparents became Goldwater conservatives.

And that's how they evolved to be Reaganites.