Beyond Valor: The ‘Red’ Erwin Story – Interview with Jon Erwin - I

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by some special friends of this ministry. Pastor Greg wanted to see a special word of thanks to the harvest partners who make this ministry possible next time your online check out Pastor Greg's personal blog@blog.greglaurie.com today on a new beginning. Pastor Greg Laurie invites author John Irwin told a riveting story of the heroism displayed by his own grandfather, a routine mission to Coryell Japan bomb erupted in his face onboard between a super fortress, John's dad hanker with smoke is now filling applying how it has lost control. He's now going into it toward the and it looks curtains for everybody.

My grandfather in that split-second moment had a choice to make his buddies lives were at stake knew if he didn't do something.

Everybody was going to die. His answer that call. And the choice that he would make would define his life and generations of lives and read to the fastest presentation of the Congressional interactions powerful addition and in coming your way today glad you're long Pastor Greg Laurie and author John Irwin are here with us today. Pastor Greg, are you good with equations if that involves math, the answer is no.

Well, here's an easy one can look at you take the true story of an American hero with lots of suspense and danger you add the fact that many men's lives were at stake going to feel the tension already can't add the fact that a world war was hanging in the balance give that story to a gifted storyteller who also happens to be a gifted movie director who also happens to be the real-life grandson of the hero of the story and I'm already smelling popcorn in the box of Junior mints as I was. You have together popcorn and Junior mints. I don't know if I agree with that. I talk about equations. It's popcorn and milk duds thing out is not Junior mints are kind of their own thing but yes you're talking about a brand-new book that is just been written by my friend John Irwin and the title of the book is beyond valor, subtitled the World War II story of extraordinary heroism, sacrificial love in a race against time and John of course is a director along with his brother Andy they run kingdom Studios which is under the umbrella of Lions gate studios and they did the film. I can only imagine.

More recently, I still believe and now John is taken his skills because really when it's all said and done. John is not just the director. He's a storyteller and he's telling us a powerful true story about his own grandfather read Irwin's right you.

We called kingdom a story company and we love to tell stories that move people that are entertaining. First and foremost we just feel like the right story you know can can change your life and we love stories that uplift and inspire and spread the hope of the gospel to the world through detainment and that that's the goal in God is at work in Hollywood and even in the midst of the year that were having an it's it's a wonderful opportunity to tell stories that can change lives in and so is our first book. And of course regular written many books but that so this is inspired by the books written about can tell this in the book form that this is always been the story that has been the inspiration to any nice Brandon and her film career movies like I can only imagine an end.

I still believe in Woodlawn grandfather story is is sort of the one that inspires them all and so it's it's a wonderful opportunity to share this story with the world in book form was truly a story of heroism and you and I think we throw the word or the term hero around rather loosely that the guy knows you know five cords in the guitar. He's a guitar hero if you can drop ball in the basket or cancer pasties, a sports hero. But though those are impressive acts. They're not really heroism a hero is someone that sacrifices some of the puts the needs of others above himself and your grandfather was a real hero tell us what he did.

This act of heroism that caused him to be awarded this incredible medal of honor by the president of the United States William in the medal of honor is is our nation's highest military honor and it's given for acts of extraordinary heroism beyond the call of duty and very few of them have ever been awarded in and my grandfather's it's what we know this is the fastest presentation of medal of honor in history. It was a race against time and the and he was a radio operator onboard between nine super fortress account in red are winning great red hair looked a lot like Matt Damon for about the war he didn't have to serve when he was 12 result is his dad died in and he he became the breadwinner of the family but but as with so many in that generation.

He was so moved with patriotism after Pearl Harbor that he in any accident, was brothers to go heat. He signed up and just for Winton Corwin romancing he met and married I might my grandmother Betty and they were made about three months before he shipped off and he basically want to be a fighter pilot couldn't get the gift landing and and that he became a radio operator on the between nine super fortress to between nine was the most extraordinary aircraft of the day is aluminum was beautiful glass nose for same, since the plane dropped atomic bombs and it was the first pressurized cabin first computerized gun system. It was just a really magnificent aircraft and design. For one thing, which was in the war on Japan. You know, without a land invasion, which is the time it's ever been done and so he flew in many raids. His plane was called the city of Los Angeles and basically they were the lead plane on these missions so you can imagine six or 800 of these massive bombers and that they would lead plaintiff how many members would be on one of those there be 11 crewmembers how to be 29, and one of his jobs as the radio operator was to drop a phosphorus flare when they approach the target and signal all the other planes in formation and he had done this many times.

Phosphorus is terrible, terrible stuff you can burn up to 2000� it burns to steal it. You can't put out a brand water just horrible stuff and it burns white-hot and so the other points could see it and come in formation on this particular raid April 12, 1945, a raid on Korea and Japan. He did what he always did and and is was his job to drop the bomb and they had an air pocket and instead of the bomb deploying it shot back up and into the plane exploded in his face and filled the plane with toxic smoke and plane went into immediate dive and they were only 1500 feet and it was really just a question of whether they were to crash into the ocean and die or whether it was going to erupt the 6 tons of bombs on the plane and and you know explode all the planes around them and the my grandfather was very devout and he said on the plane he felt about presence with him on the plane.

It it blinded him. It it it it severely burned in just the first explosion, and in some sort of a superhuman shouldn't of been able to do it. Act just felt it a piece in a presence within foci with them on the plane and he went for the bomb instead of away. Five and he found it clutched it like a football and began about a 20 foot march to the front of the plane and just erupted like a human fireball and moved at a movie navigator stable Sears handprint to the Nampa navigator stable and got to the front of the plane and there was a Col. onboard Col. Strauss was sitting in the copilot seat very calmly said excuse me sir, and over his shoulder. He got the bomb out of the plane to the window smoke cleared the plane and they pulled up at 300 feet just seconds from disaster.

Now normally you wouldn't ever turn around Curtis LeMay who was sort like the patent of the Pacific.

It was mission over over the man, but because that Col. was on board to observe the rate and he was so moved by what he saw my grandfather collapsed in flames and they would trump amount. He said turn this plane around in on care what they do to me. Turn, spin around and eat and that started a series of irregular events that led to an extraordinary presentation of the Congressional medal of honor. It normally takes at least a year. It takes a lot has to sort of almost be also a trial to see if this act was worthy of being, you know. An act above and beyond the call of duty but everyone thought he was gonna die and so they land the plane Iwo Jima the airstrip at Iwo Jima just opened and they had a cut a hole in the plane to get them out and that night the captain on several and Strauss wrote the citation for the Congressional and of honor at five in the next morning lately press on Guam Curtis LeMay with this story. He was so moved by it that he used his sort of abrasive personality to get to Washington will always happen the day FDR died and so is Truman's first day in office and here comes this letter from this hero in the Pacific. Truman was famous for saying he'd rather have the medal of honor to be present in the United States and he was so moved by it that get approved through Congress and seven hours never happened before.

While so sort of the word was were to give the medal of honor to this war hero posthumously because again everything seemed but LeMay was insistent. He said I want to pin the medal of honor on this kid's neck before he dies in trouble is there was only one medal of honor in the entire Pacific which was at a display case in Pearl Harbor when he fell about to get the metal used a matching display metal was display metal general in Pearl Harbor and so they they stripped out to between nine very long flight missions secret crew. They flew from Guam to Pearl Harbor now and in the early morning hours April 17 a they got of the base they got in the general's office that they couldn't couldn't find the key. So they smashed display case told the medal of honor, and fluid back to to his bedside and within one week in the medal of honor on his now and in its fastest that we know of on record. Ever the marauder and he was severely burned. In fact, LeMay asked him if if there was anything he could do and he said I would love to see my brother who was on Saipan. The actor Tyrone Powers was there in the swamps were everybody got involved in an flew on Mike my grandpa's brother brothers bedside and and and he didn't even recognize him because he was so severely burned, wrapped up like a mummy and he clung to life had Artie had several surgeries. Got home, my grandmother had only really been informed that he had been injured. She did know the extent of it and in many cases people in the burn ward their wives would literally sort of disown them just out of shock and and that he was so good looking left and she came in and he clutched the the bomb like a football so the whole right side of his body's arm was fused in place.

The right side is facing a big fan of the opera, he a hard time eating so is that 85 pounds and she found the only unburned portion of his cheek.

On the other side and just immediately without hesitation, kissed and said welcome home. I love you I'm here and that gave them the little live and he endured. I think 40 surgeries in all and they have five kids after the war by denting the second and that he P worked for for for the VA for over 30 years helping other other veterans get their benefits and he died when I was 19, get incredible memory of these things and to my everlasting shame. I was a teenager. The time and I just didn't listen and it wasn't until his funeral that there were generals there.

There were always military honors. It was a sleeting January morning and a bomber from between Air Force found its way underneath the clouds and tipped its wings and and there were two soldiers echoing each other playing taps and for like two hours they stood just in sleeting rain like brought bronze statues and remember going out to them afterwards and just just that I'm so sorry that you had to do this and thank you and they said no don't say that this is an honor like your your grandfather's one of our nation's heroes and it just something clicked. You know, and I'm I immediately asked who was my grandfather and that led me on sort of in a nation wide sort of search to interview the survivors in his surviving crewmembers and and the discovering the story and in and out yes well I hope for. The book is that people will take the time especially with that generation because are so few have left to just listen to these incredible stories and and understand what your legacy is. So that's the story and and I remember holding the medal of honor in my hands when I was probably seven years old and very young, and no idea what I was holding on this this blue ribbon. This gold medal and in my grandfather sort of thing over and over my shoulder. Freedom isn't free. No comes at a cost.

I did understand his words the time but but as I grew up you know that they were there for me and the and so I think that America our nation's is is given to us by heroes that have sacrificed so much and he would always say that I am not a hero it's the guys that didn't come back there, the heroes and and I hope that this book is is just another story that honors them and and their sacrifice and and really shows that greater love has has no man than the one that would lay his life down for his friends.

And that's the story that's an amazing story. Remember the first time I could you tell it in some depth.

I was with you and Mel Gibson and he had been working on the life story of Desmond Doss and it was made into a film called hacksaw a rigid number of you telling him about your grandfather what Desmond Doss was awarded the same metal was he not John that's right that's right.

Now each other X allow Desmond Doss you know Piedmont Alabama late in life and exactly I mean did this is this is rare company. These these people from World War II I member I got to know Louise and Perini toward the end of his life and he too was a Harold of World War II and it's almost like there were cut from a different cloth these guys.

I once asked Louie Louie.

You know your generation. We call them the greatest generation. What was it that helped you to get through the hardship there was such an uncertain future with with the rise of the Nazis and Hitler's and then the Empire of Japan and in so many young Americans dying overseas, and Lily told me that they were hardy and I asked him to define a need to state the sort of a true grit if you will but but I think in your grandfather's case, it was more than being hardy and true grit as you said he felt a presence. God was with them and you know you stop and think if Henry Irwin, better known as red had not done that there would have been you know they would've all died and 11 those mad men on the crew, their families, their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, they would've been a whole different story. But because of what he did. It impacted so many other lives in and of course we come back to the statement of Jesus. What you quoted. Greater love has no man than this, and he lay down his life for his friends and some folks if you want to read a powerful inspiring story, a real page turner.

As they say, but not a fictional work. True historical story, but told in a powerful way by expert storyteller John Irwin that you want to order a copy of this brand-new book, beyond valor that we will make available to you for your gift of any size. They help us continue to bring the gospel to people and teach the word of God. The people all around the world. John the air.

There's obviously a lot in the book about your grandfather's World War II experiences, but the main point of the book is that he was that it was deeper than that. That is not fit the World War II experience made him what he was. It's just that it revealed what kind of a man he was explained that's exactly right. I got really interested in just the psychology of these heroic acts. Who is able to, you know, grab a bomb and marched to the front of a plane, and even MI and I'll and if who's able to jump on a grenade or just do these extraordinary things like Desmond Doss enough in it for the movie X origin and just keep going back and it was very interesting. I was talking to Gayla Trout who was president of the middle our society time at their Museum in Charleston on the aircraft carrier and the medal of honor museum in and I just said I asked in a question like how do you decide to do these things and he said something so interesting. He said it's not a decision. It's a moment where it's too quick to be able to decide. So what's Evers in your character is just revealed in that moment and in the moment that is too quick for a decision you know you find out who you really are and I thought that was so interesting because Mike with my grandfather. You know he had had such a pattern in his life.

His dad died so early, of sacrificing his own needs for the needs of those that he loved and in every instance, I feel like love of country, is what made them join but love of each other is what empowers these extraordinary acts. It really is doing these things because you love the person beside you yes and I thought that was interesting in and in a moment too quick to decide that character that he had was revealed and he did what he always did, which was to sacrifice his own needs and and his own well-being and and you know what was nearly his own life. For those people around him and to save them and I thought that was very interesting and very relevant to our time and we live in a very narcissistic time and any other thing that I thought was interesting was Gary said you your generation, like America is a nation bound together and held together by ideas and ideals and by faith and any dissent you know your generation has no concept of what the medal of honor is and what it means and what the group going above and beyond the call of duty means and how important that is to the fabric of our nation.

It's being lost at the time there was only about 50 living recipients of the medal of honor. Most of them were over 50.

There's been some young people. More recently, but there was this fear that the legacy of the medal of honor will also fade away again.

I think it such a biblical thing, it's you know Jesus said if somebody asked to go on Monaco to do more than is required of you and and that that is what landed with a nice film careers to go further and do more go above and beyond and the and psyche. There's a lot to learn, just through studying heroes and what empowers them to do what they do and again what might my grandfather's faith was such a huge who seems very devout was such a huge part of of his ability to do this and the last conversation I've had with them. He quoted the verse in or Jesus is on the way the truth and life and no one comes to the father but by me those last conversation I had with the wind. I think legacy is this interesting word. You know it's something that you receive.

And it's also something that you that you give and you can't really know.

Are you going until you understand where you come from, and so for me it was a big part of understanding my own legacy and understanding my own heritage unit which, like the psalmist would say is good and the two then understanding the legacy that I wanted to pass down and and I X can't recommend enough I would give anything to go back and revisit those conversations as a man was a boy. I think when he when he died in an and truly understand and listen to what he did.

I wasn't able to. Which led me on this journey around America to listen to others that he knew and and into those that he saved. I can't recommend enough with so few of that great generation left and then there was such a grit and such a dedication such character to that generation and you feel like maybe these are things that were were losing or have lost and I just can't recommend enough stopping and listening to your grandparents or your great-grandparents and just listen to their stories. I think that will be a big the big thing that I hope will come out of this book is people that would stop in and just truly take some time while they're still here and just listen and understand what you legacy is because it'll change you if you could ask your grandfather. One question, what would it be man. I would listen to his stories and I would be interested in his answer to how did you do this, how did you grab that bomb and walk me through that moment of decision for you because I would aspire to be a person that would make the right choice in a similar moment, and you may ask yourself that question, MI, and is that is that DNA tests down and so I would. I would ask him about that moment and in the I think the question that I would ask you to do is tell me if you've stories and I would really listen, didn't do with a great relationship, but I just didn't listen to stories. I was a teenager involved another things and thinking about things and so it would either be asking about making that moment of decision or just ask him tell me if you stories and that really sitting on sit sit there and and intently. Listen, I wish I could go back and that I think you've more than made up for it.

John and I think your grandfather would be really proud of the fact that you went out and sought out as old buddies and got the story and now you're sharing it with others you don't. I just think of the other day old people are our young people who have just lived longer. You know I met one as a little kid I look at old people really old people and I would actually think this is the child of course one of these people come from you if you know then one day you wake up and you're one of them. I speak from experience because I don't feel like an old person, but I am an older person now and and I think a lot of times we look at older folks in and we see that maybe they're not as mobile as they used to be, or their having the challenges that will come to everyone in time but will we fail to see is they have all of that wisdom. Hopefully, no look. Not all old people are filled with wisdom.

There are some people that literally have wasted their lives. But then there are those that have lived wonderful, interesting, important lives and there's so much to learn from them and I hope someone listening to me right now will take time to learn your family history from your grandparents or even great-grandparents of their still living. But John is taken that to the next level. As these research a story of his grandfather, Henry read Irwin and he's put it down in the powerful book that you can now get for yourself and read this amazing story. The book is called beyond valor. It's a story of a true American hero, but also it's a story of a man. He was motivated by his faith in the last thing he said to his grandson, or at least the last thing his grandson John remembered and their conversation was. He quoted Jesus in John 14 63 said I am the way, the truth and the life and no man comes of the father but by me.

Because of the sacrifice of Henry Irwin. Many people are alive today and so this is a story you need to hear and it will inspire you and encourage you as well.

That's right. And as you read, you begin to feel like you know this medal of honor winner yourself.

It's an engaging book about a moment in time that defined a man's entire life and reflected the greatest generation. You'll be glad you read this, so let us in the book.

Your way.

The full title is beyond valor, a World War II story of extraordinary heroism, sacrificial love and a race against time.

Just ask for beyond valor when you contact us. We're making it available to thank you for your investment in the work we do here on a new beginning. We are all about knowing God and making him known so many find Christ through Pastor Greg's preaching of the gospel. One person posted a comment on social media. That said, thank you, Pastor Greg, I've been an atheist for 15 years and lately I've been questioning everything I saw on Facebook that the president said he was turning into great glory. So I decided to tune in and right when I did he said someone watching is scared of death and doesn't know if there right with God and I started to cry. I accepted Jesus into my heart.

Well, we're so thankful for the investments in this ministry that allow us to reach people just like that. So we invite you to partner with us today and when you do will send you John Erwin's brand-new book called beyond valor writers had a new beginning. Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300 one line to harvest God for next time. John comes back for more from the story of heroism and dedication to God. Join us next time you're on a new beginning for the message from Greg Laurie possible by harvest partners, helping people everywhere know God sign up for pastor great free daily email, devotions at harvest title work