Date: September 20, 2021
Time: 12:00 am - 12:00 am
All Events | VBC Happy Hour

Every Monday night at 7pm ET on Zoom; simulcasted to Facebook and YouTube. BYOB(everage). Veterans stories, conversations, special topics, and guests. Pandemic celebrity and D-Day Veteran Jake Larson joins us tonight to talk about his WWII experiences and his hardscrabble childhood during the Great Depression, when he joined the National Guard at age 15 for the $4-a-month it paid. He was among the first US troops to ship overseas and eventually joined the G-3 staff (Operations) to help plan the D-Day invasion. He barely survived the disaster at Slapton Sands and landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Also on the beach was Sgt. Louis Graziano, who will join Jake on GGL tonight. Louis is the only surviving eyewitness to the German surrender in the “Little Red Schoolhouse” in Reims, France, on May 7, 1945. Author Dauna Coulter will also be with us to share her father’s harrowing adventure as a B-24 nose gunner in Europe. You can see Jake Larson’s popular TikTok account here. Jake’s book and Louis’s memoir make great reading.