Jake Larson, it's great to see you again.
It was five years ago we first met here and
now.
How old are you?
I'm going to be
102 in December. Wow. What is the secret of your
health and longevity?
I'll have to say, don't die.
It's a good one. Don't die.
You probably didn't know whether you would survive 80 years
ago today,
did you, when you landed on Omaha?
God, no. I was afraid of those
land mines they put in the
beach there.
We were getting small arms fire.
But I was afraid to step.
I'd step on one of those mines
Germans had.
I told that that time it was a million mines
and when they started taking the monitor,
they found one and a half million.
Wow, You were one of the lucky ones.
Do you remember what it was like when,
when they just, I don't know,
suddenly you find yourself getting out of one of those
landing crafts.
You're on that beach. Do you remember what it was
like?
Oh, do I I like,
like it was yesterday.
I got a lot of that landing craft
and I had water right up to my chin.
He he lost out a little bit too far,
but he was just a 17 year old
pilot for that boat. Well,
you were all kids. We were all kids,
yes. And did you know then what you were fighting
for?
Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. That we knew.
Every one of us tell us.
Every one of us was prepared
to give our life, to kick
Cutler's ass out of Europe.
And you did. And we did.
We lost quite a few of it.
I lost friends. Everybody lost friends.
But we can't. We were soldiers.
We were prepared to give her a life.
And now you obviously a father,
a grandfather, a great grandfather and your great grandchildren and
your grandchildren
making you into a social media star.
You're on TikTok, Jake, since we last met.
I don't know how that happened.
How did it happen?
It's crazy. And you go by Papa Jake.
You have an actual name.
Yes. And why do you do it?
You know, it's not me,
it's my granddaughter. She said,
oh, it's just just a little storytellings thing.
She says. And I put
a a couple of your stories on on my TikTok.
She came back within a week
and says, Papa, I'm taking you off of my TikTok.
I'm going to put you on your own.
I said, you're opening a can of worms here.
Why are you putting me on by myself?
She says. Because you showed me up on mine.
It took me
10 months to get 10,000 viewers.
You got that in a week.
And how many do you have now?
Well,
the last time I looked
800,000, it's just on the verge of a million.
Yep, it is just on the verge of a million.
And Jake, what stories are you telling?
What? What do you want young people to know?
I'm telling the stories of my life
and
I, I,
I'm a unique person.
When I was 15 years old and my cousin Chick
was 15 years old,
he said we didn't have any money.
We're going to high school
with no money, so he said,
let's join the National Guard.
I said we got to be 15 or
18, he says. I said we're just 15.
He says let's go to the armor anyway
and tell him we want to join.
And we'll look them straight in the eye and say,
when they say, how old are you,
we'll say
1818. So we went to the National Guard,
and there was a huge captain sitting there.
He looked up and said,
what can I do for you young men?
Young men, See. Wow.
And I'm thinking 1818. And he says,
what year were you born?
Wow.
So I said 1919, Sir.
Sign right here. That's the only thing he asked.
We we both got into the National Guard
at 15. You wrote a book
and you told me that it's being used in high
schools
to teach kids. Yeah. Yeah.
Grade schools to high schools.
Yes.
It's an honor. Does that make you feel proud?
Proud.
I, I, I have the,
the, the, the University of,
of Delaware,
the history professor came from Delaware to California to interview
me.
He interviewed me for four hours.
He's used that book to train his future professors.
And now that interview is in Eisenhower Library
in Kansas today. It's 80 years since what you all
did.
So heroically, I, I don't think I was a hero.
I was just like anybody else.
We were all in this together.
I'm not a I'm not a hero.
I'm a
people keep calling me hero.
I changed that word. I took the O off of
a hero.
I had A to there and the people say well
what y'all here too?
I says I'm here to tell you that heroes are
up there.
They gave their life. They gave their life
so that I could make it.
My God, I had. I got a wife,
I got children. I got two boys and a girl.
I've got 9 grandchildren. I've got 11 great grandchildren.
I've got a grandson that's a grandfather.
And I'm still gone
crazy. Will you come back again?
Oh, God, yes. I'd come back again
just to honor all those that gave their life
so that I could be here.
Jake Larson, Thank you. Well,
thank you, Christiana.