WEBVTT

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(soft orchestral music)

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- [Woman] I have always been in awe of what he survived.

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I know his strength helped him through

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in more trying times of his military career.

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This is my father, Wallace Kirkpatrick.

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He was born in East Texas

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and I am his third daughter,

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I am Tara Kirkpatrick.

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What about the attack on Pearl Harbor made you decide?

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- Well I started to see.

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- [Announcer] President Roosevelt said in a statement today

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that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor.

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- [Wallace] The attack on Pearl Harbor, my brother and I

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were sitting in the car together and heard it,

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and look he says, and I said well,

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how long before we're going?

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- [Announcer] Now that's where you come in.

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The Army Air Forces need 15,000 captains,

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40,000 lieutenants.

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- [Wallace] I looked around, finally joined the Air Corps.

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- [Tara] My grandmother had a scrapbook

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that had in it telegrams and newspaper articles,

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so I knew that he had been a POW,

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but he didn't talk about it until I was

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in high school or college.

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And he has tried to put that whole POW experience

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on the down low because he feels like he didn't do much,

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he was shot down on his third mission.

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So he feels like he didn't do that much for the effort

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in World War Two, but he did, he was in that

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prisoner of war camp and he survived.

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He took the place of somebody that might not have

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been able to survive the hardships in the camp.

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One of the things that he's always said

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is no hill for a climber, and so we always

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will say that to each other, that you know,

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if we're in a tough time and that's,

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that's what we need to think of

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is that we don't give up, keep trying.

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That experience did not define his life,

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that was not what he lived for.

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Yeah?

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- Klim cans.

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- What's that mean?

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- [Announcer] It's here that lasting friendships

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are made because you and your teammates

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are aiming for the planes...

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- [Tara] I think that his experiences

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in the military, in the Air Force shaped the future

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because of what my generation, my siblings,

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and our children, and their children see

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and will see of the work that he did

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and the life that he made with his wife and his kids,

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and they'll know that they can accomplish great things,

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and they can live a full life and be proud of it.

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(soft piano music)