BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

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This is a housekeeping show to let everyone know when the George Bush series will be returning to the podcast. It will also fill you in on what we have been doing and what else we have in store over the next few weeks. 

We hope you are enjoying the various new things and subjects we have been trying to cover. Please let us know what you think. 

Randal 

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In one of the true honors of our host Randal Wallace's career has been his appointment as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the South Carolina Hall of Fame.  2024 marks the first time Mr. Wallace would preside over the induction ceremony of honorees inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame.  He decided that we would make a podcast covering the event. 

In this two part episode we look on at the 2024 Induction Ceremony honoring Francis Salvador, Rudy Manke and Joe Frazier.  We begin by looking at the honorees and their lives. 

Francis Salvador was an American Revolutionary figure who was also the first Jewish person elected to public office in America, and the first Jewish person to die fighting for independence in America. 

Rudy Mancke, the host of SC ETV's Nature Scenes television show that became a national broadcast introducing young people all over the country to the natural world around us, a show featuring  a host who so clearly loved his job and the natural world he was exposing his audience too. Nature Scenes ran for 23 years. 

Smokin Joe Frazier was the undisputed World Heavyweight Boxing Champion who was the first man to defeat Mohammad Ali at Madison Square Garden in the first of a three fight series that are easily the most famous boxing matches in the entire history of the sport.  To say that Joe Frazier was a giant in the sport of boxing is an understatement of huge proportions. He shared the ring with some of the greatest athletes of the era and one of them, George Foreman, is quoted as saying that Joe Frazier was the one opponent he feared. 

We also are proud to share with you on this podcast a Question and Answer segment with the son of honoree Joe Frazier, Joe Frazier Jr. It is an inspirational talk with the young people of Myrtle Beach S.C, and it is a segment they won't ever forget and you won't either. 

We also spend a couple of minutes learning about the history of the Hall of Fame with one of its founding Board members and former long time Chairman , Former Myrtle Beach Mayor Robert Hirsch. 

We hope you enjoy this first of two episodes on the South Carolina Hall of Fame and its newest honorees. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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In our final episode in this special series we will listen in as Mayor Hirsch talks about his wife of many years, Ethel Hirsch. Her many contributions to his successful life, and career, and the raising of 10 children.  The real keys to happy life are right here to be learned in this special story. 

We will also listen , in its entirety, to the speech that inspired this special series in the first place. When Mayor Bob Hirsch addressed the ceremony at the Grand opening of the Myrtle Beach World War 2 Memorial. It was an extraordinary  address that captured all the high points, emotions, and the sense of adventure that came from the generation that fought this horrific War. 

We then switch gears to hear some advice for the future leaders  who are now taking their seats at the table of government and for the next generation of young people who are just starting out in life too. 

It is an episode of sound advice from our local example of all the great lessons of leadership we should be learning from the example set by the Greatest Generation. 

It has been an honor to produce these seven episodes. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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In this episode, in our special series, looking at the career of former Mayor Robert Hirsch, we look back at his arrival in Myrtle Beach and his single term as Mayor. It was a term of extraordinary accomplishment, much of which may not be as well known by the public in general today.  Myrtle Beach today is the fastest growing region in America, a far cry from where it was in the early 1970s.

When Mayor Hirsch was elected in 1973 , the City of Myrtle Beach was operated under an entirely different form of government than it is today.  In that time the Mayor ran the city and each council member ran a separate department of the city government.  That system was the first thing Mayor Hirsch worked to change, leading a movement that changed the form of government to the type of city government structure we have today, a Council-Manager form of Government. Where a professional Manager runs the day to day operations of the city and the Mayor and Council are a policy setting body.  When that referendum was held in the early 1970's the citizens of Myrtle Beach voted for it overwhelmingly. 

Mayor Hirsch also led the way to adopting the zoning and building code document that has served as the foundation for the way the city operates to this day. He worked with Senator Strom Thurmond and Congressman John Jenrette to get joint runway use for commercial flights to begin coming to the City of Myrtle Beach, opening up an entirely new way to bring tourists into our community.  It is hard to imagine the city of Myrtle Beach even functioning without those three major initiatives, that Mayor Bob Hirsch spearheaded, not being in place. They are so integral to how the city functions that they are often today taken for granted as a given. 

When Mayor Hirsch left office he was immediately recruited by the new Republican Governor in the State, James Edwards, to head up the Energy Department for South Carolina and later to join his staff. His work in that realm actually contributed greatly  to Jim Edwards being selected to go to Washington D.C. to lead the Energy Department under President Ronald Reagan. For a brief time there were even calls for Bob Hirsch to run for Governor of South Carolina.  However, Bob Hirsch decided to come home to Myrtle Beach where he would serve another term as a city councilmember here a decade after leaving Columbia.

Bob Hirsch would also through out the next half century serve as the Chairman, and as a  Board Member of the South Carolina Hall of Fame, and under his leadership it became one of the highest honors available for any citizen to achieve in our state, to be inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame. 

In this episode we will listen in as Mayor Hirsch recalls the moments in those years that made all of that possible. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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In our third episode of the Grand Strand Politics segment, we witness what we thought was going to be the first of many rallies in the Myrtle Beach area as we got closer to a barnburner of a fight in the South Carolina Presidential Preference Primary on the Republican side this year.  Instead, it appears the race was over within 48 hours of that rally.

In this episode we shall see the power play that shutdown the primary election cycle turning it from a contested battle between four candidates, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Asa Hutchinson. To a two person race, in name only,  between Former President Donald Trump and former United Nations Ambassador and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.  In just one day, you see us go from a super charged Ron Desantis rally in Myrtle Beach, we covered for you live, to Senator Tim Scott's endorsement of Trump, and then a rally that very night  in New Hampshire that literally made you wonder if the entire State Leadership of South Carolina had come to New Hampshire and left South Carolina with only a lonely Maytag Repairman watching over the State.

It was a who's who of South Carolina's political figures, Governor Henry McMaster, Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette, SC House Speaker Meryl Smith, Congressmen Joe Wilson and William Timmons,  State Attorney General Alan Wilson, State Treasurer Curtis Loftis,  and our state's newest and biggest political rockstar, Congressman Russell Fry, all on stage, to endorse and support, former President Donald Trump.

What happened next, for all intents and purposes, ended the Republican Presidential Primary, with Governor Ron DeSantis dropping out and Asa Hutchinson being swamped on election night and only Nikki Haley refusing to leave the race. It appears to me the 2024 Presidential Primary on the Republican side is over before it ever really got started, though we may still see an attempt at a challenge from Nikki Haley who is currently a whopping 60 points down in her own home state.

You can listen to it all unfold in this episode of Grand Strand Politics as we set the stage for the coming South Carolina Presidential Primary, that may, or may not, end up even contested in the end.

Theme song is  Produced by Danya Vodovoz, link to my song   https://youtu.be/NRxduUMZcdw

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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In this special Edition within our special series I thought it was important to introduce you to three of the names you have heard or will hear in our series.  As a person in my 50s who has worked in or around politics my entire life these names are familiar to me.  That may not be the case for so many of our listeners who are either younger or not from South Carolina. 

Strom Thurmond, the former Senator from South Carolina, was as dominate a political figure in my home state for decades as any name you will ever know. He literally served in political office for 72 years and up to the age of 100.  Governor Jim Edwards, the first Republican Governor in South Carolina since Reconstruction, was also a well known figure for many years. Both men have also been out of public office for more than 20 years or longer. I thought it would be important to introduce you to both men so that our younger listeners can grasp how important they were in their time. 

I also have learned  in the three years and 12 seasons we have been producing these documentary podcasts that you end up with great materials that don't actually fit into your narrative. In the case of General George Patton we had that issue. Mayor Hirsch met Patton while he was fighting in the war but he headed home before the General died in a car accident near Christmas of 1945.  

We found an extraordinary documentary short on Patton's life from the time of his death and it was narrated by Ronald Reagan. We wanted to share that short audio with our audience but could not find a place where it would fit. So we thought we would share it here. The same for another interesting story told by Mayor Hirsch that involved the star of our current long series , President George H. W. Bush. We thought that would be a great story to share here in this episode as well. 

We hope you will enjoy this episode of what we like to call our "DVD Extras" 

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As the War came to its end it brought about the confirmation that up to that point had been known but not confirmed. That the horrific genocide of a people had gone on throughout Europe. The Deathcamps that were discovered , one by one , by the Allied troops as they moved closer to Germany, from all directions, had practiced such organized, horrific, cruelty, that even these most hardened of war veterans could barely talk about it over 80 years later. Which we will hear when we ask about it. The short answer given by Mr. Hirsch is as powerful a moment as we will hear in these interviews. 

We will also hear the radio broadcasts marking the deaths of Franklin Roosevelt,  Adolf Hitler, and finally the surrender of Germany itself.  We will then hear the stories of how pilot Bob Hirsch flew the displaced persons to the new places that they were to go to be housed in, having lost everything, from their homes, and businesses, to their entire families. 

Then, just as Bob Hirsch is sent to Paris, France, to pick up his plane to be flown around the World to the Pacific Theater. His orders are suddenly changed, and he and his fellow troops are left to wonder,  why? 

Then we will focus in on the Potsdam Conference, the bluff to the Japanese Government, and the decision to drop an atomic bomb on Japan, that will finally bring this horrifically, bloody war, to its end. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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Operation Market Garden was an enormous effort led by General Montgomery that included 41,268 troops from Allied countries. It was designed to capture several bridges so that the Army could cross over into Germany and , with any luck, end the war by Christmas of 1944.  The overall effort failed because the German forces fought hard to defend the bridges and they had help from the weather. 

This operation  was where Bob Hirsch was extremely active throughout and his stories will hold you spellbound as you hear about his return with a plane with 85 bullet holes, or death of a  jumpmaster killed by bullets that hit him as soon as the jump door opened, or the need to slowdown to allow two paratroopers with parachute problems to jump, to late for their targets, but still over enemy territory.  

This is a fascinating look at Operation Market Garden that was the inspiration for the movie " A Bridge to Far". Then we will follow our troops as they head into the Battle of the Bulge and on to the final days of the War.  

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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Operation Overlord, known to the world as D-Day, was the beginning of the end for the Nazi Regime of Adolf Hitler.  It was the start of the Allied march across the European Continent.  Bob Hirsch had not yet arrived in England in time to take part in the invasion.  However, a decade ago he sat down with Rod Gragg of Coastal Carolina University and participated in several interviews about his experiences as a pilot that carried paratroopers over enemy lines.  Those interviews were a part of two videos we are using in this series :  "Military Memoirs" and "A Salute to American Veterans : Death Drop and the 82nd Airborne in the D-Day Battle of Normandy"

The latter video, "Death Drop" ,  is an extraordinary look at the air campaign that was such a major part of the success of D-Day. In this episode we have attempted to take our former Mayor's extraordinary insights of the air and paratrooper campaign and combine it with a fascinating look at D-Day Veterans and their account of those events from  a documentary titled "D-Day, Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944 Volume One" by Voices of History and documentarian Larry Cappetto.
{ Documentary Filmmaker Larry Cappetto
Voices of History YouTube Channel
Voices of History Radio Station, (KVOH)}

These veterans were on the ground or in the boats who came ashore on the beach's of France.  We also found several radio broadcasts recorded live in the middle of the night on June 6, as the folks on the Homefront were trying to find out for sure if the invasion had actually begun. 

I hope to give you a feel for how everyone felt, and what they dealt with as this historic day unfolded, be it from the air, ground, or back home, worrying about the boys so far from home. 

This episode also sets the stage for the situations to come for our former Mayor, Bob Hirsch, as he arrived on the seen to take part in the final crusade to liberate the enslaved people of Europe. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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Welcome to a very special edition of shows over the next couple of weeks.  Over the next seven episodes we will be looking back at the extraordinary life of the former Mayor of my hometown, of Myrtle Beach S.C.  His name was Robert J. "Bob" Hirsch and he recently celebrated his 100th birthday. In another milestone, for our community, City Councilman Phil Render, himself the son of a World War 2 Veteran, achieved the passage of a Myrtle Beach World War 2 Memorial that is located near the entrance way to the Market Common area of Myrtle Beach in Warbird Park.  Market Commons is located in the footprint of the old Myrtle Beach Air Force Base. 

Mayor Bob Hirsch was the Keynote speaker at the event when the World War 2 Memorial was opened to the public.  It was there, while I was recording the event, for an earlier episode of our podcast that it hit me that Mayor Hirsch would be the perfect first guest for an interview on his life and career. This podcast was originally a show dedicated to reviewing the Leadership Lessons we could learn from a generation of Americans, born in the height of the Great Depression, who were forced to go to World War, and then came home to build the American Century that has afforded all of us a quality of life only dreamed about in most of the rest of the World, and by earlier generations of Americans too. 

While this show has centered on the Cold War Presidents, and other well known political figures, we have in Mayor Hirsch the living embodiment of all of those lessons living right here in our town. I am sure that communities all over America and the World have similar figures, often unsung heroes, who exemplify these same leadership traits.  I thought as a I sat there listening to the Mayor's speech what a gift we could be given to examine his life as an example all of us could learn from and follow. 

In this first episode, we shall re-live the start of World War 2, and listen in as he describes how he, and all those like him, had to step up to take on the Nazi nemesis and that of Imperial Japan.  We will also look back on the dawn of June 6, 1944 and the invasion that spelled the beginning of the end of World War 2. While Mayor Hirsch arrived just days after the invasion he will shed amazing light on the incredible stories of that day, and the rest of the march across Europe to the end of the bloodiest war in history. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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