Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness | Bobby Charles

Full Episode Transcript:

Rebecca Weber: Hello, everyone. I’m Rebecca Weber, and today’s interview is sure to lift you up and give you great hope. Joining me now is Robert, Bobby Charles, AMAC spokesman. Bobby, what a joy to have you with me this morning.

Robert Charles: I love being here, and this is the time of the year when we begin to really think positive things again, and I’m excited to be here.

Rebecca Weber: It really is. And what a thrill, Bobby, it is to see your new book out in hardcover and softcover and getting such good reviews. And I tell you, I’m thrilled to talk about this book because there’s so much in this book that more and more Americans, uh, will, uh, need to get their hands on but also hear about because these are the kinds of stories that really lift us up.

You’ve had positive words from Fox News, People Magazine, and a slew of other outlets and really high profile readers. This is a book entitled Cherish America Stories of Courage, Character and Kindness. Now, it took you six years to write, dozens of interviews, and then time researching these stories. Uh, but before we get into the specifics, can you tell us a bit about what inspired you to write this thrilling book of stories?

And maybe a bit about the four sections in the book, Cherish America, Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness.

Robert Charles: You know, Rebecca, I, uh, let me say this is truly a heartwarming book. This is a book that will make you feel good about America. It’ll make you feel good about your family. It makes you feel good about the people who are your neighbors.

And I think we’ve heard so much in recent years that was cynical and kind of, uh, Pushing us down and this book is based on faith and freedom and a feeling of, of, of, of trust again in, in our, in our fellow Americans. So what really caused me to write the book, to be honest, and we haven’t talked about this before, is that I read a book one time when my kids were reading the book, something about the history of history.

And one of the facts I remember from this book was that if you took all the books in the world, from all the libraries in the world, and you put them all together. In one place, it would be less than 1 percent of what actually happened. And so the only way that you remember things is by writing them down.

And in my view, the way that we remember things best is through stories. So in this book, as you just mentioned, uh, there are four sections. The first one is called, uh, courageous souls, and it’s, 10 or 15 people. It’s actually more than 15, I guess, in that first section who are people that did. There was a moment in time when courage was required of them.

Something extraordinary was required of them, and they didn’t know if they had the courage to do it, but they tried and they did it. Now, some of those are instantaneous. There’s a story about a young man who understands that a house is burning and he just instinctively goes into the house before the fire department can even get there and he saves the lives of two young children.

There are three stories about teachers who are former veterans. One World War II, one Korea, and one Vietnam. I’ll just focus on the Korean one. These are all people that I spent time with over the course of my lifetime. And, uh, the one in Korea. is a, is a, is a teacher, a math teacher, who actually turns out to have been the first donor of an organ to another person.

He gave his kidney to his identical twin brother and saved his twin brother’s life. They had never done an organ transplant before, and he insisted that they try it, at great risk to himself. Very unsung about it, never talked about it, always cheerful. Saved his brother’s life, and last year there were 300, 000.

organ transplants. So another one is one of my close friends who was one of the two F 16 pilots who was fully armed on 9 11 and how he felt about that 20 years later. Others are people that you’ve never heard of in your life but they did something truly heroic and, and some of them are mothers, some are fathers, some are nurses.

The second, Big portion of this book, which is also incredibly heartwarming is places where America has made an impact. And so I spend time on Normandy beach and walk the beach and tell you about it. I spend time in Poland during the period of time when, uh, when I was there during the period of time when Reagan was encouraging them and solidarity to, to, to reach for freedom.

Uh, another one is time when I was with Colin Powell, assistant secretary of state and around the world in places like Laos where People think, well, who could ever know what America was that far away? And, and yet we have this unbelievable footprint that we leave all over the world of goodness. And, and a lot of the, the theme in this book, a lot of the, the, the sort of cornerstone ideas are that, uh, Alexander de Tocqueville once said to us that, Um, America is good, is great because we are good.

And if we ever forget to be good or fail to be good, we will not be great. And so this is a reminder of what it means to be great. And in fact, your father is in this book, Rebecca, he’s in the, in the last section of the book, which has to do with being modern, a modern founder. And so. Alexander de Tocqueville, again, he fits perfectly into what Alexander de Tocqueville said would save this country.

Associations centered on freedom, and in particular on churches, but in general on freedom and on preserving our liberties were going to be essential to the preservation of the country. And AMAC, of course, was a brainchild of your father’s. Uh, your father and mother threw their entire life savings into it.

And it’s an example of what, uh, Really, America is all about the third section of the book, which is the one I omitted, is about time that I spent with Colin Powell. Very personal stories with Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, Colin Powell, and a few of the Apollo astronauts, including including Buzz Aldrin and those stories, which I can roll out for you further.

But the short of it is those stories are stories no one has ever heard that are, I’ve told, you know, earlier on, uh, you know, said to people like Buzz, Buzz, if we don’t write stories, These stories down. No one will ever know them. And, and, and so I’m going to write them down. And actually buzz was sufficiently impressed by the, I guess, the historic nature of what was going on in this book, all four sections, by the way, that he wrote the forward to the book.

So, uh, the truth be told, this is a book. that would make a great Christmas gift, it would make a great gift for anybody. But the reality is, of course, if you join AMAC and you get this book, uh, you join AMAC and you give four, four AMAC, uh, memberships away to your friends, you get books that you could, that are signed by me, that you can give away to your friends.

And I will tell you, no one, no one will regret getting this book. This is truly, I think it’s the best piece of writing I’ve ever done. And it’s really because it’s about people whose lives. Touched me in doing the interviews with them. Some of these people are just so profound. Rebecca, what they did in life, they don’t think is that important.

Um, some of them are military aviators. One of them is a friend of mine who has 41 saves in Afghanistan. He was a, he was a Blackhawk pilot in charge of saving people special operators when they got in trouble. And one of the stories is about he was on. So the short of it is, if you’re looking for something that makes you feel good about America, about your fellow citizen, um, those values that our parents and grandparents taught us, those are all wrapped up in this book.

And it’s a cherish America stories of courage, character and kindness. It’s just, it’s just a great book about how great Americans really are.

Rebecca Weber: Excellent. And what I really love about this is when people join AMAC for five years for a limited time, AMAC is giving away, including in that five year membership, a free signed copy of the book from you, Robert Charles.

So just by joining AMAC for five years right now, uh, this is really a truly a great way to lift yourself up. But also consider your loved ones, uh, friends and family, Christmas gifts. Uh, this is something that they will cherish forever. This is an evergreen book that can be passed on from generation to generation, really lifting up souls and, and spirits across America.

So I, I want to thank you, Bobby. This partnership has been incredible. Uh, the book is really wonderful. Uh, and I just love the chapter on Dan Weber, my father, really a very, very special, uh, uh, tribute to Dan and, and, uh, You know, his commitment to really improving America. And it reminds us, as you say, Bobby, that, uh, what a difference one man or one woman can make, never underestimate the difference that you can make in this world.

Get your hands on this book, incredible book, five year membership included their assigned copy. Um, Bobby, you’ve really had a very blessed life and, and what’s so special about that is you really appreciate that. And, and this book, you talk about the first chapter being, uh, words of really courage. The third p, I’m sorry, the, the, the first section rather, the third section of the book really focuses on gratitude.

Um, Can you share a little bit more about your personal time with Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan, maybe George Bush, Colin Powell, some of the Apollo astronauts, including your very long years of friendship with Buzz Aldrin?

Robert Charles: You know, you put your finger on something, Rebecca, that’s terribly important, and that is gratitude in life.

You know, we, uh, I, I’m a classic example of nobody gets anywhere without the help of others, and our parents are the starting point, our grandparents, and then we have friends, and, and so part of what is due from us, uh, and Colin Powell was very aware of it, is that we be equal to our time, and we help others at any given time.

On any given day at any given time being ready, waking up with that psychology that that we’re really here to help others. That’s that’s really the big mission. And, uh, you know, he would he was very big on mentoring kids, as you know, between his period of time as chairman of the Joint Chiefs and a secretary of state.

He led a group called America’s promise, which was really all about helping kids get forward in life. And so, you know, Ronald Reagan rightly And I, I know we all know this, but said, you know, freedom is only one generation away from extinction. Um, what he’s really talking about is we have to teach and these stories teach, they don’t, they don’t teach in an in your face kind of way.

They teach in a, in a gentle kind of very digestible way. I mean, you could get this book and give it to grandchildren. It’s a perfect book for that. It’s, it’s, it’s explaining the kinds of things that we all experienced. But that we sometimes forget to write down and we do. We all forget. I, I have long chunks of my time where I didn’t write down things and I wish I had because they were extraordinary, beautiful things that happened.

And I, I just sort of lived them. Maybe it was things that my kids said when they were growing up or, you know, that I just, I loved what was happening around me so much that I didn’t write it down. Well, these are things that do happen. And so, Ronald Reagan, for example, was a man who was not only incredibly funny, and his humor comes through in this book, I mean, you will laugh at some of the stories about Reagan, uh, but he was also an extraordinarily kind person.

And so, in his true life, day to day life, not on camera, off camera, he would do kind acts for people. In fact, I don’t have this story in the book, and I’ve never told it before, except right here on air right now. But when he was toward the end of his time, um, you remember that he had Alzheimer’s and he wrote a letter to the American people saying, I’m going to go through this last goodbye and I’m doing it to, you know, I wanted to highlight that I’m going through this just like anyone else would.

Would have to go through it, but people came back to me who are very close to him and said, you know, it’s extraordinary as the disease progressed. He never lost his kindness toward people. He always remained kind. He would hold an elevator door, probably. I couldn’t tell you in any depth what was happening, you know, in the world, but he was still kind by heart, Colin Powell, equally kind, and of course, Colin Powell had been Ronald Reagan’s national security advisor, traveling around the world with Colin Powell all over the world and being his assistant secretary.

One of the things that I experienced was that he, too, Uh, sort of embodied the idea that if you take care of your people, they will take care of you. This book has stories that prove that point. Whether the people we’re talking about are your family, your friends, your employees, your, your, uh, if you’re in business, business.

If you’re in government, government. Um, you know, Colin Powell was what you see is what you get. It’s just that behind the scenes, there was more of what you get. He was incredibly funny himself. You know, he, and so there are deeply endearing leadership stories about Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, um, and Colin Powell, I’ll say about Bush, one of the most extraordinary things about the most senior Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, again.

He was the um, naval aviator, youngest naval aviator in American, uh, history. He joined, uh, barely after 16, he was 17, and, uh, got shot down in the Pacific, delivered a, his payload from a burning plane. What people don’t know, incidentally, is that, and I interviewed, by the way, uh, family that were on the, uh, San Jacinto carrier when he, when he was recovered from that.

George Herbert Walker Bush did not come home with broken ribs and a broken jaw within 30 days. He was back in another Avenger flying off that carrier deck for America. So I, one of the stories in this book is that I tried very hard to, uh, elevate that idea in speeches that, that George Herbert Walker Bush gave, but he always took a red pen and It just would take these things that were about him out and, and this was at a time when, you know, he was running against Bill Clinton and I remember talking with the chief speech writer at the time and saying, why does he do that?

And he said, Bobby, um, we all try to get him to say those things. His view is that the American people either know he’s an American hero, a bona fide hero, or it’s not his responsibility. Right to tell them. So think about the kinds of leaders. We’re talking about Ronald Reagan and stories very personal about him George Bush and and Colin Powell.

These people personified real leadership and we really have a deficit. Uh, particularly in one party, but in general, we have a deficit of people at the state level and other levels who appreciate what it means to be a good, selfless, faith based servant of the people. And that’s what these people were. Uh, Buzz Aldrin, I’ll tell you, I’ll just, I’ll just tease a little bit here.

There are stories in this book that Buzz has never told about his own feelings about what he did. Korean War, uh, Gemini 12, Apollo 11, and how he and Neal. Armstrong actually almost did not get off the moon, uh, and it took resourcefulness. It took, uh, it took a kind of quick thinking for them to solve a problem that, uh, could have stranded them forever on the moon.

So this book is truly riveting and, and, you know, Dan Weber’s in this book, Rebecca, in that last chapter, because the last chapter has stories that people have never heard before about Thomas Jefferson. Uh, about, uh, John Adams. I mean, deep research on both of them, some exciting people in athletics and elsewhere.

But, but because they were founding fathers, your father fit beautifully into this book as a modern founder. So I encourage anyone who loves America, who loves AMAC, who loves the principles and the values of this country, and who feels a little bit starved, a little bit hungry for some of these stories, this is going to make you feel Great going to bed at night and great getting up in the morning and, and you will find yourself thinking, gosh, if I was in the place of that person, would I do what they did?

Would I have the courage to do that? Would I, would I, would I stop to do that? You know, little things that we get so distracted by the importance of the work we do every day that sometimes we just forget that’s the little things that matter. And, and so that these stories remind you of that.

Rebecca Weber: And if you want to be inspired, get your hands on this book.

Let me just remind people again, while you can order cherish America stories of courage, character, and kindness. You can get that on Amazon, Amazon. You can get a signed copy by signing up with a Mac for a five year membership right now. And incredibly with Christmas coming. You can get a signed copy for your closest friends, your loved ones, your family members.

Sign them up for five years and you’ll receive this incredible book, uh, included in your AMAC membership. Robert Charles, we have to leave it right there. That’s it for today, folks. I thank you all so much for joining me. Look forward to having you back again soon on another episode of Better for America.

God bless you all.