[intro music] [train station sounds] [station announcements] [squealing brakes] [station announcements] [indistinguishable chatting] [Jerry] I look out there now, I can't believe that we were enemies.

I mean, of the... fiercest kind of enemies.

They were fighting for their country.

We were fighting... for peace and freedom and revenge.

[President Roosevelt] December 7th, 1941-- a date which will live in infamy-- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

[roar of military weapons] [Jerry] When Pearl Harbor came, I felt devastated, like everybody in this country.

We all hated the whole country of Japan.

We all lined up.

There were 16 million of us.

It was my duty to go and protect my country, to go to war for my country.

[gentle music] I was a captain in the Army Air Corp, and I flew P-51s off of Iwo Jima.

I made 19 flights over Japan.

I'm sitting on a train in Japan, and I'm looking out the window 70 years later.

I'm just in my P-51, strafing and flying over Japan.

[roar of machine guns] My weapon was an airplane flying six machineguns that I used to kill my enemy.

It was a deep, deep hatred.

I never thought about them as being human beings.

[pensive music] When I came home from the war, I met Helene on Good Friday, 1949, on a blind date.

We got engaged on Memorial Day, five weeks later.

But I was damaged goods.

[pensive music] And for 30 years, we had no life.

I was married, I had four children, but I was...

I was not a decent human being, I was a killer.

[roar of aircraft] What a transformation it's been for me.

My life has taken a big turn.

Everything has flip-flopped.

[tense music] I'm in Japan now, alone.

First time without Helene on a trip.

And we're going to do something tomorrow to place some of her ashes in a temple.

We were married for a long time-- 65 years.

She loved Japan.

So half of her will be in Japan, which she loved, where she wants to be, in a temple.

And so I'm doing that because I feel that's what she would have liked to have done.

She made me happy, very happy.

[bell ringing] [ritual singing] [solemn music] [Jerry] Oh, boy.

[solemn music] [click of coffee machine] [blender whirring] [Jerry] Well, you sure come in and interrupt me.

Dad, you had all morning.

Okay, you had all morning to do this, okay?

[Steven] Dad, let me ask you a question.

How do you like living with your son?

That's probably the second-best thing that ever happened to me.

First best thing was living with your mother, but... [Steven] Okay, I'll take second.

- [laughs] Second is not bad.

- No.

[laughing] It's a pleasure living with you.

Well, thanks.

We get along good, don't we?

Yeah, right.

- [Steven] A bachelor pad.

- You're a mess to live with.

[Steven] No, that's not true.

That is not true.

[both laughing] [Steven] Okay, daddy.

[harmonica music] [Steven] Dad, we go to a restaurant, okay.

We go here.

You reach out to everybody.

That's what I enjoy doing.

I enjoy speaking to people.

And I think they enjoy speaking to me.

[laughing] For the last six months, she said, "What you're doing now, you should have been doing 40 years ago."

In a sense of speaking out, of reaching out to other people to connect.

[harmonica music] [Steven] Beautiful.

Beautiful.

I'd pay money for that.

[Jerry laughs] Not that much.

[Steven laughs] [humming of propellers] [children chattering excitedly] [Jerry] Hi!

How are you doing?

What grade are you guys in?

- [children] Fourth!

- Fourth?

How old are you, eleven?

- [children] Nine!

- [Jerry] Nine.

I did in World War II.

I flew this airplane when I was 18 years old.

No, I wasn't scared.

We were doing a job.

We had a job to do.

Let me show you a picture.

Come on over.

This is the day that I soloed in that airplane.

That's me in front of one of these airplanes.

Well, I was 18 years old, I mean I was young.

He wants to know how old I am now.

How old do you think I am?

93!

93!

That's my airplane.

Yeah, above the clouds.

P-51.

[children] Wow!

Yeah, I sat in this airplane for eight hours.

[children] Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

[children screaming excitedly] [Jerry] Oh, wow, look at that!

[laughs] [children chattering excitedly] [Jerry laughs] Aviation was always a big part of my life.

[piano music] When I was a young man, I delivered magazines in the neighborhood.

And I was given coupons that I could turn in for prizes, and I turned them in for balsa wood models of all the airplanes that were flown in World War I.

All the pilots were my heroes.

[piano music] I was always fascinated with airplanes.

I still am.

[laughing] I do.

It's rare, but I do fly.

Yeah, I love it.

Absolutely love it.

[loudspeaker] ...on the greatest generation of flying... [applause] [applause] I'm here with 16 million other young men and 8 million young women who served in World War II.

We lose every single day 22 veterans to suicide.

They take their lives.

We lost 7,000 veterans in 23 cumulative years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Every single year-- 22 a day, more than 7,000 a year.

And the parents and the sisters and the brothers and the children all suffer.

I would suggest that all of us who do something for a veteran join as a coalition and come together for one goal, and that is to get Iowa to be the lead state for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

[gentle music] [Jerry] Good morning, good afternoon.

I'm good.

How are you?

Here you go, Cal.

Thank you so much.

- [Cal] Thank you!

- [Jerry] I missed an "e." - There you go.

- [man] Thank you, sir.

[Jerry] Thank you.

Thanks, Mark.

I appreciate it.

[Mark] I really enjoyed your talk.

[Jerry] Thank you so much.

[woman] How are you?

Very good to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

- Rachel.

We finally got to meet you.

I'm just a lucky guy.

I survived the war.

I flew with 16 guys in my squadron alone who were killed.

16 guys in my squadron.

[man] Are any of those still alive?

[Jerry] Nobody's alive.

I'm the last guy.

I'm really the last guy around.

[distant siren] [Jerry] This Parkway didn't exist when I was growing up.

There were no such things as school buses.

I walked three to three and a half miles to school every day, each way.

I used to have friends that had a car.

But after they discovered I was Jewish, they never stopped to pick me up anymore.

I woke up one morning in 1937, and the whole side of my house was covered with swastikas.

I think it's this building, right here.

Right there.

I lived on the first floor in this apartment house, 85 years ago.

My goodness.

Brings back a lot of memories.

Some of them good, most of them not so good, because I moved 11 times in 12 years of school.

When it was the depression, my father really hardly ever worked.

People who had places to rent gave three months free rent.

If you moved in, in October, you only paid rent for nine months.

So, we moved every year to get free rent.

[Maxine] My dad, um... removed, isolated, unavailable.

very smart, and disturbed.

My mother adored Jerry, and I think probably my father felt shut out.

Jerry was locked in a conflict with my father.

[Jerry] I never had a good relationship with my father.

He traveled, was always away.

I was a fan of Fordham University football team, and then they were playing Army Fordham game in the Yankee Stadium.

My father came home and told me he was going to take two tickets to the football game.

And so I got dressed up to go, and he came up here to buy some cigars.

He met a guy in the cigar store, and he said, "What are you doing today?"

He said, "I'm going to a football game."

He said, "You got an extra ticket?"

He said, "Sure."

So he took that guy and left me sitting on the stoop.

I'm still sitting on a stoop waiting for my father to show up.

[melancholic music] And that's the apartment that I lived in when Pearl Harbor day came.

[car door banging] Hi guys, you live here?

You live in this apartment house?

I lived here in 1941.

My name is Jerry.

Oh, right.

Nice to meet you, Jerry.

- Oh, you got the handshake.

- I got the whole ballgame.

Yeah, I'm a brother.

- You legit.

- Yeah.

- You legit, Jerry.

I like you.

- Okay.

[laughs] I'll let you in the building.

[Jerry] My goodness.

Unbelievable.

[clanking of door] This is my elevator.

[laughs] It's a little smaller than I remember.

[knocking] - Hello.

- [woman] Yes?

My name is Jerry Yellin, and I used to live in this apartment - in 1941.

- [woman] Okay.

Would you mind if we came in and took pictures from the inside of me standing in my old apartment?

Thank you so much.

[dogs barking] [woman] It's a little bit messy.

[Jerry] Hello!

So this is the size of the apartment, right?

It's so small from what I remember.

[dogs barking] Oh, you make so much noise.

Have a bite.

You can have a bite.

I'd like to look into the bedroom.

Can I do that?

This was my bedroom with my sister, in here.

[child yells] Because we had two twin beds in here.

[music] [Maxine] I can still hear in my ear Franklin Delano Roosevelt's voice, Winston Churchill's voice, the terrible, agonizing sound of Hitler's voice.

The fear of the swastika.

The sense of antisemitism.

It was such a dark time.

I don't think anyone in your generation will ever understand how awful it felt to know these things were happening.

[Roosevelt] I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost.

I ask that the Congress declare a state of war between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

[applause, cheering] [Jerry] In this apartment, I had my mother and father sign the papers, when I was 18 years old.

[solemn music] I said, "I'm going to fly fighters against Japan."

[solemn music] Now I was doing what my heroes had done.

I was doing the same thing.

[humming of propellers] [solemn music] In about three or four days out at sea, all the pilots were called into a briefing room on the aircraft carrier.

We were shown a relief map of a small island called Iwo Jima, that was halfway between Guam and Japan, that the Marines were going to take.

And on March 7th, 1945, when the Marines had enough of the island to protect the fighter planes, we landed on a dirt airstrip at the foot of Mount Suribachi.

And as I was taxiing to our Follow Me jeep to our parking area, I saw mounds and mounds and mounds of dead Japanese bodies being pushed into mass graves.

And the Marine mortuary was right alongside of our parking area, and trucks were lined up full of American bodies.

[artillery fire] And on August 14th, 1945, I flew the very last combat mission of World War II.

On the morning of the 14th, we were taking off, we were told they were going to broadcast the code word "Utah"-- that the war would be over, we'd turn around and come back.

And we flew to Japan, we dropped our wing tanks.

Nobody heard the code word "Utah," we went in, and we're strafing airfields, not far from Tokyo.

And my wingman, Phil Schlamberg, from Brooklyn, New York, 19-years-old, was killed on that day.

So he was the last man killed in combat in World War II.

I knew it was okay for the Japanese to die, but I didn't think it was okay for the American guys that I knew to die.

[artillery fire] When I was flying in combat, I was doing the right thing.

But the fact that these guys died during the war, I never thought about them dying.

I thought they were transferred to another squadron, and that we'd meet again, that they were just not dead.

Because if I'd thought of death and dying for my country, for my people, I wouldn't have been able to fly airplanes.

[melancholic music] I almost felt unworthy of being alive, because these guys died.

I didn't feel worthwhile for myself, you know, that I was worth anything.

Because I flew with 16 guys, and I lived and they died, and I couldn't figure out why.

I was 21 years old.

[melancholic music] You know, I spoke to them every night.

When I went to bed, I saw them in my mind's eye.

[sorrowful music] There were 90,000 soldiers fighting on 8 square miles of land in Iwo Jima.

28,000 soldiers were killed.

You can emulate pictures and sounds, but you can never emulate the smell of 28,000 rotting bodies in the sun.

The smell of war.

[sorrowful music] The veterans were universally silent after.

They didn't share their experiences at all.

It's a universal way of dealing with a nightmare.

You don't wake up and try to relive your nightmare.

You run from it.

You run from it.

[pensive music] There were no words at that time for post-traumatic stress.

So, it was inexplicable.

People couldn't understand what was going on.

[Steven] I remember when we lived in New Jersey, and we went downstairs, and you had two things from the war-- you had that flag, the Japanese flag with some blood on it, - and you had that knife.

- Right.

- Right, that was it.

- That was it.

We didn't know anything else.

- Mom didn't even know.

- [Jerry] Nobody knew.

[Steven] You were very secretive.

[Jerry] I wasn't secretive.

It was on top of my mind all the time, but it was not something I wanted to talk about to anybody.

[Steven] You were a rudderless ship.

[Jerry] I was pretty much of a rudderless ship.

Look back at the places you lived, where we went, how often we went, changed locations.

[Maxine] He wasn't stable.

He had a hard time holding down, you know, one job after another, one place after another.

I think they moved close to 25 times.

[Michael] You know, he didn't really hold a job for that long.

We moved all over the place, you know, for who knows what reasons.

[quiet music] It must have been tough for my mom, I'm sure.

She just loved him, and she had to put up with a lot of... you know, crap.

[Maxine] I think probably the sweetest thing in his life was Helene.

[Jerry] I always thought I would remain in one place, because I moved a lot.

And I didn't.

They didn't go to one school system, they went to several school systems.

I don't remember really delving deeply into their lives as young people.

So they had to stand on their own, figure it out for themselves, which is not being a good father.

I took you to your tennis matches, and I took Michael and Robert where they had to go, but I really wasn't there.

[Michael] There were times it was tough growing up.

And I remember I must have been in my 20s, we had some arguments and fights, and I didn't really like being with him at times.

[Maxine] The first time that Jerry ever broke down and talked about the war, we went into a store called the Chicken Nest, and there were a vast amount of raw chickens in a case, and he broke down.

And he said, "That's what it looked like."

The dead bodies were lined up like these dead corpses, these chickens, and it flashed into his brain.

This is many, many years later that he ever even opened up about it.

[Michael] I think it was my 30th birthday, and we went to see Platoon, you know, the war movie.

And at the end of the movie, they're bulldozing bodies into this huge pit, and all of a sudden, he starts, you know, he's hysterical.

As we're coming out of the movie theater, he's hysterical, hysterical, crying, and...

I didn't understand and...

But he said that's how it was his experience there.

Just these mounds of bodies and...

I guess it just brought back this flood of memories, and he never really talked about it before that.

[Jerry] I thought about suicide every week for 30 years.

I was a very unhappy guy.

I'd stand at the window and think about jumping.

- [Steven] Did you really?

- I really did.

[Jerry] It was difficult living, and I felt that dying was easier than living.

I wanted to escape from the memories of killing people, from the memories of war, the memories of the guys that died in World War II.

I was told the war's over, forget about it.

But you... you can't forget about it, it's always there.

[tense music] [Steven] You couldn't do that to mom, to children.

Oh, I did it to Mom.

[Steven] You didn't commit suicide.

No, but she tried.

- We moved to Israel in 1966.

- [Steven] Right.

- [Jerry] In 1967, we came back.

- [Steven] Right.

[Jerry] She tried.

That was a difficult time.

Because of me.

I didn't realize it was because of me.

I thought this was what you did.

When you wanted to do something, you did it.

And I didn't have any thoughts about anybody else, it was all about me... for a long time.

[birds chirping] Morning.

I'm going to get a glass of water and meditate.

[Jerry] I was not a healthy individual until 1975, when Helene saw Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Merv Griffin Show.

And she decided she was going to learn transcendental meditation.

[show theme music] [applause] [Merv] I welcome you to California, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

I think I'll start off by saying I'm a meditator.

[applause] I've never felt better in my life.

It is terrific!

[applause] Transcendental meditation produces transcendental consciousness that the awareness transcends the limitations of experience.

[Jerry] And I learned in August of 1975, I learned how to meditate.

If I had not started transcendental meditation in 1975 and lost my anger, nothing in my life would have happened that is happening now.

And that was because she learned, and then I learned.

And... we grew together.

We never spent any time in the kitchen.

We were out around the world.

[meditative music] The silence that I get within myself twice a day, morning and night, sustains me, it keeps me leveled.

[meditative music] [Jerry] The nightmares stopped.

I stopped talking to the guys every night.

I stopped thinking about suicide.

It gave me the silence to think about life in a different viewpoint.

The reality of life and death and war and killing.

I felt a sense of well-being, a feeling of worth.

And I feel a lot of peace.

And that feeling stays with me now throughout the day.

I became a person, a real person, which I wasn't before.

One of the key major activities is putting socks on.

When you get old, you can't bend over too far.

Soon, very soon, there'll be nobody left from World War II.

We're dying at the rate of 30-35,000 a month.

When I speak, and I speak a lot around the country, I feel as if I'm representing 16 million people who can't talk about what they did.

And that's what I'm going to continue to do.

It's my life.

Doing this is my life.

[man] How do you introduce people that were called "the greatest generation"?

They are in their late 80s and early 90s.

We are losing them at an ever-faster pace.

But in their life and death cycle, they continue to inspire.

Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in honor and respect, and let me introduce to you Captain Jerry Yellin and his band of 16 million brothers.

[applause] [Jerry] In 1983, I was somewhat of an expert in real estate.

I was a consultant to the Bank of California, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.

And the vice-chairman of the Board of Mitsui Bank Group asked me if I would go to Japan and speak to their Group about investing in American real estate.

And I thought for a few seconds, and I said, "No."

I hated them all of my life, and I didn't want to go to Japan.

I came home that night, I said, "I just turned down a trip to Japan."

My wife looked at me and said, "You didn't ask me."

In October 1983, we went to Japan.

[laughter] And I'm looking up through the buildings, and I see the B-29s in my mind's eye dropping bombs, and they're dropping the bombs on me.

And I had to conduct my business and get out of the city.

I couldn't stay there.

And we went on a train from Tokyo to Mount Takao.

So we got on a subway car, and I'm sitting across a little boy, maybe three or four years old.

I had a big mustache then.

I looked at him, and he looked away.

And then he looked at me, and I looked away.

And I put my hands out like this, like a "come to me" thing, and he jumped off his mother's lap, stood on my lap, and he's playing with my mustache.

[laughter] And the whole car roared!

I mean, it was funny, it was human, it was beautiful.

[pensive music] And I saw Japanese veterans live for the first time since World War II.

I saw wounded Japanese veterans sitting in front of a chapel on a blanket-- one with no arms, one with no legs-- selling pencils.

And I had the overwhelming feeling that I wanted to embrace them.

I really wanted to just hug them.

That was the first experience I ever had with a live Japanese soldier.

[pensive music] The last night we were there, we're out in the gardens, and Helene looked at me and she said, "You know, Jerry, Robert would love Japan."

[Robert] My dad found an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times, circa 1983, Homestay Program.

"Rob, you want to go to Japan for three weeks?"

Because he heard from my mother that Robert would like Japan.

So I went for three weeks, and they thought that would be it.

But three weeks wasn't enough, and I said I wanted to go back for another year to teach English.

When I got off the plane, it was pretty much like I felt that, like, "Yeah, this is where I'm supposed to be."

And I met this woman, and I said, "Do you want to get married?"

And that's when I think the sparks really shot off in his head.

Because it wasn't just me visiting now, it was me marrying and... rooting a life there, possibly.

And 43 years after the war, my youngest son was in Japan and wanted to marry the daughter of a Japanese kamikaze pilot.

[quiet music] [Jerry] Taro Yamakawa, a man who had three hours in a Zero, and was assigned to be a kamikaze pilot.

He and another man were shipped to China to service Zeros.

And all the guys that he trained with killed themselves as kamikaze pilots.

He was the only man that lived.

[Steven] When Robby moved to Japan, I thought to myself, "My father strafed the city that he's in now.

Robby is living in that city now.

He is getting married, he's going to have children.

Oh, my goodness."

[Jerry] He looked at me and said, "Dad, Takako and I want to get married."

And I saw the faces of the 16 young men that I flew with flash through my head.

And I looked at him, I said, "What does her father say?"

And he said he won't meet me.

I got a little relief from that.

He wouldn't meet me for months and months and months.

Finally, there was a family gathering.

The three older brothers, me, and they were grilling me: "Who are you?"

"Where are you from?"

"What do you want to do?"

"Tell us about your father."

"Oh, okay."

"Was he involved in the war?"

"Er... yeah...

He was a fighter, he was a pilot."

"What did he fly?"

"P-51s."

"And where did they fly from?"

"Iwo Jima."

And that's when the meeting stopped.

He went home and said to his wife, "Make the wedding."

She went ballistic.

She said, "For 43 years, you've been telling me that you didn't die for your Emperor, you never fired a bullet to the Americans.

Why do you want them to get married?"

And he said... "Because any person who flew a P-51 and survived is a man of courage."

[Michael] And he wants the blood of...

Such an honorable man to run through... ...right, to run through the veins of his children.

[quiet music] [Jerry] So on March 5th, 1988, nearly 43 years to the day that I landed on Iwo Jima, I went to a Japanese ceremony in Japan.

After the wedding, he and I went into this hot bath, with a translator, and spoke for three hours.

He asked me about the war, he asked me about flying, he asked me about my religion, he asked me about everything!

And I the same of him.

When we came out, he said in Japanese, to the translator, that he never knew there were other people in the world who felt the same way spiritually, educationally, familywise.

And we bonded, and we became brothers.

[inspiring music] He was a very honorable man, really a good guy.

We had some good times together, traveled together.

[slow whooshing of train] [Jerry] He loved flying.

When he was a young guy, he'd watch the airplanes fly over this area.

And uh... kind of an interesting guy, he was uh... yeah, he was a really...

Your age, how old?

[Jerry laughs] No.

[laughs] I don't catch one word that anybody says.

Not one.

[chuckles] [quiet music] Taro Yamakawa was my enemy, and then my friend, and then my family.

He passed away three years ago, and this is where his soul rests now, in Tokyo.

Our grandchildren are here because of Taro Yamakawa.

He was a very important man in my life.

I learned a lot from him.

[light music] Sparklers!

Hey, not too close!

Freedom!

Peace!

[Jerry] Here is [Ken]!

And Takako!

Hey, Rob!

- [Boy] Sit over here.

- [Robert] Okay.

[Jerry] Simon!

- Hi!

We're on the train.

- [Jerry] Hi!

- All aboard!

- [Jerry] All aboard!

[relaxing music] [Robert] I live here, and we run an art gallery, featuring some of the finest contemporary Japanese ceramic art.

[Robert] It means my spot, my place.

You know, I connect with it.

There's lots of wisdom how to live, still to be found.

[Jerry] But look at this place, Bob.

Have you seen this before?

[Robert] It's my first time.

[Jerry] Look at the beauty here!

This is what your mother saw that brought you to Japan.

[Robert] Wow.

[Jerry] This place, it never went out of my head, ever.

[Robert] Couple of lotuses still.

[Jerry] Yeah.

[relaxing music] [Jerry] This is home to me.

This is as much a home to me as America, because my family lives here.

[relaxing music] I became a very fortunate guy, and I found peace in my heart and peace in my life.

By what I learned from my children's experience in life and from what they did, I became a better man.

[relaxing music] [restaurant sounds] Courtesy of my family.

This is it.

Okay, Jerry.

Here's yours.

What a privilege to be here.

Right, well.

Nothing better than the family coming together in Kyoto.

- Nothing better than that.

- Right.

[Jerry] We're in a museum that depicts the life of the Japanese prior to World War II and then after World War II.

Hmm.

When I walk through the museum, I'm looking at a life that I knew nothing about, scenes of a life that I knew nothing about.

Those are P-51s flying over Japan, on the wing of a B-29, that's navigating us.

I could be in one of those airplanes, a picture of me.

Unbelievable.

I was a happy guy killing people, killing my enemy... then.

Now, they're my family, we're all human beings.

This is an adventure, I would never think about this.

Holy moly!

That's incredible.

I'm wondering, is this a replica or this is actually the uniform?

It fits me.

Size 40.

[girl] Wow.

[clears throat] Wow, that is a "wow."

Can I take it home?

[laughs] New style.

Take it home.

This seems to be ashes or... - [girl] It's a bunker.

- A bunker?

Oh, it's a bunker!

I need a hand.

Oh, I got it.

In Japanese, they say, "Old a man."

[laughs] Oh, my.

[air raid siren] [plane roaring] That's the roar of a B-29.

That's an airplane sound from the ground.

Then the bombs.

Hard to imagine.

It didn't last very long.

[rumble] Oh, my.

I feel the vibrations.

Unbelievable.

[whistling of falling bombs] [rumble] Incredible feelings... of what did we do?

What's it all about?

What's war about?

[rumbling] [melancholic music] [Michael] There was just this coming out that in his later couple of decades of his life, he was on a mission to tell a story of healing, of reconciliation, and of peace.

[emotional music] [Don Brown] I'd like to take a moment now to present to you Captain Jerry Yellin.

[applause] My life was changed dramatically, first by the war, and then by my children, because I learned from all of them that you and I cannot be what we've been taught to believe about other people.

That we are all the same as human beings in the eyes of nature.

We're not what we believe, we're not the language we speak, and we're not the color of our skin.

At 93 years old, I have a pure purpose of my life and that's to tell my story.

I've learned more from my children than I could ever teach them.

We are not Christians and Jews and Buddhists and Muslims.

We are all part of the human race.

We're all exactly the same.

Today, my family is the family of the world.

Peace and healing is foremost in my thoughts.

It should be all foremost in your thoughts.

And the only way that that can happen is if you reach out to other people who are different than you, so that they can understand that we all are exactly the same as human beings.

We are all human beings together on this planet.

Period.

End of conversation.

I thank you for your time.

[applause] [hum of airplane] [children chattering excitedly] [chuckles] I'm having the best time.

Everybody having a good time?

[children] Yeah!

[Jerry laughs] [boy] What did your airplane look like?

[clicking of golf ball] [Steven] You hit it 200 yards!

Well, 160, another 30 yards-- 190 anyhow.

[laughs] [Steven] Wow!

[Steven] Oh!

That's a par!

Give me five.

[The hole, it's on that one!]

[chuckles] - I hate ya!

- Holy moly!

[laughing] [Steven] Great par, dad.

You told me many times you think you're in the prime of your life, right?

I do.

Yeah.

Every day.

That's quite a statement, 93-years-old, you're in the prime-- I'm in the prime of my life because I have life.

I have life.

Why aren't you afraid of death?

Because that's just part of life.

It's part of living.

We took half of my wife's ashes to Japan, to a temple.

It was an incredible moment.

So half of her ashes are in Japan.

My ashes and her ashes will be combined.

I'd like our ashes to be buried in Arlington Cemetery with my buddies, with the people who were killed in wars.

[Jerry] There we go.

[man] That's very good.

Do you need to lean on my shoulders?

[Jerry] I got it.

[man] You got it.

[Jerry] I'm in.

Are we ready, Mike?

[Mike] All set!

[propeller whirling] [soothing music] [buzz of propellers] [soothing music] [Jerry] Life is life.

It keeps going on.

Changing.

We all live.

How we live is our choice.

What we do is our choice.

How we conduct ourselves is our choice.

But life is not our choice.

It's a gift, and... it's best to enjoy it because I think you only get one time around.

That's the way I feel.

If you don't enjoy it now, you're never going to have another chance.

[uplifting music] [uplifting music continues] [peaceful music] [clattering of horse hooves] ["taps" call] ["taps" call] [planes roaring] [pensive music] [contemplative music]