Saturday, my assignment at the National World War II Museum was to be a monitor in a section known as the Contemporary Arts Center. I showed up at 2 pm for my 2:30 start, not having done this before and wanting to be briefed by whoever had the position prior to my shift. I signed in, got my badge, and worked my way through the massive crowds to the CAC. “Stand here and open the door for people,” said Walt, my supervisor. Okay. I can do this. An hour later, he moved me into the CAC to check people’s badges or bracelets to make sure they were in the correct place. That’s where I stayed the rest of the afternoon, monitoring two sessions with several veterans on each panel.

The first panel discussion involved three fighter pilots in the War and was scheduled to go from 2:45 until 4:00 pm. Here’s what happened. The first pilot was fascinating but spoke in short sentences and brief paragraphs. Ten minutes into the program and he’s through. Then the second one spoke. Different story. He was a good storyteller and had a terrific story to tell, one that went on and on. He had become an Ace in the war, shooting down 5 enemy planes. As he moved his story from scene to scene, I glanced at the moderator, a professor I suppose, standing at the podium and charged with moving the discussion along and keeping it on schedule. At 4 o’clock–the announced time for this session to end–the Ace is just getting wound up. On and on he went. At 4:15 pm, some people are getting up and leaving and a few are arriving for the next session. At 4:20 pm, the museum people turned the lights on full, hoping he would get the point, I guess. He finally did and everyone clapped. Meanwhile, pilot number 3 had sat there silently the entire time. He had come all this way–from wherever he came–and the second speaker had used all his time. As the crowd applauded, he held his hand up and the emcee quietened everyone. The pilot spoke two sentences–I didn’t get what he said–and that was that.

Museum people standing near me in the rear could not believe what was happening. “We instruct our moderators how to lead these meetings,” one said. Another said, “Someone is supposed to be down front holding up signs saying ‘five minutes’ and ‘one minute.'”

Now, the crowd loved the fighter ace and they had sat on the edge of their seats, drinking in his stories. Problem was he completely shut out the third guy. Was it thoughtlessness or selfishness or old age or what? Perhaps it was a failure to properly brief the speakers. I don’t know.

“I can assure you that moderator will never be asked to emcee another panel here,” someone behind me said.

While that panel was going on and I was standing in the back of the conference center checking the badges of late arrivals, the octogenarian WAC whom I had seen speaking Thursday afternoon walked up and stood nearby. I went over and introduced myself to Dr. Lynn Ashley of Cincinnati. “I’m 85 today,” she said, beaming. What a lovely lady and so youthful. “I do my exercises every day,” she informed me. She rides the stationary bike. During the War she served as a WAC at Carlsbad, New Mexico. “I was the original Rosie the Riveter,” she said. “I worked for 60 cents an hour.” Wish I had heard more of her story.

I told her my wife and I have a disagreement about her uniform. “My wife says you had a new one made. I say this is your original.” She said, “Your wife is right. The originals were lightweight khaki. We were in the heat of New Mexico, you understand.” This one was the standard olive drab dress uniform.

“We’re staying at the Hotel du Circ,” she said. That’s right by Lee Circle on St. Charles Avenue, facing the statue of Robert E. Lee. “I wish I could get my flight changed. I’m not due to leave until Monday. But it costs too much to change.” I said, “What are they paying you to speak here?” “Room and board.”

The second panel of the afternoon was a World War II buff’s dream. Among the participants was Joachim Hoehne, a German glider pilot whose father had been a famous World War I pilot in the same squadron as Baron von Richtofen, famous as the Red Baron. “Joe” Hoehne was captured and became a POW, then after the war ended up in Houston, and from there landed just up the road in Denham Springs, LA, where he now lives. “I have a nice house and a pool and everything. I love America.”

Edward Horton was a bomber pilot with Jimmy Doolittle in the famous 1942 raid on Tokyo. I had seen him earlier in the foyer being interviewed by a number of young military men, all of them awed by his presence. He was telling about landing his plane in China and how he had been treated. Nearby someone said that Mr. Horton had no idea what he would say on today’s panel, that he said he would figure it out on the spot. Well, when they introduced him, he began with, “After we bombed Tokyo, I had to put my plane down in China and I stayed there a year and a half.” I sat there thinking, someone needs to give these guys a little guidance. Everyone here stands in awe of this man and his accomplishments and he scarcely mentions the good part. He was too brief, unlike the Ace who had sat at the same table earlier.

Angela Johnson sang with the USO for a couple of years. They showed a publicity photo from 1942 and then she spoke. The years have been most kind to this lady, still as lovely now in her mid-80’s as then. She had been a ballerina and a coloratura soprano.

“I heard they’re going to have this conference next year, too,” Dr. Lynn Ashley asked. “I have not heard that,” I said, “but I sure hope so.”

The publishers of “World War II” magazine–Jim and Heidi–whose display was near my assigned spot, chimed in. “There are so many stories here this week, and each person has lots of stories. But they’re all at the age where we’re losing thousands a week. We have to get these stories now while they’re still available.”

One of the surprises of this conference was how many teenagers were present. I said to a mother of three boys, “I’m confident much of this bores them, but I guarantee you when they are as old as Mom, and all these veterans are in Heaven, they’ll read up on World War II and be so pleased they were here, that they saw these guys personally and heard them. And they’ll wish they had paid more attention.” She said, “Oh, they love listening to them. The boring part is the long lulls between conferences.”

We ministers and associational director of missions are frequently called on to lead discussions. In my case, I lead one every Wednesday morning from 10 to noon–our weekly pastors meeting. Since this gathering is so regular, our guys do not need instructions on how long you have, what subjects to talk about, when to cut it off. If it were a one-time thing, that would be a different story. And once in a while, we’ll have a visitor who requires some gentle prodding from the podium to either stay on the subject or give someone else time to speak. That’s the leader’s job. If I fail, the losers are all those hardy souls who have to listen and the next speakers whose time this guy is using up.

As a young pastor in Mississippi, I had been asked to emcee a meeting of several thousand young people at a denominational event in Jackson. The program had been planned by other people; all I was doing was introducing the next person on the program and keeping it moving. At one point, the director of a singing group–a nationally known group of young adults who were all the rave back then–approached me. “Joe,” he said, “they’ve only given us 30 minutes on the program. Brother, we really need an hour. What about it?”

I said, “Bob, these kids would really love it. The problem is that when you finished, they would be tired of listening and it would penalize the guy scheduled after you. He’s supposed to preach tonight. Let’s just stay on schedule, friend. You have 30 minutes.”

I don’t know a lot on this subject, but I will guarantee you the audience appreciates an emcee who keeps the event on schedule, keeps the speakers on subject and on time, and gets everyone out when they were expecting it to end.

Well, tonight, after four hours of standing on my feet, I’m ready for a long nap. But it was a great afternoon. So good that I had forgotten all about Ohio State and Michigan’s big showdown and the Alabama/Auburn game. On my way downtown, I called my Mom on the cell phone. She told me “the birdhunters” (my brother Ron and some friends) were down in the fields but she allowed as how they would be back in time for “the game.” I had to stop and think about that, and finally realized this was the biggest weekend of the year for a lot of folks back home–the Alabama/Auburn game.

Regardless how those football games turned out, I had spent my afternoon with a bunch of real winners.