was his dear friend, george coburn, who i thought i one going to find. tried to find him and i had marine records for all of the guys in the book' and poured through their -- the documentation of their injuries and everything, point and find anything else on george coburn and towards the very end of writing the book it was just bothering me so much bus there's a scene when he goes swimming on the beach and it's like a beach party. a little break. they've been cooped up on the transit ship and the leadership says go have fun. jump in the water and have a little fun. and it was a moment that was written about by george coburn as he wrote a letter after harry died to my aunt and explained, harry and i went swimming and he was my best friend, all of this, and so i went -- just driving me crazy i was writing about this moment, these beach party and trying to piece it together. i wish i could talk to george, and so i went back to his file again and i found a document that it had never seen before. or i'd come across it but never focus on it and it was a reques

and i couldn't find anything else on george coburn. towards the end of writing the book, it was just bothering me so much because there's a scene when they go swimming on the beach and it's like a beach party, a break they've been cooped up on the transit ship across the pacific and the leadership says, you know what, guys, go have fun, jump in the water and have fun. a moment that was written about by george coburn as he wrote a letter after harry died to my aunt and explained, you know, harry and i went swimming, he was my best friend. all of this and so i went -- it was driving me crazy that i was writing about this moment, this beach party and trying to piece it together based on what i knew. i wished i could talk to george. i went back to file again and i found a document that i had never seen before. i had come across it but i never focused on it and it was a request for i military discharge papers but it was written from melbourne, florida after he moved from massachusetts and had more recent address for him that i had never see

coburn . and i couldn't find one. so working with another dean law that will help me a lot, by 9:00 the next morning we were on the phone with george and when we called him, i said george, this is martha mccallum. i'm harry graves grandniece and there was just a long silence. he said to me martha, i think about harry every heday. he said he was my best friend . and he started to cry on the phone. his wife got upset in the background. she has a great boston accent and she said josh, don't talk about it anymore. she said he has to go and i felt terrible that maybe we had upset him but we reconnected a couple days later and he was one of the most wonderful men i've ever met. he was just like so many of these men, he said i often thought terry would have lived a better life than i did. and it's just not true and george has lived an amazing life . he has a beautiful family that i got to meet and when they watch the clip the end you're going to meet george themselves and you'll see he's. >> my grand

george coburn, when i met them independently confirmed he had a serious girlfriend he wanted to marry her. one of the letters he says it's almost easter will you please buy a corsage and i will pay you back when i get home. it's a heartbreaking story. he wanted to marry her before he left home, but that didn't happen. >> tell me about that. he's a historian and it helps to tell the story and a lot of detail but to the point where it kept my interest the entire time. >> we go through the battles of the pacific and he is also a war historian and he and i traveled together. he knows the battle inside and out and i wanted to be sure that it was military sound the way we were writing about all these battles and he did a masterful job of telling a lot of the battles of the guadalcanal in a way that rings true to both veterans and people who were there and also people learning about the stories for the first time so he t was absolutely integral in making sure that it was militarily sound and i worked hard to make sure it was accessible to people like me. >> maybe it is just me but i feel lik

harry didn't make it off but george did. here he is with most of his family in florida celebrating his 95th birthday this week. happy birthday, george. we're so grateful to you for your service in world war ii, for this country. i'm so proud and honored to call you my friend. love to you and to all. there's carlene, his wife and all of the wonderful coburn family clan in florida. way to go, george. so that's "the story" of this tuesday, april 6. 2021. as always, the story continues. we're waiting for president biden at the white house. i'll be back here tomorrow at 3:00. thanks for joining me. "your world" with neil cavuto gets underway about now. have a good one. >> neil: everybody in the vaccine pool, we're expecting to hear minutes from now president biden tell the american people that he wants to make all u.s.a. adults eligible for vaccine by april 19. we're getting news 150 million doses have already been given out to americans at this point. so you either have one shot or two. but we're moving fast to break the preside