Retired Army Lt. Col. Allen B. West, a former Republican Florida congressman and combat commander in Iraq, who recently met with Donald Trump’s presidential transition team, joined fireballer Curt Schilling on Whatever It Takes Wednesday to talk about his visit to Trump Tower and what Pearl Harbor means now.

“I have the honor of speaking to a man I have grown to love over the last year-and-a-half,” said Schilling, when he introduced listeners to Col. West, who commanded a battalion in Iraq and then became the first black congressman from Florida since Reconstruction.

Right off the bat, Schilling asked West about his thoughts on the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“I can recall my dad sitting down with me and telling me what it was like for him to listen to the radio, hear the reports of it–and the call to service that he answered as a young black man from down in south Georgia,” West said. “He went and served his country during World War II, at a time when this country did not afford him all the rights and privileges and liberties as it did the others. But he knew he had to stand up and make sure the American way of life was protected.”

West said he lost his father in 1986, but the lessons and examples from his father and the rest of the Greatest Generation stay with him.

“The stand that they took against Nazism, Japanese imperialism, and fascism, that is a gift that they gave us that we can never forget,” he said.

“On this day, we remember the day that will live in infamy, and I hope that when we think about 9/11, or we think about the Tsarnaev brothers and the heinous action that they took there in Boston, we cannot forget that we have enemies who are seeking to take away our freedoms.”

Schilling told the paratrooper that he would not ask him about his meetings at Trump Tower–but in a way, he did.

West bit on Schilling’s hook: “Let me say this: The greatness of America is the fact that the son of a corporal from World War II could get invited to go to Trump Tower for an hour or two and get to sit with the Vice President-elect of the United States of America and members of his national security team–and that is what we fight for.”

Hear the rest of the Curt Schilling’s interview with West and tune in for the Whatever It Takes broadcast weekdays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Eastern at Breitbart.com.