Former Navy fighter pilot Everett Alvarez Jr. still remembers the night that he was shot down in the South China Sea and began what would be the second-longest period of captivity for an American service member in the Vietnam War.

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, March 31, 2003: This Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress, on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, was assigned to the 91st Bomb Group during World War II.

Alex Haley’s transcript of his famous Playboy interview with Martin Luther King Jr. does not match what was published, author Jonathan Eig says.

Baghdad, Iraq, October 2003: A Humvee gunner is outlined by the headlights of trailing vehicles as a convoy rolls through Baghdad on its way to a raid south of the city.

Fort Cavazos, which has a soldier and family population of about 53,000, is the fourth of nine Army posts scheduled to be renamed as the military works to redesignate bases that honor Confederate leaders from the Civil War.

Basic training for the women, given at the Seoul Training Center, is roughly the same as the training undergone by ROK soldiers at Nonsan. Included are courses in first aid, weapons training, squad drill, map reading and typing.

Seoul, South Korea, February 1960: A young Republic of Korea Women’s Army Corps recruit learns maintenance and assembly of a U.S. 30-cal. carbine during a class on weapon maintenance at the WAC Training Center.

The tree has a distinctive history attached to it. It was a gift in the 1950s from leaders of the surrounding Japanese communities to the base and its commander at the time, Col. Fred Stevers, as a sign of friendship.

Baton Rouge's ode to the USS Louisiana, long landlocked, could never be mistaken for a real water vessel. The ship once was part of President Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet of 16 battleships in the Pacific Ocean.

Mainz, West Germany, November 1980: Pope John Paul II hails the crowd of more than 200,000 people during a Mass at the U.S. Army's Mainz-Finthen airfield.

From 1904 to 1967, the Barnegat Lightship weathered every storm and survived every near miss from the ocean liners, cargo ships and fishing boats that often passed too close for comfort. Like other lightships, the Barnegat was made obsolete by better technology.

On May 20, 1943, a B-24 bomber of the 1014th Pilot Transition Training Squadron took off from an Army airfield in Texas and headed to Chicago. The bomber’s crew was fated to be among the estimated total of more than 13,000 aviators killed in World War II training accidents.

Ba Xuyen province, South Vietnam, August 1962: Soldiers of the 1st Vietnamese Airborne Battalion jump out of a helicopter into a muddy, waterlogged field near a canal village.

Black jockeys - Isaac Murphy foremost among them - won 15 of the first 28 Kentucky Derby crowns, as they tested the limits of freedom during Reconstruction.

London, England, July 29, 1981: The Prince and Princess of Wales return by carriage from their wedding ceremony at St. Paul's Cathedral.

WWII veteran William Kongable recalls being a little apprehensive as he and other U.S. troops headed out to fight the Nazis. “We didn’t know what we were going to get into... When you’re 18, you’re bulletproof. Nothing’s ever going to happen to you; you’re never going to get shot.”

Brcko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, February 1997: American soldiers walk past a resident during a routine patrol through the streets of the northern Bosnian city.

Mark Hamill, a shooting star success in the futuristic fantasy film, "Star Wars," rode a helicopter instead of a space vehicle Friday and flew straight into the nostalgic past.

Yokosuka, Japan, June 16, 1978: Mark Hamill, better known to many as young Jedi Luke Skywalker of “Star Wars” fame, chats with Melanie Shriver (18) and an unidentified student in the hallways of Nile C. Kinnick High School.