Veterans' Stories

Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton has played a major role in military history over the past 77 years, and John Farritor is one of the rare men who has seen that history unfold from the start.

A 363-foot projection of a rocket will be flashed on one side of the Washington Monument next week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing.

We are joined this week by former British colonel Tim Collins, who delivered one of the most famous speeches of the Iraq War. Collins — now involved with private military and security contracting firm New Century — shares his perspective on the operations gaps filled by contracting and how it’s shaping the modern battlefield.

Analysis

Just a few weeks ago, President Donald Trump was being feted by British royalty and politicians. The World War II sacrifice and victory that came 75 years ago on the French beaches of Normandy on D-Day were marked with deep-seated mutual admiration and respect among Allied powers. Then came the diplomatic cable leak.

More than 70 years after the purged poems of Holocaust survivors, victims and Jewish Red Army soldiers were first composed and curated, a Canadian historian has brought back to life works thought to be long gone.

A long line of nearly 100 vehicles stretched out along the White House Ellipse on the morning of July 7, 1919, replete with heavy troop carriers, light trucks, sidecar motorcycles, reconnaissance cars, field kitchens, blacksmith shops and one Renault light tank.

It's taken years for Judge George Greer to tell his story on his decision to remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. He recently wrote the first chapter in "Tough Cases," a book that features the reflections of judges who don't often get to speak openly about their decisions.

Tens of thousands of Uighurs live in Turkey, cut off from friends and family back home in China's Xinjiang region. Analysts say the Urumqi riots set in motion the harsh security measures now in place across Xinjiang, where about 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslims are estimated to be held in internment camps.

Iraq on Friday celebrated the UNESCO World Heritage Committee's decision to name the historic city of Babylon a World Heritage Site in a vote held in Azerbaijan's capital, years after Baghdad began campaigning for the site to be added to the list.

It has been 28 years since tanks last rolled through the streets of Washington, leaving heavy tread marks in the asphalt along the way. On Tuesday night, they came back.

Nearly 100 adults and kids of all ages gathered around the west runway of the airport in Eugene, Ore., on Saturday morning to watch a historic Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina fly in and end its long trip from where it was found in a Paris museum.

Airman 2nd Class Verne Budahn died when a C-124 Globemaster II went down in bad weather on Nov. 22, 1952.

A Navy reservist and military historian was among the few dozen people in a lakeside lodge at Richmond’s Camp Takodah, N.H. They'd gathered to remember 12 individuals who had attended Camp Takodah as boys and died in World War II as young men.

Dan Simmons' book “With His Hand” details Medal of Honor recipient John C. “Red” Morgan’s experiences during World War II, some of which were fictionalized and included in a novel and a subsequent movie called “12 O’Clock High”.

At some point over the past 76 years, the charm of the structure got lost in rotting wood and a pervasive musty stench. It's plagued with mold, water damage, buckling floorboards and peeling paint. It's boarded shut, and used only by termites, rodents and the occasional homeless person who slips into the crawlspace below the building.

A bill introduced Tuesday would rescind 20 Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers who received them for actions during the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, when hundreds of Native Americans were killed by U.S. cavalry soldiers.

The State Archives of North Carolina has honored Guy Cox by digitizing more than 400 photographs the lensman took from 1943-45.

On this warm, humid day, with dolphins in the water, divers dug through mud and oyster shells on the bottom of York River, searching for remnants of the battle that ensured American independence.

While recuperating from back surgery, Beth Rieman had time to think about family, ask questions about her grandmother's Uncle Jim, and eventually uncover an amazing find about the decorated veteran of two world wars.

Robert Friend, a decorated fighter pilot who flew 142 combat missions with the fabled Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, then became an expert on missile systems and directed the classified Air Force investigation into UFOs, died June 21 at age 99.

The third week in June, 1994 began as any other at Fairchild Air Force Base. It was warm and sunny, with the base preparing for an open house the following Sunday. It ended with the base hospital closed, walls scarred from bullets and floors stained with blood. The burnt wreckage of the base’s last B-52 was scattered near the runway.

Nearly eight years ago, a stealth American surveillance drone with a 66-foot wingspan went down over Iran. The United States insisted the RQ-170 Sentinel, which had taken off for a CIA mission from a base in Afghanistan, experienced a malfunction; Iran said they neutralized it in a cyberattack.

Over a century ago, employees of Westinghouse companies contributed to the most ambitious, high-tech projects of their day. On a Library of Congress website, their labor - and innovations that changed the way Americans worked and traveled - comes to flickering life.

When Soviet troops invaded the Kurile islands in 1945 after Japan announced its surrender in World War II, all of the 17,000 Japanese residents either fled or were forcibly evicted.

The bloody three-month siege of Kohima took place in the Himalayan foothills of Nagaland, in northeast India. Though the allied victory against the Japanese was a major turning point on par with the Battle of Stalingrad, we won't see world leaders travel to Kohima for its remembrance.

For decades, William “Hoover” Jones’s family wondered what happened to him. He left North Carolina as an 18-year-old boy from a small town in Nash County, off to Korea to fight as an infantryman in the U.S. Army. He has been missing-in-action since 1950. On Thursday, he came home.

For Navy veterans Maghan and Jamie Alberts, the GI Bill not only let them pursue a higher education after returning home from the service in 1997, it also gave them the opportunity to start a new life together.

He fought with distinction, historians say, in two of this country’s formative wars, but James Robinson, who was born into slavery in Maryland in the mid-18th century, was denied his liberty for most of his life and never got the military honors he’d earned. That is to change this weekend.

A new National Park Service grant will help preserve a part of the Spotsylvania Court House Battlefield that’s been called one of America’s most historic roads.

A glass of whisky in his hand, Norman Mailer cursed the roaring crowd in Greenwich Village and told them to shut up when they interrupted his speech, a rollicking cascade of F-bombs and insults from start to finish. "You're nothing but a bunch of spoiled pigs!" Mailer shouted on that May night in 1969.

Jeremy Lin has joined Wataru "Wat" Misaka in the history books. In 1947, Misaka was the first person of color to play professional basketball in what would become the NBA. With the Raptors' Game 6 win Thursday, Lin has become the first Asian American to win an NBA championship.

Video

Derek Cincotta was in the open hatch of a World War II warplane, fighting the wind and looking down at a quilted French countryside thousands of feet below. The man running the drop yelled "Go!" and the immediate rush, as Cincotta leapt from the plane and focused on his body positioning, resolved into calm once he pulled his parachute.

Various U.S. military installations on Friday marked the Army's 244th birthday with celebratory events. President Donald Trump, whose birthday is on the same day, also tweeted a tribute to the Army.

On Tuesday, the agency announced it has chosen a military base as a temporary shelter: Fort Sill in Oklahoma, which was used during World War II as a Japanese internment camp. Before that, it was the longtime prison for Apache leader Geronimo.

Dwight D. Eisenhower and the history he made left their mark on Abilene, Kansas.

Retired U.S. Col. Gail Halvorsen — better known in these parts as the “Candy Bomber” — will always be a hero in the eyes of the German children who grew up in postwar Berlin, no matter how old they grow. On Monday, some of those who remember Halvorsen's heroics gathered to honor him.

Eight former Rosie the Riveters (and welders) attended the commemoration ceremonies Thursday at the 75th D-Day Commemoration on Thursday at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas.

About 500 American soldiers died during a typhus epidemic in 1814, the year after the city was reclaimed from British capture during the War of 1812.

Book review

Observances of the 75th anniversary of D-Day are properly focusing on the troops and the architect of Operation Overlord, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who freed Europe from Hitler and his Nazi hordes. One person – a woman – has not received the credit she deserves for her efforts with the French Resistance.

Moe Berg's exploits on the baseball field in the 1920s and 1930s for the Washington Senators and other teams would come to be overshadowed by his cunning as a wartime spy in the infancy of the Office of Strategic Services. A new documentary explores continuing mysteries about the famed player.

Veterans who took part in World War II invasion of Normandy, "an awesome responsibility far beyond their years," were honored Thursday in a 75th anniversary ceremony at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Abraham Lincoln fired off a gruff note to Charles H. Ray, the editor-in-chief of the Chicago Press & Tribune. "Does Sheahan write them?" Lincoln sneered, a sarcastic reference to James Sheahan, editor of the Chicago Times, a Democratic Party paper and the Tribune's chief rival.

Gallery

While June 6 is a date remembered around the world, just a few days before, the Texas National Guard's 36th Infantry Division – known as the "Texas Army" – had pulled off a brilliant overnight maneuver known as the "breakout at Anzio," which led to the immediate fall of Rome on June 3 and 4.

Most Americans believe the United States was right to participate in World War II but many are either skeptical or don’t know, according to a poll released ahead of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that kicked off the liberation of Europe.

Nelson Henry, 95, of Philadelphia, received word Monday from the Army Correction of Military Records office that his discriminatory “blue discharge” from 1945 because he was black has been changed to honorable. He called the unanimous decision by a three-member board a miracle.

During a Monday visit to Buckingham Palace, President Donald Trump mentioned a 1945 photo of the future queen repairing a military truck engine. Here's the story behind the photo.

Twenty men from a small town in rural Virginia were killed on D-Day. With the opening of a new tribute center, their families are finally sharing their mementos, stories and grief.

As the 75th anniversary of D-Day approaches, thousands of people are descending on Normandy to mark the occasion at events large and small, spread out near the beaches allies stormed in the pivotal invasion that helped pave the way for victory over the Nazis.

Analysis

China today is supremely confident, richer than it could have imagined three decades ago, and more convinced than ever of its repressive model of authoritarian political control. In many ways it's a direct result of a seismic event that took place 30 years ago.

Richmond's newspapers argued fiercely in favor of abolition. Thomas Jefferson's grandson pushed a plan to free slaves and help them settle in the new African nation of Liberia. Even a leader of the militia that put down Turner's rebellion called for a gradual end to slavery.

Dad Mac sat in his living room and furiously scribbled the names the German propaganda machine rattled off. Names of GIs whose moms and dads and siblings and sweethearts in Florida and Iowa and Oregon. Loved ones who for weeks or months had wondered and worried and wrung their hands. Mac would fill out and address a postcard. It would say: Your boy is alive.

The ceremony featured the dedication of a new grave marker for 1st Lt. John W. Van Natta, a member of the famed 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry who fought in more than 18 Civil War battles.

Chinese Americans didn’t serve in segregated units like Japanese or African Americans, but they still experienced both interpersonal and institutional racism.

While the B-21 bomber under development by the Air Force garnered many of the headlines during Col. John Edwards’ tenure as commander of Ellsworth Air Force Base, he quietly presided over a transformation in the combat role of the base’s nearly 40-year-old fleet of B-1s.

A life-sized statue depicting a bearded Master Sgt. John Chapman in tan camouflage, and a replica of his Medal of Honor, was revealed Thursday inside the Alcide "Bull" Benini Heritage Center at Pope Army Airfield.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt got a close-up view of the disabled USS Arizona Memorial Wednesday before pledging to finish the repairs to its concrete passenger dock as soon as possible.

PERSPECTIVE

"OK, Dad," Uncle Dick asked. "What are you most proud of in your life?" I think I half expected my grandfather to say the time he shot even-par 72. What could be better than that? This was chitchat, brag-about-the-family stuff, set up on a tee. Instead, he knocked us over with his response. "D-Day," he said.

The last World War II Mohawk Code Talker, Louis Levi Oakes of the Saint Regis tribe, died Tuesday at the age of 94. Oakes saw action in the South Pacific, New Guinea and Philippines theaters, and was awarded the Silver Star.

The 37th Airlift Squadron sent three C-130Js to France on Wednesday decked out with a new paint scheme. World War II veterans who fought at Normandy likely would recognize the markings immediately.

Thousands of spectators lined Constitution Avenue in the nation's capital Monday to pay tribute to the past and present U.S. military in the National Memorial Day Parade.

The World War II veterans and others who visited the National World War II Memorial Monday morning for the traditional Memorial Day ceremony were reminded that the "overwhelming genius and valor" of what has become known as the Greatest Generation "achieved a profound victory of liberty over tyranny for our modern world."

Of the more than 15,000 Union soldiers who were buried at Fredericksburg National Cemetery after the Civil War, only 2,473 were identified. That's one of the reasons why Donna Moore came to the cemetery Saturday evening for the 24th annual luminaria.

If not for the Spanish-American War, people in several island nations would likely be leading very different lifestyles today. The brief hostilities left the U.S. with possession of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines and temporary control of Cuba.

This summer will mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, but some people still live in a parallel belief universe where NASA faked the whole thing.

Nearly 30 years ago, St. Cloud native Gregg Bursey witnessed a pivotal moment in history. Newly graduated from Apollo High School, Bursey was a military policeman in the U.S. Army stationed in West Berlin.

GALLERY

"The Ultimate Sacrifice" is a term often used during Memorial Day observations, and a display this weekend on the National Mall helps demonstrate how many Americans have made that sacrifice.

The gardens were a local marvel when it was owned by Jewish sugar baron Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer before World War II. His wife, Adele, was an art patron immortalized by Gustav Klimt in a painting that became known as the "Woman in Gold." Then the Nazis arrived.

Tom Mattis will attend Saturday's dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park at the Museum of Flight, just south of downtown Seattle. His younger brother Jim Mattis, the former defense secretary and retired Marine general, will give a keynote address.

Civil War Gen. John A. Logan is credited with creating what we know today as Memorial Day, according to the executive director of the museum in Murphysboro, Ill., that is dedicated to him.

Seventy American flags fluttered in the wind Thursday as the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant honored its employees killed at the munitions factory since 1941.

Charles Gilbert Kapsner has put a lot of Minnesota models — human or otherwise — into the five epic murals he’s spent the past decade painting for the Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery, where 7,300 former service members are buried

A large storm, likely the one that swept through central Illinois late Wednesday night, hit Washington, D.C., during a Greater Peoria Honor Flight trip on Thursday.

Peeking between yellowing fields in the southern Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, behind barbed-wire fences and “no trespassing” signs, the massive four-story brick building is a shell of its former majesty.

The National Veterans Memorial and Museum recently secured a $500,000 grant from Battelle, a science and technology company, to support its efforts to grow that number and find new ways to reach students.

In the 1960s, first lady Jackie Kennedy, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and Vice President Hubert Humphrey were just a few of the important figures to pay visits to Junior Village, Washington's renowned refuge for impoverished children. the cheerful newspaper photos of those visits and holiday celebrations didn't capture the harrowing abuse occurring when the cameras were gone.

Lance Geiger’s idea of a good time is doing research on something that happened 50 or 100 years ago and sharing what he’s learned with thousands of complete strangers. The crazy part is, he’s making a living at it.

Rich Newcombe still doesn’t know who the men in the helicopter gunship were, or how many other lives they saved under similar harrowing circumstances. He doesn’t even know if they survived the war. But he does know he owes them more thanks than he could ever express.

Former Sen. Bob Dole was officially promoted from Army captain to the honorary rank of colonel during a ceremony Thursday at the World War II Memorial in Washington, becoming the third and only living recipient of such an honor in the service’s 244-year history.

The men who landed in Fresno this week were getting a different kind of welcome than the one they got when they came home from Vietnam. This one was filled with hugs and honor, not resentment.

GALLERY

Relatives, friends and fellow officers are marking National Police Week at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington by honoring the more than 21,000 law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty in the U.S. since 1791.

Damon J. Keith drove a truck in the Quartermaster Corps during World War II in Europe, then made up his mind to become a lawyer after the war when he saw German soldiers riding in the front seats of buses and dining in restaurants where he wasn't welcome. Keith, the senior judge on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, died April 28.

Nearly 75 years ago, 160,000 Allied troops helped bend the arc of history by landing in Normandy, the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany. Today, new technology at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is giving visitors an idea of what D-Day was like.

The ditched "Lame Duck" was repaired in Chatham, Mass., and went on to make the first trans-Atlantic flight eight years before Charles Lindbergh's famous crossing. It was the first flight across any of the world's oceans.

President John F. Kennedy's 102nd birth anniversary is on May 29. Perhaps that upcoming birthday was a reason for a recently concluded auction of Kennedy-related items, including the rosary beads carried by the late Rev. James N. Thompson, who was one of two priests present when Kennedy received his Last Rites before he died on Nov. 22, 1963.