Veterans Chronicles

Bob Ingram joined the Navy after graduating high school in 1963 to give himself some direction. He was initially assigned to work in electronics, but after getting a bad case of pn...

Harold Terens was just 18 years old and playing basketball with his friends when he heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Like many Americans, he had no idea where...

Charlie Plumb ended up in the U.S. Navy because money was tight for his family and it was a big economic relief when he was recommended and accepted at the U.S. Naval Academy. Upon...

Kathleen Faircloth received the news that no parent wants to get. In late November 2004, she learned that her son, U.S. Marine Corps Lance Corporal Bradley Faircloth, was killed du...

Doug Greenlaw sees his life as a series of "lightning strikes." He was literally struck by lightning when he was 13 years old, thankfully making an immediate recovery. He later lef...

Melvin Hurwirz was 16 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Within just a few years, all four boys in his family were at war, each in a different b...

Anthony "Tony" Wood grew up in a Marine Corps family and enlisted to begin his own service in 1964. Before long he was commissioned as a USMC officer. His first deployment to Vietn...

Sarah Spradlin knew she wanted to serve her nation in uniform, and to her the only option was the U.S. Marine Corps. She was commissioned as an officer after completing ROTC traini...

James Thompson joined the U.S. Army in 1948, in part to avoid the consequences for his troubled behavior. Soon he was off to segregated training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey. Within a fe...

Bruce McKenty was born into an Army family, as his father was a career officer. By the time he finished high school, McKenty knew he wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps. He was...

Kaj Larsen did not follow the typical route to becoming a U.S. Navy SEAL. He was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy but left after two years to focus on playing water polo at the c...

Military historian and author Carole Engle Avriett joins us to tell the powerful story of U.S. Navy Mess Attendant Charles Jackson French, which is told in her new book, Midnight i...