US Veterans From 5 Wars Share Their Stories of Service and Sacrifice

Since 1775, when George Washington took charge of the first colonial militias, more than 41 million Americans have served in the United States armed forces. In World War II alone, 16 million men and women served and more than 400,000 died.

Veterans Day honors the sacrifices of every American who has put on a uniform, from the Continental Army to the Tuskegee Airmen to the Green Berets. The observance is celebrated on November 11 to commemorate the armistice that ended World War I on November 11, 1918.

For Veterans Day 2026, the HISTORY Channel special, Mission to Honor: A 250th Salute to American Veterans, shares the remarkable stories of five American heroes.

Born in the small town of Lake City, California, Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha came from a family with a long history of military service. His grandfather served in World War II and his father fought in Vietnam.

“Whenever dad or grandpa would talk about their time in service, it was never about the ‘horrors of war,’” says Romesha. “It was always about their buddies and the shenanigans they'd get into. They'd reconnect years later and pick up like they'd just seen each other yesterday. And that really impressed me, that camaraderie and brotherhood.”

“For me, it wasn’t predestined [that I’d join the military],” Romesha continues, “but I always wanted to serve, get out of this town of 100 people and see the world.”

When Romesha enlisted in the Army in 1999, his father was initially against it. “He told me, ‘If you choose to serve in the military and wear that uniform, you might have to go and do and see things that no one should have to do and see.’” Romesha took his father's warning to heart, but still enlisted.

After basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Romesha was assigned to Camp Vilseck in Germany to train as a tank gunner. He was in Germany when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, and the country entered a new era of war. Romesha wanted to join the fight in Iraq, but he was sent to South Korea instead.

“I was so flustered that I was missing out,” Romesha says. “My buddies are over there dying and I'm sitting here in Korea not able to contribute in any way, shape or form.” When his commanding officer asked for volunteers to go to Iraq, Romesha was first in line.

Romesha served two tours in Iraq but says he eventually got tired of "driving around waiting to get blown up” by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). When the opportunity arose to join the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Romesha was ready for a new challenge.

"I wanted to see if I had what it takes to go toe-to-toe with people that had basically been fighting since Alexander the Great,” says Romesha, who deployed to Afghanistan in 2009.

Romesha was stationed at Combat Outpost Keating, a small U.S. Army base in the mountainous Nuristan Province of Afghanistan. In the early morning hours of October 3, 2009, the base was ambushed by an estimated 300 enemy fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and heavy machine guns.

"On the radio, you could hear all the defensive positions calling in overwhelming enemy fire,” he remembers, “and just immediately things going from bad to worse.”

Without regard for his own safety, Romesha maneuvered through dangerously exposed positions to support wounded companions and engage with the enemy, who was streaming down the hillsides surrounding the base.

Romesha’s commanding offer gave orders to retreat to the tactical operations center, but Romesha couldn’t leave men out there who were injured, dead or cut off from reaching the base.

“I don't remember being scared of dying or getting shot,” he says. “What scared me was thinking, if we walk out of this, how the hell do I go back to the States and live with myself knowing I have to tell a Gold Star mom I couldn't bring her son home.”

Romesha, badly injured by an RPG, asked permission to assemble a volunteer team to wage a counterattack against the insurgents. Five men joined him without hesitation. Together, they ran back into the kill zone, took out enemy fighters, recovered wounded soldiers, and secured the base.

Romesha also remembers seeing soldiers race back from the fight line to donate life-saving blood to their wounded comrades.

“My dad warned me about things you should never have to see or do as a soldier, but he forgot to mention the things you do get to see and do,” says Romesha. “I got to see so many acts of love that were so special. If you want to see how much you can love your fellow man, go to combat with him. That's what I got to see that day.”

In 2013, Romesha received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor, for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”

Romesha dedicated the award to the eight men who died in the 2009 attack on Combat Outpost Keating, and he donated his copy of the medal to the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division, “to show the next generation of war fighters that one day you might have to ‘go and do and see things,’” says Romesha, “But I know each and every one of you have the potential to step up and do something more than you ever imagined possible. And you're gonna do it out of love. You're gonna do it because of those to your left and your right.”

In 2025, at 104 years old, Dominick Critelli fulfilled a lifelong dream, playing the National Anthem on his saxophone at a professional hockey game.

“When I came to this country, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was just a song,” says Critelli, who immigrated to the United States as a child from Italy, where Benito Mussolini’s fascist government ruled with an iron fist. “But now when I play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ I think about the words.”

Critelli also pictures the faces of the friends he lost during his three years of service in World War II, during which he helped deliver supplies to Utah Beach six after D-Day, served during the Battle of the Bulge and flew missions to deliver lifesaving supplies as part of a dangerous operation known as “Manna from Heaven.”

“It breaks my heart, because it makes me think they have done the utmost,” says Critelli, who earned an Air Medal for his service, but knows many young men who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. “They can’t do anymore.”

Nearly a century after arriving in America, Critelli still remembers what he felt when he looked up at the Statue of Liberty as he and his family sailed into New York Harbor.

"My God, look, this means freedom,” says Critelli. “This means that we can do whatever we want. I think that I owe everything to this country, everything in terms of the way I've lived because I wouldn't have lived the same way in Italy.”

As recent immigrants, Critelli’s family didn’t have much money, but his father saved up to buy him a clarinet. Music became a huge part of Critelli’s life, and he still practices the saxophone for an hour a day.

As a young man, Critelli loved working on cars, and the Army eventually assigned him to work as an airplane mechanic. Critelli’s job was to maintain a fleet of Piper Cub aircraft, two-seat planes used for reconnaissance and artillery spotting. He wasn’t supposed to fly in them.

But in November 1944, Critelli volunteered for a dangerous mission: flying behind enemy lines to drop much-needed supplies to American soldiers trapped in freezing temperatures without food, medicine or warm blankets. Critelli made 14 supply runs, squeezed into the back of a Piper Cub as antiaircraft rounds tore through the plane’s fabric wings.

"I volunteered because people needed medicine,” says Critelli. “People needed food. They had no ammunition. They had nothing. And they were in a foxhole wet up to their knees. At that point, everybody was trying to do anything they could.”

In addition to three Bronze campaign stars and the World War II Victory Medal, Critelli received the Air Medal for "acts of heroism while participating in aerial flight,” an unusual honor for a mechanic. But as Critelli is quick to point out, the medals don’t mean much to him.

“I don’t even wear them,” he says. “I never wear medals. It’s the things that you do that mean more. I would have done what I did anyway.”

After the war, Critelli worked in construction and trucking before becoming a high school teacher in Brooklyn. He earned a degree in music and a master’s degree in education.

It was one of the longest and most intense dogfights in U.S. naval history, and for more than 60 years, Lieutenant Royce Williams kept it a secret. In 1952, during the Korean War, Williams engaged in a 35-minute aerial battle with seven Soviet fighter jets, single-handedly shooting down four of them.

Williams’ heroics, worthy of a Top Gun movie, would have earned him accolades, but the dogfight was classified for intelligence reasons. It wasn’t until Williams was 100 years old that he received the nation’s highest military decoration for his service, the Medal of Honor.

Growing up in South Dakota and Minnesota, Williams flew in his first airplane at age 4 and became obsessed with aviation. Not long after Williams had earned his Eagle Scout rank, Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United Stated entered World War II. Williams enlisted in the Army at 16 and joined the Navy’s aviation cadet program at 17. He trained to be a fighter pilot but didn’t earn his wings until the very end of the war.

Williams says that he still learned valuable lessons during his training that stayed with him when he was deployed to Korea several years later.

“Be prepared,” says Williams. “I learned that as a Boy Scout, but it applied in the military, too. Know your airplane and get to know the people you're working with. You're dependent on a team. You're not there by yourself.”

In November 1952, Williams was flying patrol missions off the coast of North Korea. Williams and his fighter squadron were responsible for protecting the U.S. Navy’s fleet from enemy aircraft, including Soviet-made, single-seat MiG fighters.

“We stayed a distance from shore in the vicinity of the ships that we were looking after and were told by intelligence not to expect any real activity because MiGs don't fly over water,” says Williams. On November 18, 1952, that wasn’t the case.

During a routine patrol run, Williams spotted seven MiGs flying high above him at 50,000 feet. Suddenly, the enemy fighters peeled into two formations and dived directly toward Williams and his wingman, guns blazing.

"I maneuvered the airplane with a lot of Gs, turning it, and I wrapped it around to be right on the tail end of their last man,” says Williams, who was flying an F9F Panther jet. “I had a perfect solution and fired a short burst, and he started smoking and dropped out of formation, leaving the fight.”

Williams’ wingman pursued the damaged MiG, leaving Williams to contend with the remaining six fighters. For the next half hour, he executed daring maneuvers while under heavy fire, engaging enemy pilots, including a World War II ace.

“It was one after another, after another, after another, taking their turns,” says Williams. “One guy came down and got a little close, and before he could really pull up, he crossed in front of me, and I fired. Pieces of the airplane came off and I had to maneuver violently to keep from hitting him.”

Finally, one of the MiGs hit Williams’ Panther with 37 mm cannon fire, disabling his rudder. Williams dove into a cloud bank and headed toward the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. Against the odds, he was able to land his badly damaged jet aboard the carrier in stormy conditions. Asked how he pulled it off, Williams is quick to credit God.

“No question in my mind,” says Williams, "For as long as the dogfight lasted and the limited number of bullets I had, the closeness to the enemy home and the number of superior airplanes... I wasn't supposed to survive that at all. No chance. But I did.”

Soon after landing, Williams was called into a meeting with men from a new intelligence agency called the National Security Agency (NSA). They informed him that they’d been secretly monitoring Soviet radio chatter and knew that the MiGs were flown by Soviet pilots. If the information was made public, it would reveal the NSA’s intelligence-gathering capabilities and potentially trigger World War III. The historic dogfight, in other words, had to remain top secret.

After documents related to the dogfight were declassified in 2002, Williams was eventually able to speak publicly about the 1952 encounter. (The first person he told was his wife.) As his story gained attention, members of Congress from Williams’ home state of California began pushing for greater recognition of his actions. Williams had originally received a Silver Star for valor in 1953, but in 2023, he was awarded the Navy Cross in recognition of the same battle.

Then in 2026, at 100 years old, Williams received the Medal of Honor during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. Like other heroes, Williams isn’t comfortable with the accolades.

“I’m well aware of the Medal of Honor and I'd heard stories about Medal of Honor people,” says Williams. “To me, it was history unattainable. I never expected to get anywhere near it.”

All James McCloughan wanted to do when he grew up was be a high school teacher and coach. Raised on a modest farm in rural Michigan, McCloughan was a four-sport athlete in high school, then put himself through Olivet College, where he played football and baseball and wrestled. After graduating in 1968, he signed a contract to teach and coach at South Haven High School.

McCloughan’s dream was about to come true—until he was drafted.

“Uncle Sam sent me a letter, and he wanted me to be part of his team,” says McCloughan. “He wanted me to go to a tropical zone before I started teaching.”

Of the 250 men in his basic training class, McCloughan was the only one selected to be a combat medic. After completing his medic training at Fort Sam Houston, McCloughan was told he was being retained as a trainer. He was going to be a teacher, after all. But at the last minute, McCloughan was passed over for the teaching job and told he was going to Vietnam instead.

McCloughan was crushed. In tears, he wondered if he was ever going to be a teacher.

“A spiritual thing came over me and I realized that I’d better change my attitude,” McCloughan remembers. “I’d better be the best medic I could be, or I will never become a teacher or a coach. Of course, I didn't know the dangers that I would actually face.”

In Vietnam, combat medics were both soldiers and saviors. McCloughan carried a rifle and jumped out of helicopters with the other infantrymen, but he also carried a 130-pound pack full of medical supplies and was expected to run into the line of fire to save wounded soldiers.

McCloughan vividly remembers his first firefight, when his team was ambushed by Viet Cong fighters.

"I had two wounded in action, three killed in action, and I killed my first human being,” says McCloughan, who was raised a faithful Christian. “I was in shock. I couldn't believe that I just killed another person. Sergeant Hatton said, ‘Doc, that's the way it's gonna be. Do you understand? Either it's you or him.’”

A few months later, McCloughan and the 89 soldiers of Charlie Company were flown by helicopter into a fierce battle near Nui Yon Hill. When one of their helicopters was shot down, McCloughan spotted an injured soldier limping through a clearing.

“I jumped up running towards him about 100 yards and slid in next to him like I was sliding into second base,” McCloughan remembers. “I said, ‘I'm gonna throw you up on my shoulders. Hang on to your weapon and I'm gonna get you to safety.’ I got him up and I swerved to be a moving target so that we may not get hit by the enemy's bullets literally skipping off the ground.”

Charlie Company was surrounded by hundreds of enemy fighters. Of the company’s 89 American soldiers, only 32 survived the battle. Over the next 48 hours, McCloughan repeatedly risked his life under enemy fire, rescuing wounded soldiers despite being injured himself by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade.

“I knew there were a lot of enemy soldiers out there,” says McCloughan. “I would rather be dead than alive in a hospital and find out that one of my men died because Jim McCloughan was not there to do his job on the team.”

After the war, McCloughan finally realized his dream. He returned to Michigan, where he taught high school and coached generations of student-athletes for nearly 40 years. McCloughan retired in 2008 after being inducted into multiple Michigan coaching halls of fame. In 2017, he received the Medal of Honor for his bravery and selflessness during the Battle of Nui Yon Hill.

“I was Donald Trump's first recipient of the highest award that you can get,” says McCloughan. “This does not belong just to me. It belongs to 89 men who fought in a battle, were outnumbered 30 to one, and we walked out.”

As a little girl growing up in Kentucky, Leigh Ann Hester was always drawn to people in uniform, especially female police officers and soldiers. “Most of the time you just see men in uniform,” says Hester, who is now a police officer herself. “As a tomboy and a daddy’s girl who liked to get dirty and climb trees and go hunting and fishing, just seeing a woman whose job was to be outside helping people was such a cool thing.”

Hester never intended to become a soldier. In early 2001, fresh out of high school, she learned about the Army National Guard from friends. “It sounded like a good time to me,” Hester says. “You know, one weekend a month, two weeks a year, you go play Army, you train, you do some cool stuff and you're home 90 percent of the time. It was peacetime and no one expected to be at war. As a 19-year-old, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”

Hester enlisted in the Army National Guard in April 2001, five months before the September 11 attacks. Almost overnight, her part-time National Guard duty became a full-time deployment to Iraq.

In Iraq, Hester served as a military police officer, one of the few roles that allowed women to serve in combat zones. One of her duties was to escort civilian truck convoys as they traveled through Iraqi towns and villages. Even on a normal day, it was dangerous work.

“We did get shot at a lot,” Hester says. “It was actually weird if you didn't hear any kind of gunfire or explosions when you went out. But honestly, getting shot at didn't scare me too much, because you could see the enemy most of the time. IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] were what made the hair stand up on the back of my neck because you never knew where one might be until it hit you.”

There was nothing normal, however, about March 20, 2005. That morning, Hester and her squad were escorting a convoy of approximately 30 supply trucks when they came under attack. More than 50 insurgents armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers had launched a coordinated ambush. Hester’s unit was outnumbered roughly five to one.

“There were so many insurgents out there that our big guns weren't gonna handle them all,” says Hester. “They were hidden in these dry canals that we could only reach by dismounting from our vehicles. Adrenaline and training took over. I didn't have time to think or feel. As soon as I stepped out, I could hear, you know, rounds skipping off the pavement and hitting the truck behind me.”

Armed with an M4 carbine and a grenade launcher, Hester followed her team into roadside canals where enemy fighters were positioned. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Americans killed or wounded more than 30 insurgents. Three U.S. soldiers were also shot and seriously wounded in the ambush, but none of the Americans was killed.

For her actions during the ambush, Hester became the first woman to receive the Silver Star for valor in combat. Even so, she doesn’t think of herself as a hero.

“I was just doing what I was trained to do,” Hester says, “and being a damn good battle buddy to my family.”

Hester is proud that her example has helped open doors for other women in the military to take on additional combat roles. After serving in the National Guard for 24 years, Hester is now a patrol supervisor for the Franklin Police Department in Franklin, Tennessee.