For his first 107 years, Richard Overton lived in relative anonymity. A World War II veteran who fought in the Pacific, he could usually be found post-retirement on the porch of his Austin, Texas, home, smoking cigars and chatting up his extensive circle of family and friends. ...read more
Over the years, I have been to many military cemeteries, and I am always overcome with waves of emotion. This is especially true of the cemeteries that are filled, not with the tombs of long-lived veterans who earned a military burial for their service, but with the graves of the ...read more
War is ugly, but it’s not the worst part of military service. I like to explain war as the “easy” part. The “hard” part is getting out. Transition is by far the biggest battle. In war your only worry is death, you don’t have to worry about bills and food and all the other small ...read more
On February 23, 1945, Hershel “Woody” Williams crawled toward a string of Japanese guard posts with a 70-pound flamethrower strapped to his back. His Marine Corps unit had suffered heavy casualties since arriving on the island of Iwo Jima a few days earlier and had now become ...read more
Mike Dowe will bow his head this Veteran’s Day, and say a little prayer to the soul of the best soldier he ever knew. For Dowe, a Korean War vet, this isn’t just an annual commemoration. Every day for the 66 years since Father Emil Kapaun died in that Korean War prison camp, Dowe ...read more
In July of 1866, a short story called “The Case of George Dedlow” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. It’s remembered today as a vivid early description of “phantom limb” pain: Dedlow, the narrator, has lost both arms and both legs in the Civil War, yet he experiences clenching and ...read more
Consider, if you will, a fraught military standoff. A soldier from the German army receives an order from a superior to fire his gun, but he puts it down and walks away. In the United States, he would have just committed the unforgivable and illegal act of insubordination, even ...read more
