VIDEOS: True Stories of Pearl Harbor Veterans
Explore the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor through the eyes of the people who were there. Interviewees include the oldest living survivor of Pearl Harbor and the oldest living African-American survivor.
Veterans' Stories
Explore 100 years of veterans' stories, from World War One to the Iraq War.
A Harlem Hellfighter's Searing Tales from the WWI Trenches
Like many veterans of the killing fields of World War I, Horace Pippin had a tough time shaking off the memories. So in the decade after the war he captured them, and tamed them, inside sketch-filled journals. He had no dearth of stories to tell. There was the terrified young ...read more
What Happened When WWI Paused for Christmas
On Christmas Eve 1914, in the dank, muddy trenches on the Western Front of the first world war, a remarkable thing happened. It came to be called the Christmas Truce. And it remains one of the most storied and strangest moments of the Great War—or of any war in history. British ...read more
How Two Japanese-Americans Fought Nazis Abroad—and Prejudice at Home
Like most Americans, Don Seki and Frank Mitoshi Wada remember the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii as a dark day. For these two “Nisei” (American-born children of Japanese immigrants), December 7th, 1941 was darker than for most, since it led to their ...read more
Watch the Emotional Reunion of a Concentration Camp Survivor and One of His Liberators
The first time Joshua Kaufman met Daniel Gillespie was April 29, 1945, when American liberators marched into the notorious Dachau concentration camp 12 miles outside Munich, Germany and smashed in the prison doors. Gillespie, a gunner with the 42nd Rainbow Division, was deeply ...read more
The Most Harrowing Battle of the Korean War
For Robert Whited and Jean White, there was never a question that they would serve in the military. And they never doubted the merit of the war they were sent to fight in Korea. It was this unbending faith in their service as U.S. Marines that carried both men through America’s ...read more
John McCain in the Military: From Navy Brat to POW
When John McCain made his first bid for public office in 1982, running for a House seat in Arizona, critics blasted him as a carpetbagger, pointing out that he’d only lived in the state for 18 months. “Listen, pal, I spent 22 years in the Navy,” the exasperated candidate ...read more
The Death-Defying Challenges of Military Logistics in Iraq
The first time A.J. Luna escaped death while serving in Iraq, it was thanks to a Marlboro menthol. It was a blisteringly hot day, and his unit was headed from Baghdad toward LSA Anaconda, an Iraqi air force base about 40 miles north. As part of a mile-long convoy of moving ...read more
Why This Pioneering Hopi Soldier Has a Mountain Named After Her
Since U.S. Army Private Lori Ann Piestewa died in a Humvee ambush in Iraq in 2003, her name—and her legacy—have spread throughout the three mesas of Hopi land in northeastern Arizona. The first American Indian woman to die serving the U.S. Armed Forces, in the first war that ...read more
See Photos of 20 U.S. Presidents Who Served in the Military—in Uniform
When the United States chose its first president in 1788, Americans turned to George Washington who, as an army general, had led them to victory over the British and independence. The acclaim that he had received as a war hero made him a unifying figure and gave him tremendous ...read more
Frank DeVita Describes Landing on the Beach
Frank DeVita was in charge of lowering the ramp on the USS Samuel Chase on D-Day. The role would haunt him for the rest of his life.
The Last Official Death of WWI Was a Man Who Sought Redemption
Shortly after 5 a.m. on November 11, 1918, German, British and French officials gathered inside a railroad dining car in a dark forest north of Paris and signed an armistice to end World War I. Rejecting German calls to immediately halt hostilities, Allied commander Ferdinand ...read more
The Most Harrowing Battle of the Korean War
For Robert Whited and Jean White, there was never a question that they would serve in the military. And they never doubted the merit of the war they were sent to fight in Korea. It was this unbending faith in their service as U.S. Marines that carried both men through America’s ...read more
Why Were Vietnam War Vets Treated Poorly When They Returned?
Twenty-one-year-old Steven A. Wowwk arrived as an infantryman in the Army’s First Cavalry Division in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam in early January 1969 to fight in an escalating and increasingly unwinnable war. By June, Wowwk had been wounded twice—the second time seriously—and was ...read more
George H.W. Bush’s Dangerous Role in WWII
With the wings of his plane on fire and smoke pouring into the cockpit, future President George H.W. Bush parachuted into the Pacific Ocean, where he floated for hours on a life raft, vomiting uncontrollably and bleeding profusely from his forehead. Still, Bush could count ...read more
The Navy Disaster That Earned JFK Two Medals for Heroism
John F. Kennedy’s heroics during World War II earned him a Navy and Marine Corps Medal and a Purple Heart—he is the only U.S. president to have earned either of those honors. Kennedy’s political supporters made a big deal of JFK’s military honors, but when asked exactly how he ...read more
Pearl Harbor Veteran Recalls Coming Eye-to-Eye With a Japanese Bomber
Paul Kennedy was expecting to sleep in on the morning of December 7, 1941. He had been on deck duty on board the U.S.S. Sacramento at Pearl Harbor until 4 a.m., then grabbed coffee with a buddy and hadn’t gone to bed until 5:30 a.m. So, when alarms sounded at around 8 a.m. as a ...read more
Travel the Globe to 10 Key WWI Battle Sites on Google Earth
From the Western and Eastern European front lines to East Africa and China, see how a complex web of alliances led to one of history’s first, truly global wars.
