Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes

Send us Fan Mail Jesse Krewson doesn’t tell a “clean” redemption story. He tells the real one, where poverty, identity, and a missing support system push a kid in Grand Rapids toward gangs, weed, and dropping out before high school even starts. Jail becomes routine, not shocking. Then one person steps in, his grandfather, and everything shifts: Job Corps, a GED, getting clean long enough to pass a...

Send us Fan Mail A lot of people carry a quiet belief that their work “didn’t really count.” Chuck Dodge used to feel that way about his Air Force service, even after four years stationed at Dover Air Force Base, where he could look out and see caskets stacked in a warehouse during the Vietnam era. Then one sentence at a veterans conference cracked everything open: “Every person’s service matters....

Send us Fan Mail A full-ride scholarship, a Pentagon internship, and a clear military track should have meant a smooth launch. Jim Bennett did the opposite. He chased the Appalachian Trail, learned what it means to “hike your own hike,” and then carried those lessons into the Michigan Army National Guard as 9/11 turned weekend service into a new era of war and responsibility.  We talk through the...

Send us Fan Mail One decision after high school can change the whole arc of your life, especially when it sends you farther than you ever expected. We’re joined by Tod Smith, a Lansing, Michigan native who joins the United States Navy looking for a reset, only to get rerouted by a colorblind test, pushed through boot camp at Great Lakes, and then surprised with orders to Japan. Along the way, Tod...

Send us Fan Mail War stories usually end with the homecoming. Mike Carie’s don’t, because the hard part kept going after the uniform came off. We talk with Mike, a US Army veteran who grew up bouncing from place to place, joined through the delayed entry program, and learned fast what basic training and real-world readiness demand. From Fort Knox to Fort Bliss, he explains how the military can tak...

Send us Fan Mail The Vietnam War wasn’t just fought with rifles. It was fought with fuel, paperwork, convoys, and the kind of responsibility that can follow you for years. We sit down with Robert “Bob” Tvorik, a United States Army officer who went from a tough, introverted upbringing to leading soldiers in a petroleum supply unit supporting major operations in Vietnam. His memories are vivid, prac...

Send us Fan Mail The draft, Vietnam, a brand-new marriage, and orders that change without warning. Bruce Davenport walks us through a life shaped by service and problem-solving, from growing up in small town Michigan to joining the United States Air Force in 1969 with one clear goal: get solid training and avoid being sent to “pound the ground” in Vietnam. What follows is a candid Air Force vetera...

Send us Fan Mail You can hear the exact moment a life changes when someone stops trying to force a plan and starts following the next right step. Brad Foss takes us from Janesville, Wisconsin, where he’s a quiet kid tinkering with early computers and falling in love with music, to a decision that shocks even him: joining the United States Army for a technical career. We talk through the unglamorou...

Send us Fan Mail Doug Thorne didn’t set out chasing adventure, but service kept handing it to him anyway. From a childhood spent moving around Michigan with a dad in the state police, Doug learns early how to adapt, make friends fast, and keep his footing when life changes addresses. That same skill shows up again when college falls away, the draft number comes up, and he chooses the United States...

Send us Fan Mail You can hear the pivot points in Takura Nyamfukudza’s life the moment he describes them: finishing school in Zimbabwe, getting on a plane to join his mom and sister in the United States, then spotting a Humvee display on a college campus and realizing he wanted something structured, demanding, and bigger than himself. That choice turns into 12 years in the U.S. Army, deployments o...

Send us Fan Mail Some people talk about service like it is a resume line. Pamelajune Anderson lives it like a calling, and she earned it the hard way. We start in Columbus, Ohio, where she grows up in a strict, loving home shaped by church, community elders, and the kind of discipline that teaches you how to stand on your own feet. Along the way, she explains the story behind her name, including t...

Send us Fan Mail War zone medicine is not just trauma bays and helicopters. Sometimes it is 140-degree heat, dust storms that ground flights, and a charge nurse trying to keep blood running while a policy says patients must move in 72 hours. Judy Fryover, an Army Reserve nurse and later colonel, walks us through the real texture of military healthcare, from the small details that make you laugh to...

Send us Fan Mail A life can look ordinary on paper and still be packed with turning points you only hear when someone tells the story out loud. We talk with William “Bill” Atkinson, a longtime Lansing, Michigan resident and United States Navy Reserve veteran, about growing up near General Motors, watching neighborhoods vanish as I-496 is built, and learning grit the old-fashioned way on a newspape...

Send us Fan Mail A lot of people say they “worked their way up.” Charles Thomas actually did it, step by step, when the alternatives were a factory line, a foundry floor, or getting drafted into the Vietnam War. We talk with Charles about growing up in Willow Run after moving from Detroit, finding his identity through sports, and grinding through two demanding jobs just to save enough money to sta...

Send us Fan Mail A lot of people say they want a life story worth saving. Jim Clark lived one, and he tells it with the calm detail of someone who has actually done the work. Jim was born in West Virginia, moved west during the World War II shipbuilding years, and grew up near Portland and Vancouver with memories that feel both ordinary and disappearing fast: barracks housing, coal heat, country r...

Send us Fan Mail Harold Pope’s life reads like a map of modern American choices: leave the South, build a home up North, learn the rules of power early, and decide what kind of person you will be anyway. We talk with Harold about being born in Mississippi during the Great Migration era and growing up in Albany, New York with a single mother who becomes a legendary NAACP leader. Her activism is not...

Send us Fan Mail A kid from Lansing gets pulled out of a stable home, dropped into foster care, and learns to survive by becoming self-sufficient. Years later, a draft letter and the shadow of Vietnam force a choice that still feels raw: run from service, or step into it. We talk with Calvin Jones, a United States Marine Corps veteran, about what it took to choose the Marine Corps, what Parris Isl...

Send us Fan Mail A bottle of Canadian Club sounds like a punchline until it turns into a lifeline on a late night in Marseille. We talk with Thom Miller, a Michigan native and United States Army veteran, about the real decisions that shape a life when there’s no GPS, no smartphone, and no safety net. His memories move from Flint to Lansing’s east side, where a one-income household, a smart and ste...

Send us Fan Mail He survived Mosul, but the hardest fight started after he came home. Bill Krieger, a U.S. Navy veteran and Michigan National Guard military police officer, walks us through a life defined by the search for belonging, the weight of leadership, and what PTSD and panic attacks can look like when you don’t yet have words for them. We trace Bill’s path from a chaotic childhood in Lansi...

Send us Fan Mail A HIMARS battalion fires 372 rockets and hits 372 targets. Years later, the same planner is fighting a different battle: drone warfare that gives you 90 seconds to decide if the “lawnmower” overhead is friendly or about to kill someone. That’s the arc of our conversation with Keith Lane, a Michigan Army National Guard veteran whose career moves from college football leadership les...

Send us Fan Mail A lot of veteran stories get flattened into headlines. Jessica Linna’s doesn’t. She enlisted in the Michigan Army National Guard in 2001, just three months before 9/11, not because she had a perfect plan but because she didn’t. After losing her sister days before graduation, she’s honest about feeling aimless, trying college, working a solid job, and still wanting a direction that...

Send us Fan Mail Getting fired after a bar fight is not most people’s origin story for military service, but for Dave Lewis it lands just days before 9/11 and everything changes. Dave grew up in the Flint and Fenton, Michigan area, raised by a mom who never stopped showing up while his dad survived a devastating crash and later a brain tumor. That mix of community, hardship, and loyalty sets the s...

Send us Fan Mail A sleigh rescue from a blizzard. Kerosene lamps in a farmhouse without electricity. A young man drafted during Korea who ends up rebuilding Europe’s engines and then, decades later, rebuilding how young Americans learn to drive. Jerry Ockert's 95-year journey is the kind of story you can feel in your bones—practical, principled, and full of turns that make perfect sense in hi...

Send us Fan Mail The bus doors swung open at Fort Dix and five drill sergeants stared him down—by 0400, bunks were tipping, cans were banging, and Cedric Davis wondered if he’d made the worst mistake of his life. What followed is a clear-eyed story of fear met head-on, pride earned the hard way, and a life held together by family, friendship, and duty. We walk through Cedric’s Jersey roots and the...

Send us Fan Mail A draft notice rerouted Andrew Glenn from German beer halls to a rain-soaked tarmac at Fort Campbell, where a drill sergeant’s bark split his life into before and after. What followed reads like a map drawn in pencil and sweat: infantry training, a near-miss with OCS, boredom punctured by juggling rocks, and an arrival in Korea under red alert that replaced comfort with diesel sto...