Veterans Chronicles

For more than 30 years, the United States government considered Iva Toguri a traitor to our nation for her actions during World War II. Many Americans might still think of her that way, since they think of her as the radio host American troops labeled "Tokyo Rose". But the truth tells a completely different story. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," we'll share the story of Iva Toguri, an Am...

Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered military planners to strike at the heart of Japan. This daring bombing mission was entrusted to Col. James Doolittle of the U.S. Army Air Corps. On April 18, 16 bombers took off from the deck of the USS Hornet, with each bomber carrying five crew members. The engineer on the 15th bomber was...

Patrick Henry reluctantly joined the ROTC program at Seattle University and hated just about every minute of it. Within the next decade he would be witness to a chilling,seminal moment in the Cold War and serve two tours in Vietnam and be awarded the Medal of Honor. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Gen. Brady shares his deployment to Berlin and how life there changed drastically when the...

Retired U.S. Army Brigadier Gen. Don Bolduc served 36 years in uniform, most of it in special forces, and spent ten tours of duty in Afghanistan. While there he earned five bronze stars and two purple hearts. He also rose to one of the top command positions for special forces in the Afghan theater. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Gen. Bolduc, details what it was like to be among the firs...

Andrew Biggio grew up in Boston as part of a family steeped in military service. In fact, he is named for his great uncle, who was killed in action in Italy during World War II. Andrew joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 2006 and was deployed as a rifleman to Iraq in 2008 and later to Afghanistan. After leaving the Marine Corps in 2012, Biggio wanted to learn what really happened to his great uncle. T...

Willie Woods joined the U.S. Marine Corps at a time when commanders believed black service members could not measure up to their white counterparts. In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt opened up the armed forces to all races, but units remained segregated. In the Marine Corps, the first African-American units were trained at Montford Point, North Carolina, near Camp Lejeune. In this edition,...

As we watch the troubling news out of Afghanistan, we continue to honor the courage that American service members demonstrated there for twenty years. One of those unforgettable veterans is Clint Romesha. Raised in California, Romesha followed his grandfather, father, and two brothers into the service. He joined the U.S. Army the day after his eighteenth birthday. Two years later, the 9/11 attacks...

When August Bolino's draft number came up, he immediately signed up with the U.S. Army Air Corps. His good grasp of numbers got him assigned as a navigator on a B-17 bomber crew in the 8th Air Force operating out of England. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Bolino demonstrates his encyclopedic memory of his service in World War II. He describes his earliest missions, his actions that earn...

Ed Manley joined the U.S. Army and was trained as a paratrooper and a demolition man. He is now immortalized in history in the famous photo of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower addressing the airborne troops on the eve of D-Day. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Manley takes us through his jump into Normandy, the confusion after he landed, and his disobeying of orders in those first hours in France....

Tom Toski was drafted into the U.S. Navy in 1943 and was deployed on a destroyer escort to the Pacific theater upon completion of his training. By the end of the war, just two years later, Toski had earned five battle stars, including Leyte Gulf and Okinawa. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Toski shares his story of service, describes his memories of those critical battles, and explains w...

Scott Taylor signed up for the U.S. Navy while he was still on high school and he knew from the start he wanted to be a SEAL. It was training that would serve him well when he was deployed to Iraq just a few years later. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Taylor describes the grueling BUD/S training that only he and a small fraction of his original class was able to complete. Also trained a...

Those who serve in our military go through rigorous training and elite forces must reach even more difficult standards. Perhaps the most famous and most demanding training belongs to the U.S. Navy SEALS. Candidates are tested physically and mentally in many different ways over many months but perhaps the most intense crucible is Hell Week. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles" author Scott McEw...

John McCarney joined the U.S. Air Force shortly after deciding he'd had enough of college football. He trained to be a medical corpsman and was by late 1974 was on his way to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. Upon arriving he was stunned to learn he was assigned to the obstetrics ward of the hospital. It was just a few months later that President Gerald Ford authorized Operation Babylift, w...

In 2011, U.S. Army Lt. General Patricia Horoho became the first nurse and the first woman to serve as Surgeon General of the U.S. Army. Prior to the that honor, she provided excellent emergency care in the immediate aftermath of two major disasters and commanded some of the nation's most critical military medical facilities. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Gen. Horoho walks us through he...

Frank DeVita joined the U.S. Coast Guard in World War II thinking his job would be to protect the American coast. But his war service would be much different than expected when the Navy decided to use Coast Guard personnel the responsibility of manning many of the landing crafts used during invasions. DeVita was assigned to a Higgins boat headed for Omaha Beach in the early hours of D-Day, June 6,...

George Dramis joined the U.S. Army during World War II and was sent to Europe with many other soldiers to defeat Nazi Germany. But his unit was very different from all the others. Dramis was a member of the Army's 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, better known as General George S. Patton's "Ghost Army." In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Dramis explains how the 23rd was tasked with deceivin...

Maj. General Mari K. Eder shares her story of joining the U.S. Army in 1977 and embarking on a 36-year career, in which she rose to be Deputy Chief of U.S. Army Public Affairs during U.S. military action in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Gen. Eder also discusses her years serving as Deputy Chief of U.S. Army Reserve and the challenges she faced while holding that position during wartime. Gen. Eder is als...

Carl Felton joined the U.S.Navy after graduating from high school in 1943, even though he didn't know how to swim. Felton was then trained in communications and sent to England to be part of the pivotal effort to attack Hitler's Atlantic Wall and establish a western front against Nazi Germany. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Felton shares his memories of the vast armada of ships off the...

Douglas MacGregor was commissioned as a U.S. Army officer after graduating from West Point in 1976. He soon developed expertise in armored cavalry and tanks that proved extremely valuable in the short, decisive ground campaign during Operation Desert Storm. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Col. MacGregor tells the story of how he turned an underperforming armored cavalry squadron into one...

James Wright joined the U.S. Marine Corps after graduating high school. His three years of service in the Marines fell during peacetime, but just a few years later American found itself fully immersed in the Vietnam War. Wright followed the war carefully at the time, but it was years later as an academic that he began studying the war very closely. For his book, "Enduring Vietnam: An American Gene...

Steven Fenves and his family enjoyed a nice middle class life in Hungary for his first ten years. In 1941, Hungarian authorities began discriminating against Jewish families. Within three years, he and his family were headed for the notorious concentration and death camps. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Fenves provides incredible detail as he describes the persecution his family faced f...

From a young age, Mike Dowe knew that he wanted to attend the U.S. Military Academy and serve our nation in uniform. In 1950, he graduated from West Point and was immediately sent to Korea. After months of successfully pushing the North Koreans back to the north, American forces suddenly faced an endless surge of enemy Chinese soldiers pouring across the border. In this edition of "Veterans Chroni...

Tom Fitzpatrick grew up in Pennsylvania and had never been on an airplane before joining the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II. Before long, he was serving as a radio navigator on a B-17 bomber crew. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Fitzpatrick explains his role on bombing missions, the close calls his crew endured, targeting the critical Nazi oil facilities in Ploesti, and how his plan...

Retired U.S. Army Major General Victor Hugo, Jr. takes us through his distinguished Army career, from West Point through Vietnam to perfecting the Patriot Missiles that served us so well during the Gulf War. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Gen. Hugo describes his time in Vietnam shortly after the French left in the mid-1950s as well as his critical assignments throughout the war. You'll...

Dakota Meyer decided to have some fun with the U.S. Marine recruiter visiting his high school. Within minutes he had a change of heart and signed up to serve. Meyer would serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a horrific day in September 2009 would change his life forever. In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Meyer shares the very difficult story of watching from a a mile away as his fellow Marin...