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| Blaha, Richard U. S. Navy Air Corps Pilot |
"I was knocked out when I crashed into the ocean and when I came to….I had to undo all these buckles....the shoulder straps were holding me down so I couldn't get out of the plane and I finally I found the one that was holding me in and I undid that buckle…and then I was probably 25 feet under the water I suppose by that time. I knew which way was up so I started swimming..." Read Richard's interview... |
| Carter, Don U.S. Army Infantry |
"The tanks came in and they busted through the German lines and then the infantry followed through and then the artillery was right with them...and we just poured through this hole…and then the Germans were fighting like crazy…." Read Don's interview... |
| Eagon, Paul U. S. Army Infantry |
"Actually, the record has it, that the machine gun squads were one of the most likely to get hit, because those were the kind of gunners and stuff that the enemy wanted to knock out because the machine guns are a lot faster and can hit more stuff than the single rifle man...." Read Paul's interview... |
Gray, Joseph |
"...when I came back and I walked off of that ship and I put down my foot on the ground...I said nothing, in the rest of my life, is going to bother me, and that's how it's been." Read Joe's interview... |
Gregory, Lawrence |
"That was the most terrifying thing at night. In the day time you could see what’s going on, but at night you laid in your fox hole and you couldn’t sleep. You could hear the Japs, they would say, “Marine, you die tonight.” |
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Hutchings, John |
"...they had us kneel down and put our hands behind our head and they set up a machine gun in front of us and I said to the guy next to me 'are they gonna' kill us?' He was a lieutenant and he said 'how the hell should I know I've never been captured before!'" Read John's interview... |
Jung, Edmund A. |
" At one time I was strafing and I hit trees and I had to fly back to base and I had to belly in so I bellied in at 100 miles an hour and I hit down and I jumped out of that plane and I ran ..." Read Ed's interview |
| Kane, Theodore "Tom" U.S. Army Air Corps Instructor |
"…we were blown over by a B17 and crashed…into the ground. And they smashed the window in front of me with a sledgehammer… And they dragged us through there because the gas was leaking out by then; we were just lucky it didn't explode.…" Read Tom's interview… |
| Lisk, Norbert U.S. Army Medic |
"The medic is a doctor, he’s a psychiatrist, he’s a minister, he’s all these rolled into one. And all that he can do is talk to the man and no matter how serious the man is wounded you just don’t give up...." Read Norbert's interview... |
| Massin, Marguerite USO Hostess |
"[The soldiers] would start talking to you almost before you did to them because, I think, they were hungry for somebody to talk to…." Read Marguerite's interview… |
| Reinka, William U.S. Army Air Corps |
"…there were Jap planes galore flying all over. I never saw so many tracer bullets flying passed our planes in all different directions, from the top, from the bottom, sideways…we were going in on the target, and somehow maybe the wind had shifted, but we were flying into a headwind or something. I could see this one Japanese plane coming around. He was head on. I said to the nose gunner, “Jap plane coming in at twelve.” He flew over a squadron ahead of us, and then he shot at us…" Read Bill's interview... |
Schwerman, Marian (Mohr)
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"…we were right underneath the control tower and all the flight plans had to be filed with us. We did the telegrapher, which was like a typewriter, but it was hooked up to Washington. That’s what you did and then other operations that were taking place on Correy Field came to us. It was a fun thing to do. Yeah, it was a neat thing to do." Read Marian's interview... |
| Warnock, Bob U. S. Army Medic |
"There's just no way you can impress on a person what it's gonna be like when you actually get there. I mean I was 20 years old, I had never been involved with injured people or somebody that was dying or that kind of thing. Here I am all of a sudden thrown in with men coming in that are on the brink of death. Where maybe what you do is the difference between them living and not living...." Read Bob's interview... |
Wilkening, Donald |
"The night we got captured, we were where we weren’t supposed to be. We were way up on a hill. We watched the Germans walk around us all day. I went out with a Major and a Colonel, and we laid out an artillery barrage that night hoping to catch them. When we got captured, guess where they put us? Right in the middle of that artillery barrage. I don’t know how I ever got out alive." Read Don's interview
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Sage, Edward
U. S. Army Sargeant |
"One day I was in line going to eat…you'd wait in line and you were 10 or 12 yards apart. The guy right ahead of me, as we were moving along, an artillery round came in…hit a limb of a tree and exploded and the fragments came down and hit the guy…killed the guy instantly in front of me...that was on Heartbreak Ridge..." Read Ed's interview... |
| Alkire, Larry U. S. Air Force |
"We had a lot of operations there in Turkey…. These were highly classified operations, for very obvious reasons…the Soviet Union was right across the water from them...." Read Larry's interview... |
| Haisley, Steve U.S. Marine Corps |
"Guys, at that point were screaming and you can’t imagine the chaos, just blood-curdling screams…that was probably the only time in my life that I actually thought I was dead. I just thought, “I’m dead” because the rounds were hitting so close that they were lifting us off the ground. The guys that were within 10 feet of us, they took a direct hit…they were killed." Read Steve's interview... |
| Ivers, Father Victor U. S. Navy Chaplain |
"Aboard that ship ( Okinawa), that was traumatic for me, for any chaplain, because in the morning the men were up at 5:30 or 6:00, and then they would jump in their helicopters with their rifles and radio equipment and all that and be ashore. By 9:30, the wounded and dead were being brought back by helicopters...." Read Fr. Ivers' interview... |
| Ricks, Ned U.S. Army Captain |
"The helicopter took me up, there was no place to land, where this fight was going on, the only open space was over a river, so they hovered over the river and I jumped out into the river and swam to the shore. You’ve got to be with your guys…." Read Ned's interview... |
| Umlauf, Jacob U.S. Army, Reconaissance |
"We’d go out on ambush patrols and we were reconnaissance…they take us out with helicopters and drop us off. And then we’d go out and try to find the enemy…." Read Jake's interview... |
Jumper, Mark Andrew |
"Saddam had released the oil in the water, and he set the oil wells on fire. So, the air was very thick and dirty with oil matter. We basically had to seal the ship with duct tape in order to keep as much as we could out. We designated just one hatch aft and one forward that you could go in and out of the ship, and all the others we actually taped up because the air was so foul. " |
Fujiu, John |
"…when you first crossed the border and the first Iraqi village we drove through I was appalled at just how primitive it looked. This first place we come across, I don’t even think, had any electricity or running water. It looked like these people were living in mud huts. I saw kids walking around with no shoes. It was like I’d stepped back in time." Read John's interview... |
| Inendino, Joe U.S. Marine Corps |
"I honestly thought that I wasn’t going to make it back. On this third deployment, I didn’t think I was going to make it." Read Joe's interview... |
| Larson, Drew U.S. Army Blackhawk Pilot |
"Sometimes I can have a soldier in the hands of a surgeon within 30 minutes of him being injured. That’s just massive...not just to me knowing that that’s what I’m doing, but I think it gives [the soldiers] the ability to fight harder, because they know if they get hurt, someone’s coming to get them." Read Drew's interview...
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