Veterans Chronicles

Joe "Peppy" Sciarra was drafted into the U.S. Army the day after he graduated from high school. All four boys in his family served during World War II. After basic training, Sciarra was assigned to the Army's 25th Infantry Division, known as "Tropic Lightning." He was then ordered to be part of a heavy weapons platoon operating 81 millimeter mortars. The weapon would be critical to the U.S. driving the Japanese off of 47 separate ridges on the island of Luzon in the Philippines over five months in 1945.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Sciarra explains how the 81...

Joseph Picard was a teenager when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Unlike some of his peers, Picard was neither excited to join the service nor dreading it. He just accepted that he would need to serve.

After completing basic training, Picard was assigned to the 552nd Field Artillery Battalion, working with the massive 240mm guns. The battalion was held out of D-Day operations and landed at Utah Beach in late June 1944.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Picard takes us through all the work involved in assembling and operating the 240mm guns. He also...

Don Graves tried to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps the day after President Franklin Roosevelt declared the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor a day of infamy. Since he was only 16 years old, Graves had to wait another six months to enlist. When he did, he went through basic training in California and was soon assigned as a flamethrower operator in the 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment, 5th Marine Division.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Graves recounts the harrowing landing during the third wave at Iwo Jima, getting pinned down in the water, what they had to...

Ed Hiner had no intention of joining the military until a friend's father forced him to help a military family in need. During that experience, Hiner met a Navy SEAL, learned about what the SEALs do, and immediately knew that's what he wanted to do with his life. Hiner joined the Navy, qualified for BUD/s training, and was one of just 10 SEAL candidates in his class to graduate.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Hiner takes us through BUD/s training - from how his life abruptly changed the moment he arrived at Coronado to the mental...

Patrick Zilliacus was born in Finland and came to the U.S. when his father became the Finnish military attache in Washington, primarily to procure weapons for Finland's war with Russia. Left on his own in the U.S. at age 16, Zilliacus worked in a steel mill before joining the U.S. Navy in 1943. He was assigned as a torpedo man on a brand new submarine, the USS Spot.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Zilliacus explains how he was almost killed when the USS Spot went out for "shakedown" after commissioning. He also details what it was l...

Ltt Gen. Marc Sasseville was born into an Air Force family and that played a significant role in his decision to attend the U.S. Air Force Academy and become an Air Force officer. After 14 years on active duty, Sasseville shifted to the Air National Guard in 1999 and also became a commercial airline pilot.

On September 11, 2001, Sasseville was serving with the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia Air National Guard at Andrews Air Force base when Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners. Once the second plane struck the World Trade Center, Sasseville and everyone else on base...

Andrew Card served more than five years as White House Chief of Staff for President George W. Bush. Less than eight months into Bush's first term, Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four U.S. airliners. Two were flown into each of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Another was used to crash into the Pentagon. The fourth plane was headed to Washington, but was forced down in a Pennsylvania field by the heroic passengers of United Flight 93.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Mr. Card takes us moment by moment as he learned the disasters in New...

Timothy Brown was serving as supervisor of field operations in New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's office of emergency management on September 11, 2001. He was already at work near the World Trade Center when terrorists flew the first plane into the North Tower. He was in the lobby of that building when he got word that a second plane controlled by terrorists struck the South Tower. He immediately rushed over there. Less than an hour later, the South Tower collapsed while Timothy Brown was still inside.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Brown walks us from when he heard...

Christopher Brewer grew up as an Army brat and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1973 because he wanted to be a Ranger. Even though he had never jumped out of a plane prior to joining the Army, Brewer learned quickly and passed the rest of his training to become a Ranger. He later took on and successfully completed intense training while serving overseas that served him very well in Special Forces.

In 1989, he was deployed to Colombia to assist government forces fighting against the drug cartels. The next year, he was in Panama, dealing with the volatile...

Tom Young grew up on his family's farm in North Carolina. From a young age he was fascinated by his grandfather's stories of being part of a bomber crew during World War II. That helped to spark his interest in both flying and in service. Young served in the Maryland and West Virginia Air National Guard, serving as flight engineer for C-130 Hercules and C-5 Galaxy transport planes. Missions took him to the war zones in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also a military novelist and his latest work is The Mapmaker, which focuses on the French Resistance during W...

Hilbert Margol was the first of twin boys born to his parents in February 1924. He was nearly finished with high school when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Soon, Margol and his brother, Howard, were in the Army, training on 105 mm howitzers with the 42nd Infantry Division. They saw their first combat in southern France in January 1945. After that, they fought into Germany, crossed the Rhine River, and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp near Munich.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Margol explains how his Jewish family was very concerned about the advancement of Nazi forces...

Walter Stitt, Jr. was a senior in high school when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He and his friends all assumed they'd be drafted. When that did not happen right away, Stitt enlisted in the Army. He was eventually assigned as a gunner for a tank crew in E company, 33rd armored regiment, 3rd armored division and joined the war just a month after D-Day.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Stitt will tell us how he was injured on his first day in combat but pushed back into action the very next day. He describes...

Alan Kinder was waiting to be drafted into the military during World War II, but when he arrived at the Army recruiter, he was told his eyesight was too poor. The next time he tried to join, his eyesight wasn't any better. This time, the Army took him anyway.

Kinder was trained in sound ranging as part of the 14th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. His job was to determine how far away the enemies were and what vehicles they might have with them. The battalion landed at Utah Beach just a few weeks after D-Day. Months later it...

Hal Urban grew up in a poor family hit hard by the Great Depression. Joining the military meant he would finally get three meals per day. He enlisted in the Army hoping to become a pilot, but less than perfect eyesight scuttled those dreams. He was trained on .50 caliber guns mounted on haltracks to protect American tanks and other convoys. Assigned to the 11th Armored Division, Urban arrived in Europe in late 1944 and was quickly sent to fight in the Battle of the Bulge.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Sgt. Urban explains what combat was like with...

Join Emily Jones and Holly Worthington as they dive into this heart wrenching story of a child abduction. Five-year-old Bella was taken by someone her family trusted — a man they never expected, their father's roommate: Bill Mix. In a matter of moments, a normal day turned into every parent’s worst nightmare. As the Amber Alert spread across California and panic set in, one woman hundreds of miles away — Leisa Hilton in Utah — felt something was deeply wrong.

LISTEN HERE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-miracle-files/id1714203488

Kelly Elmlinger was a three-sport athlete in high school. She excelled in cross country, basketball, and track. After considering military service, she decided to keep playing sports at the next level, but she quickly decided college was not for her. That's when she joined the Army and became a combat medic, eventually with the 82nd Airborne Division, serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Later, she became a nurse and then a cancer patient herself. Yet even after losing a leg, Elmlinger persevered and represented the U.S. at the Paralympic Games just a few years later.

In this...

Louis Bourgault was 16 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor - too young to formally join the military. After his father rejected a teenage plot to go join the Canadian forces, Bourgault enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps when he turned 17. After grueling basic training at Parris Island, Bourgault was tapped as a message runner. He was soon off to San Diego and then shipped to New Zealand. After spending time loading and unloading ships at Guadalcanal, it was soon time to enter the fighting.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Bourgault gives an unvarnished look...

Doug Bahrns knew he wanted to be a U.S. Marine Corps officer when he finished high school a couple of years before 9/11. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer. After going to officer's training at Quantico, Bahrns was assigned command of 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines in 2003. By 2004 they were in Iraq, and a few months later they would be involved in some of the fiercest fighting of the war - the Second Battle of Fallujah.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Bahrns discusses the ramping...

Scotty Hasting is now a popular country music singer but his story of service will explain a lot about the performer you see today.

Hasting grew up in the Cincinnati, Ohio-Northern Kentucky area and developed immense respect for the U.S. military from the movies and television shows he watched. He enlisted in the Army at age 21, which quickly made him the "old man" in basic training. Hasting wanted to serve in the infantry because he wanted to be in the fight. Just a few months after basic training, he was off to Afghanistan with the 4-4 Cav...

Bob Ingram joined the Navy after graduating high school in 1963 to give himself some direction. He was initially assigned to work in electronics, but after getting a bad case of pneumonia, Ingram was so impressed by the dedication of the Navy corpsmen, that he decided to become one. Corpsman training was long and demanding and Marine Corps aid training followed that. 

After struggling to find a good Marine unit to join, Ingram was off to Vietnam in late 1965 - attached to C Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. They saw a lot of action right f...

Harold Terens was just 18 years old and playing basketball with his friends when he heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Like many Americans, he had no idea where Pearl Harbor was but he definitely wanted to serve. He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 with dreams of becoming a pilot. A vision test dashed those dreams but he quickly proved proficient at receiving and sending Morse Code. 

Terens left for Europe on his 20th birthday in 1943. He was assigned to the 350th Fighter Squadron in the Eighth Air Force. His job was t...

Charlie Plumb ended up in the U.S. Navy because money was tight for his family and it was a big economic relief when he was recommended and accepted at the U.S. Naval Academy. Upon commissioning from Annapolis and competion of flight school, Plumb would soon be flying an F-4. Little did he know what awaited him just a few years later in Vietnam.

Plumb was deployed to the war zone in November 1966. He routinely flew missions over North Vietnam, including Hanoi, which he says was the most heavily protected city in the world at that time...

Kathleen Faircloth received the news that no parent wants to get. In late November 2004, she learned that her son, U.S. Marine Corps Lance Corporal Bradley Faircloth, was killed during the Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. What followed was the anguish over losing her only child, slowly emerging from the immense grief that followed, and the unexpected joy of finding a family she never expected.

In this Memorial Day edition of Veterans Chronicles, Kathleen Faircloth tells us how the 9/11 attacks sparked Bradley's interest in joining the military and how he joined the Marines impulsively while home from...

Doug Greenlaw sees his life as a series of "lightning strikes." He was literally struck by lightning when he was 13 years old, thankfully making an immediate recovery. He later left Indiana University to join the Army, become an officer, and serve in in the Vietnam War - first as a platoon commander and then as a company commander. He arrived in Vietnam in 1967.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Greenlaw takes us through his training, including a terrifying story from jungle training, and through his most harrowing moments in Vietnam. Greenlaw details the events of Thanksgiving Day 1967, when...

Melvin Hurwirz was 16 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Within just a few years, all four boys in his family were at war, each in a different branch of the service. After enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Hurwitz was assigned as a gunner and as a radio man for a B-17 bomber crew after an aptitude test showed his proficiency at Morse Code. His crew then had a bit of an adventure flying the bomber over to Great Britain. It was Spring 1945 by the time he saw his first bombing mission.

...

Anthony "Tony" Wood grew up in a Marine Corps family and enlisted to begin his own service in 1964. Before long he was commissioned as a USMC officer. His first deployment to Vietnam came shortly after the Tet Offensive. Initially trained as an infantry platoon commander, he soon found himself leading an armored platoon.

Wood was deployed to Vietnam again in 1974, long after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords and American forces had gone home. Initially working to solve cases of Americans missing in action, Wood was tasked with planning the evacuation of Americans from Saigon after the...

Sarah Spradlin knew she wanted to serve her nation in uniform, and to her the only option was the U.S. Marine Corps. She was commissioned as an officer after completing ROTC training at Virginia Tech in May 2001. Within months, the U.S. was at war following the 9/11 attacks.

But Spradlin was not deployed to a war zone. After an assignment in Okinawa, she returned to the U.S. to oversee the training of female Marine recruits at Parris Island and focusing on ways to improve manpower. After that, she found herself at Marine Forces Special Operation Command...

James Thompson joined the U.S. Army in 1948, in part to avoid the consequences for his troubled behavior. Soon he was off to segregated training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey. Within a few months, Thompson was deployed to Europe, where he and the other troops were able to gain valuable training experience.

The deployment was cut short, forces were brought home, and then they were shipped off to Japan. It was there that Thompson was assigned to the Buffalo Soldiers, all-Black service members in the 24th regiment of the 25th infantry division.

In this edition of...

Bruce McKenty was born into an Army family, as his father was a career officer. By the time he finished high school, McKenty knew he wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps. He was commissioned as an officer upon graduation from Texas A&M and soon went to flight training. After completing flight school in April 1972, McKenty was assigned to fly AH-1G Cobra attack helicopters in support of ground forces near the Cambodian border.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, McKentry tells us why he loved flying Cobras and why the enemy hated to see them coming...

Kaj Larsen did not follow the typical route to becoming a U.S. Navy SEAL. He was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy but left after two years to focus on playing water polo at the collegiate level. A few years later he enlisted in the Navy and immediately tried to get a slot in Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL (BUD/s) training in Coronado, California. Those billets are not usually given to men who left Annapolis but Larsen managed to snag one after his lifeguarding skills made headlines. 

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Larsen explains his p...

Military historian and author Carole Engle Avriett joins us to tell the powerful story of U.S. Navy Mess Attendant Charles Jackson French, which is told in her new book, Midnight in Ironbottom Sound: The Harrowing World War II Story of Heroism in the Shark-Infested Waters of Guadalcanal. 

Charles Jackson French was born into a poor family in the segregated south in 1919. Before turning 18 years old, French lost both of his parents and was hit by the Great Depression. In 1937, he joined the U.S. Navy. He later left the service but re-enlisted after the Japanese attack on P...

Delmar Beard grew up near Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. But when it was time to join the military during World War II, he chose the Navy. Serving as a gunner aboard an LST, Beard made multiple landings during the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Later, he did join the Army, and served for 22 years. He rose to the rank of command sergeant major and was deployed to both Korea and Vietnam.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Beard takes us from training to landing at Iwo Jima. He describes unloading the ship while Japanese bullets were whizzing...

Nils Mockler joined the U.S. Marine Corps at the age of 17, only because they wouldn't let him join when he was 16. Upon enlisting in 1944, Mockler completed boot camp and was soon tapped as a combat intelligence scout. He also dabbled in explosives as you'll hear. After more training in Hawaii, Mockler and many other Marines left for Iwo Jima, where they would land in February 1945 and become part of one of the most vicious battles in the entire war.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Mockler takes us on board his ship as the battle plans were...

Wayne Fletcher joined the U.S. Army in September of 1949. In June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, and just 16 months after enlisting, Fletcher found himself at war. He operated .50 caliber anti-aircraft guns mounted on half-tracks. With no real enemy threats coming from the air, Fletcher and his fellow gunners turned their weapons on enemy ground forces in support of Army infantry.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Fletcher gives us a good explanation of the guns and how he operated them and the brutal cold he dealt with after arriving in January 1951. Fletcher also shares some specific, intense...

Gregory "Matt" Dillon was required to enroll in ROTC at the University of Alabama. Upon graduation, he was required to give two years in the U.S. Army. He ended up serving 24 years, including three tours in Vietnam. He served as operations officer for then-Lt. Col. Hal Moore with the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Air Cavalry Division at the vicious battle of Landing Zone X-Ray in November 1965 

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Col. Dillon explains the events that led up to the Battle of Ia Drang, how the fighting began, the saga of the lost platoon, t...

Charles Cram was 15 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Before he was old enough to join the military, he worked as a messenger and received word of an alleged Japanese attack on the west coast of the U.S. When he was 17, Cram joined the service. After boot camp he was assigned to corpsman training. Before long he was off to the Pacific and would see his first combat as an 18-year-old corpsman on Iwo Jima.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Cram tells about his corpsman training, intense simulated invasions on the coast of California...

Harry Stewart grew up with a love of flying and dreamed of becoming an airline pilot one day. But shortly after graduating high school, with the nation at war, Stewart found himself in in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

The military needed skilled pilots but would not let black and white personnel train or serve together. Stewart was sent to Tuskegee, Alabama, where he and other black pilots and crew members prepared to serve as fighter pilot escorts for American bombers over Europe.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Col. Stewart describes the training, his...

Allison Black surprised her family by deciding to enlist in the U.S. Air Force after high school. She did it to be part of a mission bigger than herself. After basic training, Black spent the next several years as a Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape - or SERE - instructor, teaching service members what to do if shot down, stuck behind enemy lines, or captured. 

After several years of that she became an officer in Air Force special operations and served as a navigator aboard an AC-130H gunship. Shortly after 9/11, she and her crew were deployed t...

Jesse "Bud" Alley was born in Florida but grew up in Greenville, South Carolina. He joined Army ROTC while enrolled at Furman University. Not long after commissioning, he was assigned as a radio officer. After one more reassignment, his job was to make sure radios were in working order for the colonels in the new Air Cavalry Division.

Because of the radio work and other training, Alley had never gone through an infantry training course or even flown in a helicopter when he was deployed to Vietnam in 1965. Within months he would be in the midst of some...

Jack Hawkins grew up in Alabama in a community full of military veterans. His family was full of U.S. Marines so joining the corps came naturally to him. Hawkins enlisted in 1963 but immediately began a path towards becoming an officer. That included grueling summer sessions in Quantico, Virginia, and additional training before he was deployed to command an infantry platoon in Vietnam.

In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Hawkins takes us from officer training to commanding enlisted men with a whole lot more experience than he had. He tells us how he earned the trust and respect...