written by Carole Wagener For Bill and Carole Wagener, 1969 was The Hardest Year. Newlyweds separated by 10,000 miles, Bill served in the 865th Engineer Gas Generating Detachment at Cha Rang Valley while Carole was a student at protest-wracked University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their 300-plus letters back and forth are the basis of a new book recounting their
Written by Ron Farina Of the almost 2 million Americans who have received Purple Hearts since World War II, only about 500 have been women. The vast majority of these women earned the award since September 11, 2001. On two VBC Happy Hours in March, we had nine such recipients join us, along with
Written by Beth Reuschel In Part 1, military records researcher Beth Reuschel explained how to use wartime letters to create a timeline of your veteran's service in World War II. Below, Beth focuses on the next step: delving into military records. Learn more at reuschelresearch.com. In Part 1, I covered how to read your veteran’s wartime
Written by Bob Rabe Vietnam veteran Bob Rabe shares a beautiful Christmas moment from 1966. It seems like yesterday, December 25, 1966. While on patrol with my fellow Military Policeman, we came upon a Vietnamese Catholic Church. Mass had already started, but we entered the church quietly anyway. While we stood in the back, the Vietnamese
Written by Shaun HallBetween Enlisted and regular Officers sits a strange thing called a "Warrant Officer." Warrant Officers get saluted and are called "sir," but they have their own pay grades and do not receive their rank by commission . . . unless they're "Commissioned Warrant Officers." Shaun Hall breaks it all down below.What Military
Survivor of the Bataan Death March RemembersAnyone who has joined us on VBC Happy Hour knows Henry Schoepke, our much-loved teenager from Wisconsin. Henry is an avid student of history, a supporter of veterans, and an autograph collector. One of his many projects is to write thank you notes to 500 World War II veterans.
