The wars that followed September 11, 2001, produced a generation of Americans whose lives were shaped by events that began on a single morning and unfolded over two decades. The Veterans Breakfast Club Veterans History Project has recorded hundreds of interviews with veterans and military family members. The excerpts that follow are drawn from those
United Airlines Flight 175 hits the World Trade Center’s south tower, September 11, 2001. (Public domain) By Todd DePastino On September 11, 2001, nineteen young men boarded four commercial airliners and changed the course of American life—or so it seemed. Most of us who were alive that day remember exactly where we
By Bob Von Bargen Few veterans today remember the phrase "purple suit." I was reminded of that recently after giving a presentation on the origins of Armed Forces Day. At the end, I asked the audience whether anyone remembered the expression. No one did. That surprised me because, for many of us, "putting on
By Todd DePastino For many of us, September 11, 2001, remains a vivid personal memory. We remember where we were when we heard the news. We remember the smoke, the confusion, and the sense that history had suddenly burst into our lives like an unwelcome intruder. But twenty-five years is a long time. More
By Todd DePastino On December 17, 1944, hundreds of American bombers crossed Central Europe on a mission against Nazi Germany’s synthetic fuel industry. One of them, a B-24J Liberator known only by the number painted on its fuselage—“White 47”—never returned. The airplane broke apart nearly five miles above Silesia and fell into a snowy
By Jay Lacklen By 1976, Air Force pilot Jay Lacklen had spent years flying one of the largest and most demanding aircraft in the U.S. inventory, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. In the excerpt below from his memoir Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot's Journey, he recalls two flights that nearly ended in disaster.
