Lt. James Kehl, 1946 One-hundred-year-old Jim Kehl of Pittsburgh, PA, is one of the last surviving US Navy ship captains from World War II. Jim served aboard LSM-144 and LSM-145 and traveled tens-of-thousands of miles across the Pacific in 1944 and 1945, including the invasions of the Lingayen Gulf and Okinawa. He
by Todd DePastino President Harry S. Truman addressing a joint session of Congress asking for $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey. This speech became known as the "Truman Doctrine" speech. Veterans will sometimes say, “Oh, I never served in war, only peace time.” By that, they usually
by Kim Mitchell James and Kim Mitchell. Photo courtesy of author. No one who joined our VBC Happy Hour with Kim Mitchell and Bao Tran in 2020 will ever forget their gripping story of how a South Vietnamese Marine rescued an orphaned baby from streets of Quang Tri City
There Will Always Be Storms by George Zwaagstra George Zwaagstra, Royal Canadian Air Force, 1954 George Zwaagstra was born in Tjerkwerd, Friesland, the Netherlands in 1933 and emigrated to Canada in 1951. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and became a Canadian citizen in 1956. He lives in Halifax, Nova
by Todd DePastino The citizens of Los Angeles were on edge. A Japanese submarine had just shelled the Ellwood Oil Fields in Santa Barbara. Press reports of the attack were muted, but rumors swirled. Was a West Coast invasion imminent? At 2:25am on February 25, 1942, the city's worst fears appeared overhead in
Researchers reviewed records of more than 2.5 million post-9/11 veterans and found almost 4,000 more of them had died than researchers expected. Many deaths were due to accidents and homicide, but rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and suicide are also higher among 18-44 year-old veterans than among comparable groups. Traumatic Brain Injury worsens the odds of
