By the time World War II ended, America’s wartime production record included almost 300,000 airplanes, more than 100,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, 88,000 warships, 370,000 artillery pieces, 47 million tons of artillery ammunition, and 44 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition. Time magazine called America’s wartime production a miracle.

The miracle would not have happened without “Rosie the Riveter.” In real life, Rosie was women like Norma Cutting, a crane operator who worked 60 feet above a cement floor at a steel factory. She was also Norma Jeane Dougherty who worked at Radio Plane in the dope room where a liquid plastic—or dope—was sprayed over cloth that became the fuselage for target planes and who was photographed by an Army photographer for Yank magazine. Those photographs launched a modeling and film career for which Norma Jeane later changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.

Norma Cutting and Norma Jeane Dougherty were just two of the millions of women who were part of the work force in the defense industry that created the miracle of production. In addition, millions more women performed what were called essential civilian jobs—jobs that kept the home front running smoothly—working as police officers, musicians, loggers, taxi drivers, baseball players, farmers, and chemists.

When the war ended in 1945, these job opportunities for women abruptly disappeared.

“I will never forget the day after the war ended. We met the girls at the door and we handed them a slip to go over to personnel and get their severance pay,” said William Mulcahy, who supervised women war workers at a factory in Camden, New Jersey. “We didn’t even allow them in the building, all these women with whom I had become so close, who had worked seven days a week for years and had been commended so many times by the Navy for the work they were doing.”

Although America no longer needed women war workers, the story of their wartime contributions is found in the words of people who lived during World War II—in employment records and statistics, magazine and newspaper articles, radio programs and thousands of posters, pamphlets, and photographs. It is an amazing story about a time when stereotypes about men’s work and women’s work were suspended. A time when traditional barriers that had blocked women workers were lowered and they had a chance to prove what they could do.

As I studied statistics, read old magazines and newspapers, viewed propaganda films, read oral histories, and talked with former women workers, I was amazed at the variety of jobs women did during World War II. They were barbers, railroad track tenders, aerodynamic engineers, flame cutters, tool machinists, furnace operators, welders, street cleaners, lumberjacks, flag-post painters, drawbridge tenders, and brain pickers in slaughterhouses. I was fascinated by the glut of posters, articles, advertisements, celebrity pitches, movies and songs produced by the government and industry for massive propaganda campaigns aimed at selling war jobs to women—especially housewives—who were also reminded to be “feminine and ladylike, even though you are filling a man’s shoes.”

By the end of 1944, it was clear that the war would not go on much longer. On June 6—known as D-Day—allied troops had invaded France and were pushing the German troops back to Germany. In the war against Japan, U.S. troops had captured island after island in 1943 and 1944. As 1945 began, the peak of industrial mobilization in America was over. Slowly, the number of jobs in defense industries declined. Before 1945 ended, millions of men returned from the battlefield to the home front, and soon there were enough male workers again. The propaganda campaigns told women war workers to return to their homes.

Some women were ready to quit.

“As soon as it’s curtains for the Axis, it’s going to be lace curtains for me,” Lorainne Blum, a riveter in a Boeing plant, said in the company newsletter. “I want to establish my own home and stay put.”

But many women did mind losing their jobs. In Highland Park, Michigan, 200 women who had been laid off from the Ford plant conducted a protest. Marching in front of the plant, they carried signs that read “Stop Discrimination Because of Sex” and “How Come No Work For Women?”

When Ottilie Juliet Gattus—who had worked at Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation for the duration of the war—was laid off, she wrote to President Roosevelt, “I happen to be a widow with a mother and son to support. … I would like to know why, after serving a company in good faith for almost three and a half years, it is now impossible to obtain employment with them. I am a lathe hand and was classified as skilled labor, but simply because I happed to be a woman I am not wanted."

As they lived their lives after World War II, many women war workers did not talk about their experience. For some women, it was too painful to remember how quickly their careers as welders, riveters and crane operators had ended. Other women who were working hard to survive did not have time to reminisce. Many women felt people were not interested in their stories, especially in the 1950s, when there was an escalating trend toward blaming working women for problems ranging from juvenile delinquency to divorce. But women war workers never forgot the experiences that they had for the duration of World War II. They never forgot the thrill of getting a chance to do a job. They never forgot the satisfaction of earning good wages. They never forgot the excitement of being independent. They never forgot that once there was a time in America when women were told that they could do anything. And they did.

A lot has happened for Robert X. Fogarty in the past year. The Dear World mastermind has gone from community organizer – which he still is with the Evacuteer.org nonprofit he started in 2009 – to a social art director for modern times.

Since On Patrol last talked to Fogarty, he’s worked with the New Orleans Saints again, doing a shoot with former Saint Steve Gleason, who is battling ALS. Fogarty also photographed Saints quarterback Drew Brees and head coach Sean Payton to help Gleason’s foundation, Team Gleason.

Fogarty’s got New Orleans nailed down, but he’s also building a broader brand with the Dear World project by documenting stories like that of Marine Gunnery Sergeant Ryan Leach. (That shoot is featured in the Spring issue of On Patrol).

As Fogarty sees it, the Leach shoot won’t be the last time he works with members of the U.S. military.

“I’d love to do more work with servicemen,” Fogarty said. “To do love letters home with servicemen abroad I think would just be so awesome.

“To have people thousands of miles away from their families and to write basically a love letter home on their body through this picture is always one that I’ve wanted to get done.”

Many who’ve sat for Dear World portraits have had powerful emotional reactions to the photos – some of which even come out in the pictures themselves. Fogarty says the feeling is equally unique on the other side of the camera.

“Most people don’t ever have that opportunity to have that quick experience with someone that you’ll remember forever,” he said.

Battleship may be one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, but Peter Berg already has his eye on another military story he wants to tell.

When On Patrol spoke to the director at the end of 2011, he shared his thoughts on the Lone Survivor project, an adaptation of a war memoir by former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell that Berg wants to make into a film. Luttrell was the only member of a four-man squad to survive an intense firefight against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2005.

“It’s an incredible story,” Berg said. “It’s an incredible look at how complicated war is today. There’s so much we’re asking of these men—especially these guys who are Navy SEALS. The decisions they have to make, the inability to prepare for every contingency, the intelligence and the morality we need these guys to have, and all of that comes through in the story of Lone Survivor.”

The firefight, and failed rescue attempt, resulted in the death of 19 American servicemen. Navy Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy, a member of Luttrell’s SEAL team, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his efforts during the battle. Luttrell escaped death and was harbored by an Afghan tribe that eventually facilitated his reunion with coalition forces.

To understand what it was like to operate in the field, Berg said he embedded with SEAL Team 5 in Iraq for a month.

“It was the greatest experience of my life that I got to live with the SEALs and go out and watch them operate and watch them do the things they do,” he said. “I made friends for life from that. … It was after I did that that I was really able to write the script.

“The SEAL community is a pretty closed group. They’re not press-friendly. It takes them quite a while to warm up to you. And the fact that I made such good friends and these are friends for life, and that was one of the great experiences of my life.”

Berg also visited some of the families of the fallen from the battle, including that of Luttrell’s SEAL teammate Navy Petty Officer Second Class Danny Dietz.

“I sat in Danny Dietz’ bedroom with his father and his father read me the autopsy report of his son,” Berg said. “His son was shot [multiple] times and kept fighting. And I watched his father read that autopsy report and watched his hand shake and the tears pour out of his eyes and onto that piece of paper.

“He finally finished and he looked up at me and he said ‘I just want you to know how tough my son was.’ And I said ‘Yes sir, I get that.’

“When you go through those types of experiences as a filmmaker, there’s no way you don’t want to tell that story.”

The past decade of war has been revolutionary for the United States military. It has adapted to a very old kind of warfare for which it was unprepared, developed new tools to defeat terrorists, and—most of all—seen extraordinary determination and courage from a new generation of great Americans who are part of an all-volunteer force.

As the wars begin to wind down and the country struggles to pay the bills it has accumulated, we must ensure those who have borne the burden of these wars are not forgotten. We must ensure the nation remembers and cares for our veterans and their families as they have earned, and as they deserve.

In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the victory over Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in Operation Desert Storm, the American military focused on improving its capability to fight a conventional war against conventional enemies—although there were few to be found. When the attacks of September 11 struck three of the intended targets, America rapidly attacked an Afghan government that shielded al Qaeda, toppling the Taliban in an innovative campaign that relied upon Special Forces soldiers, some riding horseback, calling in the support of the world’s most powerful Air Force.

The innovative campaign failed to capture Osama bin Laden, leader of al Qaeda, who escaped into Pakistan. It also failed to provide stability to a shattered country that was reeling after a generation of war. The Taliban regained strength across the border in Pakistan and soon began returning to Afghanistan as guerillas, but America was focused elsewhere.

Within hours of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, senior members of the Bush administration were already planning an attack on Iraq. The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was a replay of the Afghan campaign on a much larger scale. Again, a tremendously successful initial invasion was not enough to build a better peace in the aftermath of war.

In Iraq, U.S. decisions to disband the Iraqi Army, prevent members of the Ba’ath party from serving in government, and postpone local rule added fuel to a nascent insurgency that burst into flame during the hot summer of 2003. My Army tank unit was preparing for conventional combat against another armored force when we suddenly received orders to deploy to Iraq.

We soon arrived in a town named Khalidiyah in Iraq’s Wild West, in Al Anbar province, that was populated almost exclusively by Sunnis who hated the Shia-dominated government that had assumed power in the wake of Saddam’s departure. The town’s police chief was assassinated the day we arrived, the second to fall in the six months since the invasion. We struggled to build a police force that would protect the people and develop local government that would translate their needs into words we could understand and programs we could fund, and we fought hard against enemies we could rarely see.

Our town was situated between the provincial capital and insurgent hotbed of Ramadi and the city of Fallujah, where four private security contractors took a wrong turn to their deaths in the spring of 2004. The American reaction to the killings was swift, powerful, and poorly informed, spurring a national uprising that unified the Sunnis and Shia against us. Bridges were blown, supply convoys ambushed, and we went on short rations as all that we had worked to build went up in flames.

My unit’s experience was a suitable metaphor for the next two years of the war in Iraq. The destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 was the final straw as the insurgency metastasized into a full-scale civil war. America no longer believed we were fighting a few “dead-enders.” As 2006 drew to a close, President Bush named a new Secretary of Defense and commander in Iraq.

The new commander, Army General David Petraeus, had been preparing for this day. He implemented counterinsurgency doctrine that focused on understanding and protecting the population, taking advantage of an American Army and Marine Corps that had learned painful lessons about what worked and what didn’t during previous tours in Iraq. The results were dramatic. Violence dropped rapidly, with progress accelerated by the decision of Sunnis to join with American forces in what became known as the “Sawa,” or “Awakening.” By the summer of 2008 it was clear to those on the ground that something fundamental had changed.

The timing was fortuitous, as the situation in America’s other war was moving rapidly in the wrong direction. President Barack Obama, surprised by how dire the situation was in what America then thought of as “the good war” when he took office, tripled U.S. forces committed to Afghanistan during his first year in office. Intense fighting swiftly resulted as soldiers and Marines struggled to implement the clear, hold, and build counterinsurgency doctrine that had been battle tested in Iraq. America poured resources into building and training the Afghan army and police force, an effort hampered more by the recruits’ inability to read than by their willingness to fight. American troops, already serving as aid workers and local political advisors, found themselves teachers in a campaign against Afghan illiteracy as well as fighters against an elusive Taliban army.

They were helped by an improved intelligence system that had evolved from one designed to understand enemy tank armies to one that worked hard to understand local power structures and political relationships, and by a new weapon of war that put Taliban leaders at constant risk—armed drones.

These unmanned aircraft provided phenomenal loiter times, real-time intelligence on enemy operations, and precise firepower that did grave damage to Taliban chains of command. Drones were part of the intelligence apparatus that located Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in the spring of 2011. It was, however, Special Forces operators who used the intelligence they and other sources provided to kill him, marking a critical date in the by then decade-long war against al Qaeda.

Impressive as these accomplishments are—a learning Army and Marine Corps, an Air Force that increasingly relies upon unmanned aircraft to rule the skies, and Navy SEALs and other Special Operations Forces who conduct literally dozens of kill/capture operations nightly—the most remarkable fact of the past decade of war is that every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine who has served has been a volunteer.

When America created the All-Volunteer Force at the end of Vietnam, it could not have imagined that within a generation, volunteers would fight for 10 years in two protracted irregular wars—and with no signs of flagging. Recruiting and retention remain strong, with all services regularly meeting their goals for volunteers to fight for their nation in her hour of need.

We have asked a great deal of our volunteer force. Many have served multiple combat tours, putting strain on their families and their own mental well-being. Suicide among military veterans now exceeds the rate among the population as a whole. Our veterans of current wars are also unemployed at rates exceeding that of the general population. We have an obligation to these veterans who have volunteered to put themselves in harm’s way, and to their families, which also carry the scars of a decade of war. While many are stronger for trials they have endured, all have been forever changed—many with visible wounds, more with damage that is invisible to the naked eye but no less traumatic for being unseen.

As we draw down our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan—handing over control to increasingly capable local governments and security forces—and as we continue to pursue a diminished but still dangerous al Qaeda to the ends of the earth, we must hold in our hearts those who have paid a heavy price so that the rest of us can live in freedom. They have borne a heavy burden, and we cannot adequately repay them—but we can, and must, do all in our power to ease their cares after their exceptional service in this time of war.

It was some 66 years ago that a young American woman wrote the following in a somber birthday card to her fiancé, a soldier fighting overseas in World War II.

My prayer tonight will be that God watch over you and keep you safe and that next year you’ll be home ….
… My heart is filled with loneliness and my eyes are so filled with tears that soon I’ll be wetting this card…

… I love you hon—always.

The card was tucked away in a house in Belgium—along with other forgotten letters and pictures that spoke of love, friendship, family and plans for a future—their fate sealed in the handmade wooden box forgotten in an attic.

This may sound like a fictional wartime love story, but in the case of Army Private First Class John Alfred D’Amore and his then fiancée Rose Archie, it was anything but. To tell his story, one must rewind to 1944, near the end of World War II.

D’Amore was 21 and assigned to Headquarters Company, 82nd Airborne Division, when he was sent to fight in World War II. At the time there were no barracks for soldiers to live in, and like other servicemen, he was sent to live with a local family in Nandrin, Belgium. While living in the house, D’Amore kept a souvenir box of letters from Rose and pictures of friends and fellow soldiers with hopes to one day bring the box home with him when he returned from the war.

But fate’s plan differed from D’Amore’s. He wound up in the hospital with a broken ankle and never again returned to the house in Belgium.

Following the war and a safe return to the States, John D’Amore and Rose Archie were married June 29, 1946, in Niagara Falls, New York. They have lived a long and blissful life, having had two children, two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

The D’Amore’s already have their happy ending, but a recent discovery began a new chapter in this real-life love story. In early June 2011, a Belgian woman named Anne-Marie Radelet was cleaning out her deceased father-in-law’s attic when she came across an old wooden box with a name and location on its cover. Full of letters and photos, Radelet knew she had found someone’s lost memories.

Unsure of what to do with her discovery, she handed off the box to an employee of the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium. Eventually it wound up in the hands of Alan Amelinckx, superintendent of the cemetery for American soldiers buried overseas. The box had a name and address from Niagara Falls, New York.

“I looked at several of the letters looking for information and discovered that they were love letters between an American GI and his girlfriend back in the U.S.,” he said.

Amelinckx immediately began trying to locate the owner of the box. He searched the Internet for the name on the box’s cover with no luck. Next, he called the city clerk in Niagara Falls, New York. With the records provided—and a few more phone calls—he finally reached D’Amore’s son, John David D’Amore, and explained that he had his father’s wooden box left behind from World War II.

John David couldn’t believe what he heard.

“The more Alan and I talked the more excited I became,” he said. “He was profoundly grateful.”

But what Amelinckx heard next was even more surprising—both D’Amore and his wife, Rose, were still alive and living in Florida near their son.

“I certainly never expected for him and his wife to still be alive,” Amelinckx said.

The next step was to figure out how to get the box to Florida as soon as possible.

“It was important for me to get this box back to Mr. D’Amore because I felt that it needed to be back with his family and that I needed to do my best to get it back to them,” Amelinckx said.

It would no doubt be a costly trip and Amelinckx was not able to cover the postage with government funds. Then he remembered a chance meeting the summer before. He had given Gerald Leary and his family a tour of the cemetery.

“He gave me his business card and told me to contact him if he could ever assist me with anything,” Amelinckx said.

Leary just so happened to be FedEx’s Regional President for Europe, the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and Africa.

Amelinckx contacted Leary and explained the story of the lost box. That same day, a FedEx courier picked it up.

“He told me he would take care of everything for us,” Amelinckx said.

“It was the golden package in our system,” Leary said. “Everybody along the way within FedEx was raising hands wanting to be involved in this.”

After 66 years, the box was finally going home. D’Amore, his wife, and other family members stood outside John David’s home the day of the scheduled delivery. All were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the FedEx truck that would bring back the memories left behind when D’Amore’s unit left Belgium.

“Two veterans got out of the FedEx truck and gently carried the box into the house,” John David said. “We all settled into the kitchen, about 15 of us, and I uncrated the box.”

John David emptied the contents onto the kitchen table—several 82nd Airborne patches and ribbons, photographs from the war displaying days long gone, Army friends and moments frozen in time. “One-by-one my father examined each of the pictures he had taken, and though his short-term memory suffers he recalled names, places, and situations from years ago that each picture depicted,” he said.

D’Amore never expected to see the box again, but he’s glad it finally showed up. “When I saw the items inside, it brought back a lot of memories,” he said. “I had forgotten all about the box until it showed up here.”

Rose D’Amore was equally as excited about the box’s return. “My mom, who suffers from some dementia, immediately recognized the card and the pictures she had sent my dad from the States,” John David said.

“Her immediate comment was, ‘I hope I didn’t say anything bad.’ ”

John David will make sure that the box won’t be forgotten in an attic for another half-century. “Whoever wants any part of it, they are welcome to it, for history, for me to pass down to the family,” he explained. “I think it’s important that everybody knows what has transpired. They need to understand what went on so this way we don’t let history repeat itself.”

When D’Amore looks at the pictures now, it opens up countless memories from his time at war. 

“He seldom has spoken to me about the horrors of the war,” John David said. “Instead, he tells of the good times he had with people and those that he was able to help.”

For D’Amore, those good times include driving around entertainers Marlene Dietrich and Bob Hope, and helping a pregnant woman get to the hospital to give birth.

But D’Amore remembers the hard times, too. “He vividly recalls the heat and flies in North Africa,” John David said, “the cold at the Battle of the Bulge, landing behind enemy lines in a glider, D-Day at Normandy—it was his 22nd birthday. He says they had fireworks just for him.”

Despite the horrors of war, it was clear love prevailed, and that might be the most significant take away from the return of John D’Amore’s treasured box. As if to add special emphasis to that point, the couple celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary just weeks after their long-lost love letters found their way home.

“The letters my parents have show that love and commitment from the beginning,” John David said. “I witnessed it throughout my life.”

John Alfred D’Amore reminisces over photos left in Belgium during World War II and recently returned. All photos courtesy of John David D’Amore.

Members of the FedEx team that delivered the box of letters to the D’Amores pose for a picture in the family’s kitchen.

While many have a hobby, few have the drive and dedication to turn that hobby into a world record. But Marine Corps Captain Kyle Ugone not only has that drive, but also the certificate declaring him as the Guinness world record holder for the most completed Lego sets in a private collection, with an astonishing 1,091 sets.

While his record officially stands at 1,091, Ugone actually has 1,251 sets. But some did not count toward the record because they are reproductions or don’t have the original instructions, Ugone explained.

His vast collection started small and at a young age, but has grown in size and number, including one set that contains more than 5,000 individual pieces.

"I got my first set as a gift when I was 5 years old," Ugone said. "It's a windmill, and I still have it today. From there, I kept getting more and more sets."

Rooms in his Yuma, Arizona, home look as if they belong in a Lego Land theme park, containing hundreds of completed Lego sets separated by genre, such as space, trains, castles and “Star Wars” sets, displayed on tables and shelves.

Lego is a line of construction toys consisting of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, mini-figures and various other parts.

Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in many ways to form vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. Anything constructed can be taken apart to make other objects.

The toys originated in the 1940s in Denmark and have achieved international appeal, with an extensive subculture that supports Lego-themed movies, games, video games, competitions and five amusement parks.

It wasn't until 2009, when Ugone was talking to other Lego enthusiasts online, that he decided to go for the world record.

"I was talking to a guy who said he wanted to build every set Lego has ever made," Ugone said. There are more than 5,000 sets, he added, some of which are extremely rare and others available only in certain areas.

Ugone contacted officials at the Guinness Book of World Records and found that no such record existed. He was told he would need at least 500 sets to claim a record.

"At the time, I had about 600 to 700 sets, but I wanted more," Ugone said. "So I spent a lot of time scouring the Internet to purchase more sets and build them."

After a Lego expert visited Ugone's home to verify his plethora of building-block masterpieces, 1,091 of his 1,251 sets were authenticated for the record, earning him the title as the man with the most.

Now, Ugone is slowly taking the sets apart for storage to regain some of the square footage in his home. He’s taking a break from collecting Lego sets, planning instead to focus more of his attention on restoring a classic muscle car.

Twenty-five wounded Soldiers came to El Paso, Texas, and Fort Bliss from different installations to participate in the Warrior Games Shooting Training Camp spanning January 11-14.

"This is our very first of three shooting clinics for selecting the 2012 (Warrior Games) shooting team," said Master Sergeant Howard Day, Army Shooting Coach for Warrior Transition Command and student at United States Sergeants Major Academy. "We partnered with the University of Texas El Paso and Warrior Transition Battalion, Fort Bliss, and reps from the Army Marksmanship Unit in order to make this clinic happen."

The Warrior Games was created in 2010 as an introduction to Paralympic sports for injured service members and veterans of all services - Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. During this year's games, wounded service members and veterans will compete in seven sports: archery, cycling, shooting, sitting volleyball, swimming, track and field, and wheelchair basketball.

This year the Army's shooting training camp was held at University of Texas El Paso's ROTC building. The participating warriors lodged in the Fort Bliss WTB Barracks.

"This year's mission is to bring home the gold, from the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado," Day said.

During the clinic, there were three stations set up - mental, physical and range practice.

In the mental station, Lindsay Holtz, performance enhancement specialist assisted warriors to create imagery scripts to do mental practice when they don't have a weapon.

"It's like a movie script that you play in your head to help you keep your patterns, muscles and mind prepared for when you go back out there," Holtz said.

The physical station had UTEP woman's shooting coach George Brenzovich, and team member Andrea Vautrin, exchange ideas with the warriors on different ways to deal with anxieties and the pressures of competing. They also demonstrated alternate positions for shooting pertaining to each person's disabilities or weaknesses.

The third station was an indoor air shooting range at the ROTC building where the warriors practiced shooting and received instructions from coach Day, assistant coaches and USASMA students Master Sergeant Fernando Verones, Master Sergeant Roger Lewis, and Sergeant Major Martin Barreras with the Army Marksmanship Unit.

Despite their circumstances these warriors all come together to compete, said Day.

One warrior, Specialist James Darlington, WTB Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, was deployed with the 82nd Airborne Division when he was only 19 years old, when his group was hit with two rocket-propelled grenades in July 2010 and his arm was struck.

With nerve damage and muscle loss in his right arm, Darlington, now 21 years old, has his mom with him as his non-medical attendant.

"He did his job well," Gery Darlington said, "because everyone came home from that deployment. He's here alive, and we can deal with whatever happened with his arm."

"The WTB has great programs to help Soldiers transition back to their units, and other activities to keep us from getting down," Darlington said. "The shooting clinic helped us get better at shooting. I'm looking forward to getting in the team."

The Soldiers' injuries here run the full scope, said Day, from traumatic brain injury, or TBI, to post-traumatic stress, to amputations. Many have multiple injuries and other medical conditions that challenge them.

Staff Sergeant Tracy J. Smith, Alpha Company, WTB Georgia, Army National Guard with 48th Brigade, was deployed three times to Iraq and Afghanistan, survived mortar rounds, explosions and firefights. Now battling with TBI and PTSD, three pins in her knee and 50 percent hearing loss, Smith continues to stay active in everyday life.

"I was initially introduced to adaptive sports, and wanted to stay active and physically fit so I did archery, seated shot put, track and field events, power lifting, and now marksmanship," Smith said.

Smith said because of the TBI and the PTSD she was at first nervous to handle a weapon, but after watching someone use the air rifle it was not as "off-putting". It was almost therapeutic.

"It's almost a very easy reintroduction into the basics of Soldiering, but also very different from what we are taught in marksmanship," Smith said. "I am doing this for those who can't, for my battle buddy who is partly paralyzed and unable, because he would have if our situations were reversed."

"Eighty-three warriors applied, 75 were notified eligible for these clinics," Day said. "From these clinics the best [shooters] will be put together to form our Army team."

As a wounded warrior himself, Day said it is vital for Soldiers to recognize that the injuries are not the end of their career and definitely not the end of possibilities in life.

"This is nothing but a speed bump, a simple turn in the road," Day said. "There is a big bright futures and lots of opportunities."

Marine Sergeant Shawn Sales, a combat artist and an instructor at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland, talks about how his role fits into the Marine Corps. (Marine Corps video)

Who would have thought that a high school wrestling injury would have given me a glimpse of future challenges in my life? Certainly not me as I grew up in Pryor, Oklahoma.

I was 15 and in the middle of a wrestling match when I sustained an injury to my left knee that required reconstructive surgery. That injury caused me to question my future physical and mental abilities. Since I was such a young man, I had to rely on my father as role model for how to live with an injury.

My father, William E. “Gene” Gibson, served in the United States Navy as a SeaBee during the Vietnam War. His disabilities affected his ability to work and perform normal daily tasks—especially participating in sports with me. Little did I know then how much my relationship with my father would help me overcome the most challenging time in my life.

Enlisting in the Marine Corps under an open contract left my career as a Marine in the balance until the last week of boot camp when I learned my wish to become an infantryman would come true. After receiving my Eagle, Globe, and Anchor and making a quick trip home, I reported to Marine Combat Training, School of Infantry at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. While there I passed indoctrination for Marine Reconnaissance and received orders to 1st Reconnaissance Battalion (Recon).

I deployed with B Company, 1st Recon Battalion in support of Operation Desert Storm/Shield and saw my first combat action in the Al Wafra oil fields and the area around what is now known as Ali Al Salem Air Base. That was in November 1990.

Almost exactly two years later—October 1992—I deployed to Somalia during Operation Restore Hope as part of a reconnaissance platoon supporting Regimental Combat Team 7. I didn’t redeploy until March 1993.

Nearly 15 years of training all over the world would lead me to the tour that changed my life forever—and for the better.

Early in 2006, I deployed to Iraq as a Joint Terminal Attack Controller to support Iraqi Army forces. On May 16, while on a foot patrol in the Mulaab district of Ramadi with my team—Lightening 42—of Marines, Navy SEALs, and Iraqi Special Operations forces, Iraqi forces conducting house-to-house searches were attacked.

My group had the ability to set up a missile shot into the enemy’s position. While maneuvering to coordinate the shot, one of the Iraqi soldiers was shot in the hip. We directed suppression fire in the direction of the shot allowing the injured Iraqi to be dragged into a courtyard for medical aid.

While all of this was happening, I directed one of my Marines—bullets impacting all around him—to take cover and pushed him to a small pile of rubble. Turning toward the enemy I returned fire while directing fire of the joint team. That’s when a sniper’s bullet went through my left knee.

An air evacuation got me to the combat surgical hospital in Camp Taqadum, Iraq, where the doctors determined the damage to my already once-reconstructed knee was severe enough that they needed to amputate my leg above the knee. The next day I was transferred to Balad for evacuation to a stateside hospital.

I arrived at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, early May 19. After about a month of surgeries and hospital living it was on to Brooke Army Medical Center on Fort Sam Houston, Texas, for follow-on care and amputee prosthetic therapy.

There I was introduced to running, swimming, biking, and snow skiing and a physical therapist pushed me to regain the physical abilities I had prior to my amputation. I advanced in swimming and running, completing my first 5K road race in November 2006. By the end of the following year, I’d competed in more than 12 races, including two half Ironman triathalons and a three-day adventure race.

This competition provided me the confidence and ability I needed to overcome every known obstacle an above-knee (AK) amputee faces. The greatest hurdle would be returning to ground combat operation. No AK had ever accomplished the feat until I deployed in January 2008. That tour was the most important of my career, not because I was the first, but because it changed the perception of how an AK could serve. The media attention my actions received inspired other amputees to continue service and the military changed their policies on allowing AKs to redeploy.

That deployment was important for another reason as well. While deployed to Camp Fallujah I was selected to become the first enlisted Congressional fellow to the U.S. House of Representatives. The following January, I was assigned to the ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs to advise all members about the needs of wounded warriors and transitioning service members. During my tour on Capitol Hill, I had the opportunity to advise many members of Congress, giving them a front-row view of the recovery of wounded warriors and how to support their needs.

It seemed my time on the Hill would be my greatest accomplishment until I served as a special assistant to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Juan Garcia. For nearly two years, I advised Secretary Garcia on the hiring needs of today’s wounded warriors and transitioning service members.

I retired from the Marine Corps on August 5, 2011, and I am continuing to mentor other wounded warriors on how to pursue a better life—whether in or out of military service.

Little did I know when I was 15 that my father’s actions would inspire me not only to push myself, but inspire so many others to push themselves beyond their limitations.

One of Stars and Stripes' 90 Seconds features. Watch more features at stripes.com/news/90-seconds.

I have met many, many children during my USO tours, and I love the sheer honesty and purity kids have before they are influenced and molded by the world around them. Their innocence and clarity in dealing with life is so refreshing.

During my presentations to military kids I often share a story about the time when I was a counselor at a camp for siblings of kids with cancer.

I led group D, a crew of eight children between the ages of 11 and 13.

Each child was different and special. Each had been through the harrowing ringer that childhood cancer drags families through.

The camp was in a military style challenge course and our task that day was to scale a 60-foot-high climbing wall. Each person had to wear a helmet and a harness to climb.

The first person to climb the tower was Abi, a confident 13-year-old who was going through the“you-don’t-have-to-tell-me-nothin’-because-I-know-it-all” stage.

He attacked the tower and climbed it in no time. Back on the ground, his body language reflected his attitude—cool.

“Hey, next time I wanna do it without that dumb harness,” he said.

Abi’s brother Sammy climbed next.

Two girls in the group sat out the exercise because they were afraid of heights. One boy got half way up and decided to come down.

I was due to climb last and, although I acted as though I didn’t have a care in the world, I was beginning to get a little nervous about my climb.

Rachel—an 11-year-old going on 40—climbed up before me. She had lost her 13-year-old sister Jonna to cancer the year before. Jonna had been Rachel’s hero. She told me when Jonna died it felt like there was a knife in her heart and she couldn’t get it out.

Rachel started climbing, but stopped to hover at the rest platform about a third of the way up.

I climbed alongside her. It wasn’t easy.

When I reached Rachel, she was crying.

“C’mon, Rachel, you can do it,” I said, struggling to pass her.

I heard the kids on the ground egging us on. That’s when I looked down. I instantly felt faint and dizzy. I wanted to help Rachel, but all I could think about was me. If I didn’t continue climbing right there and then, I wouldn’t have made it.

I hit the top and signaled for the belay guide to release the rope so that I could repel down.  I had made it to the top and I wanted off that tower as quickly as possible.

As I repelled down, I passed Rachel. Her whole body was shaking as she clung to the tower, sobbing.

“Rachel, you want to come down?” asked Cheryl, the belay guide who was controlling Rachel’s harness.

“I don’t know,” sobbed Rachel.  “I think so.”

“But you can make it,” Cheryl said.

And so began Rachel’s painful climb. The more she climbed, the harder she sobbed. She froze 20 feet from the top and started shaking. She could not climb another inch. She was crying so hard I could see her tears falling and bouncing off the tower.

She was stuck there for almost 15 minutes. She couldn’t go up and she couldn’t come down. To help her, we all yelled encouragement. Abi suddenly broke away from our group and sauntered over to the foot of the tower.  He squinted up at Rachel and said something that sent chills down my spine.

“Rachel!” he yelled. “Do it for your sister. Do it for Jonna!”

The power of his suggestion seemed to stop time.

Then something happened that I will never forget.

As Abi finished speaking, Rachel turned and without hesitating heaved her body forward and—sobbing hysterically—began to climb. Rachel did not pause for a second. She climbed the last 20 feet with sheer heart and soul.

When she reached the top, she turned and looked down at us with a look of joy and triumph on her face.
Once she repelled down, we all hugged her. Abi, who thought girls were the enemy and wouldn’t dare touch one with an extremely long stick, sidled up to Rachel and put his arm around her.

“I knew you could do it,” he said warmly and sauntered off toward the cabins.

The stars did shine bright deep in the heart of Texas on January 7, as some of the top high school football players in the country and some of the top Army heroes teamed up for the 12th annual U.S. Army All-American Bowl in the Alamodome in San Antonio.

"They are the best of the best," said Brigadier General. Jefforey Smith, the task force commander for the event. "The best soldiers and the best players in America -- they are both well-trained."

The bowl game showcased more than 90 high school football players and highly-decorated soldiers. Five of those soldiers came from the Army Special Operations Command: First Sergeant Michael Elmore of the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne); Sergeant First Class Steve Kimsey of the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade (Airborne); Sergeant First Class Robert Castaneda of the 3rd SFG (A); Staff Sergeant David Hutchings of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) and Staff Sergeant Dylan Maynard of the 75th Ranger Regiment.

USASOC was in the forefront of the bowl game. Elmore lead the soldiers onto the field for the pre-game show and Kimsey took part in the pregame coin-flip with Barry Sanders, Jr, West Squad running back.

Each soldier was paired up with a player to not only escort onto the field before the game but to talk to them about the Army and their past experience.

"We talked a lot about what we do and the similarities to what they do," Elmore said. "They do a lot of training that stresses fundamentals and teamwork. They are taught the basics and to fall back on the basics when they need to. They also focus on building character traits. The hard work and ethics are similar."

"I hope that they take something away from this," Kimsey said. "What they do is similar to what we do. They train to work as a team and to be proficient at what they do. They also strive to be strong leaders in their positions."

In some ways the players learned something that they might not have known about the Army.

"They don't see a lot of aviation soldiers," Hutchings said. "It gives them a different perspective (on the Army). I was able to give them that aspect of what I do."

"It gives me a chance to show some high school athletes how professional we are," Castaneda said.

And it was a two-way street as the soldiers were able to learn about the young men.

Castaneda, who is a San Antonio native, was paired with Javonte Magee, who is attending Sam Houston High School in San Antonio. Magee, originally from Louisiana but was displaced due to Hurricane Katrina, didn't play organized football until his freshman year of high school.

"I have a lot of respect for what he has done in his life," Castaneda said. "He has kept driving forward and followed his dream no matter what to be one of the top high school prospects in the nation. He will go far."

Kimsey was paired up with Sanders Jr., whose father was a star running back for the Detroit Lions. Sanders had additional pressure on him during the bowl week as he had a documentary crew following him around recording his every word and movement. Kimsey, who at times shared the camera with Sanders, said he was impressed with the way the young man handled the attention.

"It is a little overwhelming," Kimsey said. "I feel very fortunate to have been selected to pair up with Barry Sanders Jr. He is a very intelligent person who knows what he wants to do. He is a humble guy. I have a lot of respect for him."

Maynard was paired up with two players, Joel Caleb and Kyle Murphy. He was impressed with the maturity that they showed.

"Both young kids are motivated and want to go to college," he said. "They asked a lot of questions about what I do and what I have done in my career. It was cool that they were interested and cared about what I did. "

Elmore said that his football player, Darius Hamilton, is prepared for his future even if it doesn't include football. Hamilton was awarded the U.S. Army All-American Bowl Defensive Player of the Year award during a dinner banquet earlier in the week.

"He is focused," Elmore said. "He knows what he wants to do both on the field and after football. He has set himself up for success."

For both players and soldiers the game itself closed a week where they were able to do a little bonding and take the best that both had to offer.

Castaneda summed up the whole week for both players and Soldiers.

"Their calling is athletics and they work hard at what they do to be the best in their sport," he said. "Our calling is the military and we work hard to be the best and to protect the nation."

He starts his day before the sun, combing out his beard and donning his shalwar kameez, traditional Afghan garb consisting of a pair of loose fitting pants and an oversized shirt. He finishes the ensemble with a black and white scarf. Judging by his appearance you’d never know he is currently one of the few, one of the proud—a Marine deployed to Afghanistan to perform a high-profile yet extremely unique mission.

Gunnery Sergeant Fredrick Sloan is by trade a logistician. But, he deployed to Afghanistan in June to work with a small team of soldiers, sailors, and contracted Afghan civilians affectionately known as TRADCOMM, short for Traditional Communication. TRADCOMM’s mission—in partnership with the Afghan government and international community—is to conduct counterinsurgency operations through traditional Afghan communication networks in order to connect the government of Afghanistan with its people.

Their primary vehicle for supporting the Afghan populace is through four separate outreach programs—Youth Outreach, Religious Outreach, Sports Outreach, and Borders and Tribes Outreach.

“The outreach programs are designed to foster relationships between Afghans and government officials as well as assisting them with developing programs for each of the four outreach areas,” Sloan said.

The team, which consists of two officers—one Army and one Navy—two interpreters, and Gunny Sloan, wins the hearts and minds of their local counterparts by looking thef part. They wear traditional civilian clothing, growing beards and long hair, riding in an unmarked vehicle and lodging, eating, working, and traveling alongside their Afghan partners. While on mission, they exercise a no-double-standards policy, travelling alongside their counterparts in Afghan National Security Forces vehicles.

Sloan serves as the senior staff noncommissioned officer and outreach planner for the team. He is responsible for planning the logistics behind the different missions and developing programs to further the outreach activities.

Planning for a mission begins weeks prior to its execution. Travel throughout Afghanistan always has the potential to go from good to bad in the blink of an eye, so preparation starts with arranging a mixture of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft support for the team throughout the area of operation. Due to the unique mission, much of the security, lodging and other logistical matters are provided solely by Afghans.

The team does everything possible to mitigate risks within their control, like identifying the nearest support force, plotting grid coordinates and assessing security and rallying points at the locations in case of emergency. It also carries extra ammunition, combat lifesaver bags, and other essential survival items.
Sloan begins this particular day at 4:45a.m., a time when most people are still comfortably in their beds.

The team packs the vehicle and makes final preparations before departing ISAF Headquarters at 5:30 a.m. to convoy to the airport with the deputy minister from the Office of Border and Tribal Affairs, his envoy in tow.

Their military flight departs Kabul at 7:30a.m. and lands in Maimana, Faryab province, two hours later. Here, their mission to support three peace jirgas in different locations over a course of three days begins.

At the airport, security is tight and a host of government officials are there to greet the team and Afghan officials as they arrive. After a brief welcome, they are ushered into vehicles surrounded by a mixture of Afghan National Army soldiers and Afghan National Police and driven to the governor’s office for tea. Shortly thereafter, it’s off to the first jirga.

“A jirga in Afghanistan closely resembles that of a town hall meeting held in the [United States],” Sloan said.

The purpose is to assemble tribal elders and make decisions based on the consensus of the group. The topic of the impending series of jirgas is peace in the region.

After arriving, Sloan quickly assesses the security of the site and provides exit and rally points to all members of the team.

“Maintaining security is one of the most important aspects of our mission due to the fact we travel in small groups,” Sloan said. “I generally look to see how they have their security set up and determine quick exit points and possible safe room locations.”

The jirga opens with the Afghan National Anthem and a prayer. Various speakers, including the governor of the region, the police chief and the deputy—who has traveled to the jirga with the team—present their remarks. The team listens and takes notes on the needs and concerns of their Afghan partners to pass on to ISAF officials.

“Our role revolves around partnership,” said Army Lieutenant Colonel Kelly Brown, the TRADCOMM team chief. “The ministers, governor, and elders expect us to listen to their concerns, understand their perspective, and offer support where appropriate.”

The meetings can last up to two hours and often conclude with votes on topics discussed. Afterward, the team joins the government officials for a traditional Afghan meal.

“One of the highlights of the day was being presented a colorful chapan [coat] that represented the tribes of northern Afghanistan from the governor of Maimana, Faryab, in appreciation of our partnership,” Sloan said.

With business and lunch complete, the team convoys back to the airport where two Army Black Hawk helicopters are waiting to take them to Sar-e-Pul, for the next jirga. The flight goes as planned and the team is again greeted at the airport by a welcoming party of Sar-e-Pul officials. The jirga is scheduled for the following day, so arrangements have been made for the team to stay at the governor’s guest house. Although the compound is surrounded by armed guards, a security assessment is still conducted and the entire team is made aware of exit and rally points.

The governor hosts a dinner that evening on his roof, overlooking the city’s skyline, where the team interacts and works to further build relationships.

Staying at a governor’s house, one might expect lavish accommodations. But this is not the U.S. The majority of the team stays together in a small room covered with rugs and a thin mat for each to sleep on. As they call an end to a long and eventful day, the team members joke with each other as they discuss the nuances of their experience and briefly plan for tomorrow. Although the sun set a long time ago, the sweltering heat of Afghanistan permeates the air-conditionless room. Despite the heat, the team rests easy feeling they have done their part to contribute to peace and freedom and knowing when they go home they’ll have stories to tell of a mission unlike any other.

“Although I’m not out on combat patrols I feel our mission is just as vital to saving the lives of Afghans, and American and Coalition soldiers and contributing to the overall mission success,” Sloan said.

Gas! Gas! Gas!,” yelled a group of masked Airmen as they ran through a smoke-filled obstacle course.

The group immediately dropped to their knees and donned their gas masks as quickly as possible.

It might not have been a real alarm, but this aerial port obstacle course at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, was treated like one.

Airman Jared Trimarchi was assigned to photograph these competing airmen in July at the Air Mobility Rodeo 2011. The rodeo pits aerial porters from different bases around the world against each other in a four-mile obstacle course that tests physical endurance, teamwork, and their ability to complete basic aerial port duties. Trimarchi stood close by as the competitors charged towards the gas portion of the course.

“Due to the green smoke I couldn’t see them,” Trimarchi said. “I stood in the shadows of the trees to hide from the sun because I wanted a darker photo.” Suddenly, Trimarchi saw one airman pop out of the smoke, and then another followed by the rest of the group. “I dropped to a kneeling position and started shooting away,” he said.

Trimarchi was able to capture this intense moment of competition as the airmen ran past him in less than 10 seconds. He considers it one of his best photos.

“Although I can’t see the faces of the airmen, I somehow see their dedication, teamwork, and motivation,” he said, “If you have ever run with a gas mask, you know how hard it is to breathe.”

The 21-year-old Miami, Florida, native joined the Air Force in April 2010, and hopes this photo can be used as a symbol of how hard soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen around the world work together.

“Even though being in the military is a tough job—and at times our world might be full of green gas—all troops work together, stick together, push through together, overcome together, and emerge from the green smoke together,” he said.

Marine Corporal Justin Stewart’s childhood was spent moving all over the United States with his mother. Fortunately, he didn’t let the constant relocating deter him from his love of flying kicks and fast strikes.

Stewart, a professional martial artist, took a break from the fighting world of taekwondo to serve his country as a Marine.

Stewart was born in Augusta, Georgia, but because of his mother’s occupation as a traveling nurse, moved two years later. His mother was required to move wherever her specialties were needed.

It was in Jackson, Mississippi, where 5-year-old Justin would attend his first martial arts class. His mother signed him up once she saw Stewart’s determination to learn the sport.

“Growing up I had an older brother who I always looked up to, and I was only 5 when he started out,” Stewart explained. “I begged my mother to put me into it. So she did, knowing I was trying to follow in big brother’s footsteps.”

His older brother stopped attending classes after a while, but Stewart stuck with it and fell in love with the sport. He practiced for hours a day and his skills improved quickly.

At age 13 he moved with his family about two hours east of Jackson to Meridian. There he found the International Taekwondo Alliance, a group of Taekwondo schools determined to empower member instructors and students to enrich their personal, artistic and professional lives through traditional taekwondo training.

He began training with the ITA and took his calling to the next level by becoming a certified martial arts instructor. Stewart and his mother continued to move throughout the country, but his martial arts studies remained consistent.

“It was an escape for me, it kept me busy, and I made a lot of friends anywhere I traveled,” he said.

By age 16, Stewart was a second-degree black belt and even studied taekwondo abroad in South Korea, where the art form was born and established. He balanced martial arts and school upon his return, became a third-degree black belt, and spent a year teaching taekwondo full-time in California after graduating high school in 2006.

Thirteen years of sticking to what he loved, Stewart thought it was time for him to see the world. A trip to the recruiter’s office and some influence from his older brother, who was in the Marine Corps at the time, aided his decision to join.

“He was really excited when I told him I was going to take that next step and become a Marine,” he recalled. “I’m glad I did it because I actually got to see the world just as I had hoped.”

Stewart did in fact get to see the world on his first deployment with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He deployed as a professional instructor gunman with the Scout Sniper Platoon attached to Battalion Landing Team 1/1.

Now 23, Stewart is on his second deployment and is serving in a special billet as an infantry noncommissioned officer for the civil affairs team attached to 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. He is tasked with being the specialist in leading, planning and organizing patrols for the CAT when they conduct business throughout the unit’s area of operation in Afghanistan.

“His role is to provide the team a subject-matter expert on all things related to infantry, and this is invaluable due to our constant dismounted patrolling operations,” said Marine Corps Second Lieutenant Andrew McGann, a Longmont, Colorado, native and assistant team leader with the CAT. “He is always the first to volunteer for a patrol and convoy operations. Corporal Stewart has displayed unwavering motivation through our deployment.”

Stewart said he hopes to continue his taekwondo career in the future, but is taking it one step at a time and focusing his attention on school and his Marine Corps profession.

Every career has a defining moment—some, more than one.

Andy Rooney’s, however, began 70 years ago and has yet to end.

Rooney was enjoying college life at Colgate University, when he was given an all-expense-paid trip to Army boot camp courtesy of Uncle Sam.

After nearly a year at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he shipped off to England with the 17th Field Artillery. It wasn’t long, however, before he found himself in London with a few days off.

“I went into the Stars and Stripes [newspaper] office, which was just starting in Ireland, and asked for a job,” Rooney said. “Said I was a journalist, which I wasn’t really. I had edited my college newspaper.

“But I got the job.”

He worked in Ireland for several months before moving to London to cover the 8th Air Force.  Covering the Mighty Eighth meant going to the air base every time there was a raid and waiting for the crews to return and tell their tales.

On February 26, 1943, the 8th Air Force was scheduled to launch a raid unlike any the United States had previously flown against Germany. This time the world would know what happened before the letters to mothers and girlfriends made it home.

Rooney was one of the first six correspondents to fly along and cover a raid on Germany. His story How It Feels to Bomb Germany appeared in Stars and Stripes military newspaper the following day.

“It was very dangerous. It was not a smart thing to do,” Rooney said during a recent interview. “I got up there and I wondered why in the world I had volunteered to go.”

“But all the other guys were at war and I had to do something, and it was a great story for the newspaper, too.”

The skies over the original target, Germany’s Bremen Naval Base, proved too overcast to carry out the mission, so 65 of the 93 bombers turned their attention to the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven.

Ten minutes from the target, Banshee—the B-17 Rooney was on—encountered anti-aircraft artillery. The shells acted more like shotgun shells, he wrote in his book My War. When they exploded, shards flew in every direction.

“We were shot at,” Rooney said. “I was at mid-side gunner. I operated a gun even though I was a correspondent. We weren’t supposed to, but I mean I was up there, and all the other guys were shooting so I had to pay my way.”

In the midst of all of the anti-aircraft fire and the German fighter planes, Banshee dropped its bombs and rejoined the formation. On the way out of the target area, the tip of Banshee’s plastic nose was damaged by a shell. The temperature four miles above the Earth caused the bombardier’s fingers to freeze when he tore off his gloves and tried to stuff them in the hole created in the explosion.

It was also the first time the Germans had used parachute bombs and they were effective. Though it could have been one of these bombs that hit Banshee, Rooney wrote in his book that he didn’t know exactly what hit the plane.

What he failed to mention in his modest description of his participation in that bombing raid during the interview was that he helped save Lieutenant Bill Owen’s life when the navigator’s oxygen mask supply line was cut.

“It was an exciting time,” he said. “It was a great experience and I was lucky to come through it alive.”
Not all of the correspondents who flew that day could say the same. The B-24 that New York Times reporter Bob Post was flying in crashed. He was never found.

Despite the possibility of not returning from any given assignment, Rooney said getting that first reporting gig with Stars and Stripes was a blessing.

“It was the single luckiest thing in my life,” he said. “I was really in a lot of dangerous situations, because wherever the war was, that’s where I went.

“It’s the best thing that can happen to a journalist because any good journalist is looking for something to write about and there’s no place there’s more to write about than at war.”

And there was plenty for Rooney to write about through the end of World War II. Not only was he one of the first correspondents to fly with a crew on a bombing raid over Germany, he was also one of the first correspondents allowed into the concentration camps after they were liberated.

“That was quite an experience—one I’ll never forget,” he said quietly. “Those guys were in such desperate trouble. They didn’t have enough to eat, were badly clothed, if at all.

“Concentrations camps were a bad thing.”

While the mention of the concentration camps may bring up difficult memories, Rooney’s job was to tell the world what he saw. He did it well and he did it without the assistance of modern technology.

Unlike today’s war correspondents—who have computers, the Internet, and mostly reliable cell phone service within arm’s reach—he wrote with a hand-held typewriter in an Army press camp.

He and 35 to 40 journalists traveled with the 1st Army Press Camp. Wherever the camp happened to be, Rooney—who had his own jeep, making him a “favorite friend”—would drive toward the action to find out what was going on. He often had company on these journeys—Joe Liebling, returned to his job at The New Yorker after serving as a war correspondent, and Walter Cronkite, went on to fame as a longtime CBS Evening News anchor.

When the reporters came back from the front, they’d write up their stories and send them back to their respective offices in London, which forwarded them to the United States. Rooney’s stories were first read in Stars and Stripes, but he said he kept tabs on them and frequently found them in civilian newspapers.

Despite technological developments, Rooney doesn’t think reporting on conflicts has changed much since he flew with the 8th Air Force.

“It’s a dangerous business and not many reporters go up front where the war is,” he said. “But there are always a few good reporters who go where the war is and report what they see.”

One of the things no World War II correspondent could have imagined was the evolution of the 24-hour news cycle. Sometimes it’s the positive milestones that hit the airwaves back home just minutes or hours after they’re met. Sometimes the transmissions aren’t so welcome, especially for families who see the aftermath of an attack and worry about the safety of their loved ones in the area.

As a journalist interested in getting the truth in front of readers and viewers, Rooney doesn’t have any qualms about being able to watch the war in near-real time.

“It’s a good thing,” he said. “In life, it’s best if we know everything that’s happened to us and to the world. There’s no question that the world is better off knowing everything.”

Rooney was discharged from the Army in 1945. He found his way to CBS in 1949, where he started as a writer for Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. He also wrote for several CBS news programs including The Twentieth Century, and News of America.

Today, at 92, he continues to make sure the world—or at least CBS viewers—get the facts when he gives them A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney as the concluding spot on the news program 60 Minutes.

His advice to young journalists today is simple.

“Stick to the facts. Find out what they are and tell them,” he said. “Facts are very hard to come by. It’s worth trying [to find them] and if you stick with it you can get the facts.”

Editor’s note: On Patrol is sad to note that Andy Rooney’s defining moment came to an end November 4, 2011. He passed away in New York City following complications from minor surgery. The 92-year-old announced on the October 2 broadcast of  60 Minutes that it would be his last regular appearance on the program. Mr. Rooney, Thanks for the Memories.

Hope was an apt moniker.

For decades, Bob Hope traveled the globe on USO tours, entertaining American service men and women facing peril in foreign lands and reminding them a better life was waiting back home. Often at his side was his loving wife Dolores, who passed away September 19, at 102.

“She was the first lady of the USO,” entertainer Carol Channing said in a statement. “They didn’t come any more patriotic, caring or talented than Dolores.”

Dolores Hope became famous for singing during her husband’s shows, notably a 1966 Christmas show in Vietnam where her version of “Silent Night” brought many to tears. She may have saved her most memorable performance for the troops for last, when she became the only woman to perform for Americans in Saudi Arabia, stealing the show with her performance of “White Christmas” during the run-up to Operation Desert Storm in 1990. It was the final overseas trip the Hopes took to entertain troops.

“The entire USO family mourns the loss of Dolores Hope, as we have admired the Hope family’s dedication to troops and their families,” USO President Sloan Gibson said. “Dolores Hope was a national treasure. As the ‘family’ that accompanied Bob Hope, she had a unique ability to lift the spirits of our troops and their families.”

At a major medical center where troops are healing from the most severe of traumatic brain injuries and psychological issues, officials are adding a key ingredient to their comprehensive care: expressive writing workshops.

Announced Dec. 13 at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, on the campus of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center here, the center has partnered with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Operation Homecoming for a yearlong pilot program that’s slated to begin in January, said Navy Rear Adm. (Dr.) Alton L. Stocks, the medical center’s commander.

"Through our arts program, we’ve been able to measure the impact the arts has had on our troops who have unique and complex health conditions,” said Stocks, who also is commander of Navy Medicine National Capital Area.

The Operation Homecoming writing instructor will be Ron Capps, a 25-year veteran Army officer and founder of the Veterans Writing Project for veterans, active and reserve military members, and military family members.

At the NICoE, however, Capps’ newest project will focus on service members’ traumatic war experiences. He’ll use “expressive writing” to help them deal with that trauma through writing stories, in journals and even poetry.

Capps’ goal, based on his lengthy military career, is to get the troops to confront their fears and learn to cope with them. A central focus of his writing career includes care for returning veterans, particularly those in need of mental health care, and writing as therapy.

“Writing [allows you] to take a memory that might be stuck in the back of your mind, make it physical and shape it,” he explained. “Eventually you understand it’s a memory and it can’t hurt you anymore.”

Health conditions such as traumatic brain injuries and psychological health issues are now known as the “signature wounds” of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, officials said. The NICoE’s healing program is for active-duty service members with these signature wounds who might return to duty.

The writing workshop, as part of the overall healing protocol at NICoE, is expected to complement the center’s existing arts programs, which also encourage troops to express themselves by making masks and montage creations, and through music programs.

When service members leave NICoE treatment, the writing doesn’t necessarily stop there. The partnership, with help from Boeing Co., will offer an optional four-week writing program for troops and their families at the medical center’s Fisher House. Fisher House provides temporary homes to family members so they can stay near their injured or ill loved ones as they recover in the hospital or a rehab center.

“Art is fundamental to health and to humanity,” said Rocco Landsman, NEA chairman, here yesterday.

Landsman said in addition to the NICoE partnership, the NEA has begun a related task force with the Health and Human Services Department.

There, he said, “joint forces of more than a dozen health and research agencies and departments will push for more and better research on the arts and human development.”

Following the 2012 pilot phase, Operation Homecoming at NICoE will be assessed for potential replication at other rehabilitation centers around the country, Stocks said.

Reflecting on a recent healing arts summit at the medical center, Stocks recalled the response of military officials, medical and therapy professionals, and wounded warriors when asked about “the relevancy” of arts in the NICoE program.

"The bottom line is creative solutions and innovative thinking are the way forward," Stocks said of the group consensus.

The Doobie Brothers have been playing music for more than 40 years, but what they saw this summer had to be a first.

“We met Bryan, a [triple] amputee in a wheelchair,” guitarist and vocalist Tom Johnston said. “When everyone started dancing, he just rolled right into the crowd. He didn’t let his injuries stop him from having a great time.”

The Grammy award-winning group continued their tradition of performing for service members, headlining this summer’s “A Salute to Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Tradition of Service.” Their concert was part of the commemoration preceding the closing of the 102-year-old military care and rehabilitation center in Washington, D.C.

“I have been on air bases and aboard ships, in the Philippines, Mediterranean, and in the Indian Ocean and other places,” Johnston said. “This was a more historic occasion, and this is the first time we’ve done this for injured people. We were moved and inspired.”

The Doobie Brothers came to prominence in the 1970s with rock songs like “Listen To The Music,” “China Grove,” and “Black Water.” A pair of hits in the 1980s—“What A Fool Believes” and “Minute By Minute”—won them a total of four Grammys. Their first album in a decade, “World Gone Crazy,” was released in September 2010 and debuted in the top 40 on the Billboard top 200 albums chart.

The group has sold more than 30 million albums and was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004.

They have been playing for troops since the mid-1980s, when vocalist and guitarist Pat Simmons and Johnston went on USO tours of overseas bases as part of all-star bands in successive years.

“I had such a good time on the tour, and we have always believed in supporting our men and women in uniform,” Simmons said. “Other than the fact that we are older, and the troops are younger, I don’t think much has changed. People still love to rock out, and so do we.”

While the military audiences they play to are just as enthusiastic as in decades past, Simmons noted that the band’s behind-the-scenes focus has shifted to highlighting the help needed for the thousands of veterans returning from current wars.

“We are pretty much constantly involved in working to create funding for organizations that provide assistance to returning vets in need of outreach programs, housing, counseling, jobs, health care, and whatever else is needed,” he said. “There is no end to the help that’s needed for our veterans. Bringing attention to these issues is very important to us.”

Simmons sees the work that was done at Walter Reed—and the work that will be done at the facilities’ new locations in Bethesda, Maryland, and Fort Belvoir, Virginia—as  growing more prominent in the coming years.

“The amazing history of the facility at Walter Reed will live on for all those patients and their families who were part of the experience,” he said. “I have every confidence that the spirit of that effort will continue as the country moves towards an improved, even more modern, state of the art hospital.

“As long as we are a force in the music industry, we will seek to be a part of the effort to improve the lives of our returning American heroes.”

“Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives" -It’s a Wonderful Life

Ron Jack and Bill Randall grew up at opposite ends of the Mississippi River. Ron was a Minnesota boy who played hockey, while Bill could be found on the baseball fields of Louisiana. Both came to the Navy from college. Their paths crossed in July 1964, at Naval Air Station North Island, California, when they were assigned to the same flight squadron.

“We were assigned to VAW-11, a fixed wing advanced airborne early warning squadron,” Randall said.” We had received our wings earlier that year and this was our initial squadron out of flight training.”

Full of themselves, the young naval aviators soon discovered they had a lot to learn.

“The planes we were going to fly were different from those in the training command,” said Randall. “We had to learn aircraft systems, operating procedures, then fly with experienced pilots to check out in the Grumman E1-B Tracker, the aircraft we would be flying when the carrier deployed.”

VAW-11 was one of eight different aviation units, or squadrons, assigned to Carrier Group 16 (CAG-16), which included two fighter squadrons, four attack squadrons, a helicopter squadron, and Jack and Randall’s radar squadron. The air group was then assigned to operate off the attack carrier, the USS Oriskany (CVA-34). CAG-16 was commanded by Commander James Bond Stockdale.

Stockdale was shot down in 1965 and spent years as a POW. He subsequently received the Medal of Honor.

The USS Oriskany, named for a Revolutionary War battle, was commissioned in 1950. She maintained an illustrious service record throughout her career and was decommissioned in 1975. Today she lies on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, just off Pensacola, having been sunk on June 1, 2006, to become the world’s largest artificial reef.

On April 5, 1965, the Mighty “O,” with Carrier Group 16, embarked from San Diego for a nine-month deployment to the western Pacific (WestPac).

“After arriving in the combat operating area off Vietnam in May of ’65, we operated off ‘Dixie’ station in the South China Sea initially and then moved north to ‘Yankee’ station in the Gulf of Tonkin,” Randall said. “I flew 93 missions that first cruise, and Ron flew about that same number.”

The carrier returned to San Diego on December 16 1965, and remained there until May 26, 1966, when it again left for its second WestPac deployment. Enroute home, it stopped at the Naval Air Station Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for an operation readiness inspection.

“This was the kind of inspection where you’re checked and critiqued for everything from A to Z. It was like a dress rehearsal for the biggest event of your life,” Randall explained. “It went on for about five days. Everyone on the ship had to be trained in firefighting and survival.

“One day we were scheduled for a lecture on fires aboard the ship, the last thing we wanted to do after a night of hell-raising in Honolulu.”

The instructor teaching the course was a ship’s company enlisted man who had been in the Navy nearly 20 years.

“He wasn’t overly-articulate and was a little nervous,” said Randall. “‘Good morning, youse officers,’ was how we were greeted. He was to educate us in the use of an OBA [oxygen breathing apparatus], a device that allowed a person trapped in smoke to escape by covering his face with a full mask and breathing oxygen inside the mask.”

“He showed us how to put it on, and said ‘when you put on these OBAs, they make you look like a monnaster,’” said Randall. “He meant ‘monster,’ of course. We wouldn’t have given the guy another thought except for that word, monnaster. It made us laugh and we never forgot it.”

That bit of irreverent laughter became instrumental in saving Jack’s life.

The morning of October 26, 1966, a magnesium parachute flare ignited in a flare storage locker beneath the ’s flight deck. Within minutes, all the flares in the storage area were ignited, resulting in the forward third of the hangar deck being turned into a raging inferno.

“We had been on the line flying missions almost daily,” said Randall. “We were supporting bombers, and we’d pull a double cycle sometimes, flying for three to five hours. Some had been out flying all night.

“I wasn’t scheduled to fly that day, and I had some reports to put together. I went to the ready room at about 0600 and told the squadron duty officer I’d relieve him and use the time to get the reports done. At about 0800, the ship’s fire alarm goes off and the speaker system says ‘fire in hangar bay number one.’”

There wasn’t much of an initial reaction. Fire alarms were commonplace since even a smoldering cigarette butt was taken seriously within the confines of a ship.

“I wasn’t concerned until I started smelling smoke through the sealed doors of the ready room,” recalled Randall. “Next thing you knew, all hands were called to general quarters. Ron and I shared a stateroom, and I knew he was sleeping, so I called him and told him to come to the ready room – NOW! The captain came on the speaker saying the fire was out of control, all hands up and aft. I was thinking the next command would be to abandon ship.”

Fifteen minutes later, Jack arrived in the ready room. “Ron said he barely made it there alive because smoke had completely obscured the sleeping quarters and he hadn’t been able to see an inch in front of his face,” said Randall.

Randall said Jack has always credited him for saving his life, but there was another component at play.

“I had called him, but Ron thought he was trapped,” said Randall. “He tried to make his way out, but was forced back into the stateroom by smoke. And that’s when he remembered the monnaster.”

Outside Jack’s door hung the OBA. He donned the device and, with his head wrapped in a wet towel, made his way to the ready room.

Forty-four people died on Oriskany that day, among them, 40 officers from the Air Group. The entire helicopter squadron was wiped out. Most of the fatalities were men trapped in smoke-filled rooms.

“It was terrible,” said Randall. “One of our squadron’s pilots and three others died in their room. Their salvation was just outside their door. The OBAs.”

The Oriskany was ultimately saved, with the crew fighting the fire from 0800 till 1900 hours.

“Ron ended up in possession of the flag that had flown over the ship during the fire,” said Randall. “Apparently, the flag had been damaged and they were putting up a new one, and Ron wanted to make sure the fire-damaged flag was saved.”

The Oriskany returned to San Diego on Nov 16, 1966, via Subic Bay where the injured were taken off the ship for treatment. Both Randall and Jack separated from the Navy at the end of 1967.

Since then, the two have walked similar paths, both becoming commercial airline pilots. Randall went to United, Jack to Western, which later became Delta. And they’ve remained close friends.

“Every October 26th, Ron would call me. We’d raise a glass over the phone and toast those who had lost their lives,” said Randall.

Over the years, Jack had talked about the flag he had taken from the Oriskany. The plan was that one day Jack would donate it to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, in both of their names.

On July 10, 2011, another angel got his wings. Ron Jack passed away in Bellevue, Washington, where he was living with his wife Susan. Following a proper military sendoff, Jack’s children, Scott, John and Joanie, presented Randall with the flag that had flown over the burning Oriskany.

This year marks the 45^th anniversary of the Oriskany fire. At some point, Randall will honor Jack’s plan to donate the flag in Ron’s and his name. But there will be a third man also being silently honored in this gesture - an Earth angel who mispronounced his words, and whose identity will forever remain a mystery.

Randall has no clue who the man was. Unwittingly, in 1966, a Third Class Petty Officer had bestowed upon two cocky, young naval aviators a gift greater than they could ever have wished for – the gift of another 45 years of friendship.

I’ll never forget a trip I made to the Marine Corps Base up in Quantico, Virginia, back in April 2008.

We travelled there for a Jack Daniels/USO “Toast to the Troops” event where volunteers stuffed care packages for our men and women serving overseas. I had the honor of talking with some of our wounded warriors in the tent before taking the stage to perform.  One of the young men I met had lost both his legs on the battlefield. During our conversation, he shared with me that one of the things that encouraged him throughout his difficult rehabilitation was one of my songs, “International Harvester.”

I was kind of taken aback because at first listen, it’s not exactly an emotional or particularly inspirational song. Then the young man revealed he had grown up on a farm. When he heard that song, all he could think about doing was getting his legs fixed so that when he got back to those fields, he could climb up on his own tractor and get back to work. For him, that song was home.

I felt my heart go straight to my throat as I was reminded of just how powerful a force music can be for our men and women in uniform.

Having served 10 years active duty in the Army as a 13 Fox Fire Support Specialist, I’ve experienced the way music can keep your spirits up when you’re serving your country far from home. I remember being in Panama in 1989 for Operation Just Cause. After the invasion was over and rebuilding efforts were under way, we were riding around and listening to an artist by the name Skip Ewing—he’s a writer here in Nashville now. I might have been in a foreign land surrounded by the sights, sounds and pressures of a full-scale military operation, but the moment I pressed play on that CD player, it felt like I was cruising a country road back in Tennessee. To this day I can still remember every single word to every song on Skip’s album. And I’ll never forget them.

When I served in South Korea, Sawyer Brown came to perform on a USO trip. Even through we were only miles away from the most heavily militarized border in the world, for those few hours the hundreds of soldiers watching in that audience—including me—felt like we were home.

As an artist, I’ve gone over to the Middle East to perform almost every year since 2001. I remember on that first trip, we were still sweeping up broken glass at the airport in Kandahar.

At one of those early shows, I came off the stage to find a gentleman there waiting for me. The fact that he had a full beard let me know that he was one of the soldiers at the tip of the spear, doing very dangerous things in very dangerous places. It turns out we had a mutual friend. The bearded soldier shared with me that every morning before our friend flew on a mission—and every evening when he got back—he would play a song I had written back in 2000 called “Paradise.”  

Now as a writer, you are constantly incorporating things that are happening or have happened in the world around you.  Having spent a large part of my life in the military, it continues to find its way into my music. 

For the chorus of “Paradise” I wrote:

Once I was a soldier and not afraid to die
Now I’m a little older and not afraid to cry
Everyday I’m thankful just to be alive
When you’ve been where I’ve been any kind of life …
… is paradise.

It’s a song that touches on a subject that can be hard for those back on the home front to understand. Our men and women in uniform wake up every day knowing that it could be their last. Yet they put their lives on the line—and are proud and honored to do it—because they know they are fighting for the freedoms of the United States of America.

As my conversation continued with the bearded man, he grew quiet and then pointed off into the distance and singled out a rocky peak on the horizon. He let me know that our friend had lost his life in a helicopter crash on that very mountainside. And the morning he died, like every other morning, he had played my music. I was stunned. We both sat there and cried for minute before I had to get myself together and take the stage again.

I’m a guy who has been in public service my whole life. I like helping people. It’s a big part of who I am. To this day, when I return to the States after doing a trip to visit our troops, I go home wishing I could stay there and do more. And for a long time, I never felt like I was helping anyone as an artist. But after hearing that story in Kandahar, I realized as entertainers we have to go above and beyond to do whatever we can to take care of those men and women. There is no question they go above and beyond anything we can comprehend to take care of us.

The thought of my conversation in Kandahar popped into my mind again as I finished talking with the young man who couldn’t wait to get back to working the fields on his International Harvester. The power of the stories he and his fellow soldiers shared on that day reminded me that I might not be able to do a lot for these men and women, but I can sing songs and that can take them home.

I wrote another song that day. I scratched out the lyrics on a piece of notebook paper, taped them to mic stand and sang “Let Me Take You Home” for the first time that night. It’s a song that’s not a part of any album. I wanted it to be special for them. And I am honored and humbled to play it live for service men and women as long as long as they’ll let me.