Ferencz, who died in 2023 at the age of 103, was just 27 with no previous trial experience when he became chief prosecutor in one of the most significant murder trials in history.

While Congress voted to bestow the medal to Ferencz in 2022, his family members were on hand to posthumously receive the honor this week during the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual Days of Remembrance commemoration at the U.S. Capitol.

“Mr. Ferencz was a tremendous force for good, a fierce New Yorker with a heart of gold and a backbone of steel, a man who saw the worst of humanity and spent the better part of a century fighting for the best of it,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., during the ceremony.

“He came face-to-face with evil, recalling the fact that he had quote, peered ‘into hell,’” Gillibrand continued. “A lesser person might have looked away. But Ben Ferencz looked harder.”

Born in Transylvania in 1920, Ferencz, who was the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, emigrated with his family to the United States when he was an infant to escape anti-Jewish pogroms.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1943, Ferencz enlisted in the U.S. Army and was given the job of anti-aircraft artillery gunner.

“In their typical [Army] brilliance, being a Harvard Law School graduate and an expert on war crimes, they assigned me to clean the latrines in the artillery and do every other filthy thing they could give me,” Ferencz reminisced about the Army’s odd job placement in a 2016 interview with The Washington Post.

The outspoken Ferencz, who barely registered over five feet tall, eventually rose to the rank of sergeant as a member of Gen. George Patton’s Third Army. Action during the Normandy invasion followed, as did breaking through the Maginot and Siegfried lines, crossing the Rhine and bitter fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.

After Ferencz’s honorable discharge in 1945, Gen. Telford Taylor, then the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, recruited Ferencz to return to Germany and work with a team of investigators tasked with uncovering the horrors of the Nazi regime.

Tasked with gathering credible evidence of Nazi war crimes for the Army’s War Crimes Branch, Ferencz encountered the depths of human depravity. The Germans maintained meticulous death registries at the camps of Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Flossenbürg and Ebensee. These registries, which Ferencz was ordered to collect, contained the names of millions of victims.

“When I passed the figure of one million, I stopped adding,” he recalled in an interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “That was quite enough for me.”

It was there that Ferencz and his colleagues discovered the dossiers of the Nazi mobile death squads, the Einsatzgruppen — roving extermination squads that targeted Jews, Roma, homosexuals and political dissidents in Eastern Europe. In the subsequent trial, the International Military Tribunal determined that nearly two million Jews were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen.

“Death was their tool and life their toy,” Ferencz told the judge during the opening statement of United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf et. al. “If these men be immune, then law has lost its meaning, and man must live in fear.”

All 22 men prosecuted by Ferencz were convicted. Most were sentenced to death.

The 100-year-old South Carolina native received the National Order of the Legion of Honour on April 9 from Anne-Laure Desjonquères, the French consul general, who noted “Mr. Cook, you are a true hero — your example gives us inspiration for the future and your legacy provides a moral compass for generations to come.”

First established by Napoleon Bonaparte in May 1802, The Order is the highest decoration in France and is divided into five degrees: Chevalier (Knight), Officier (Officer), Commandeur (Commander), Grand Officier (Grand Officer) and Grand Croix (Grand Cross).

Roughly 10,000 Americans have been awarded France’s highest distinction, with most recipients being World War II veterans who played a role in liberating France.

“There is no way that I can even attempt to explain the feeling,” Cook said at the ceremony. “As far as I’m concerned, I am so unworthy. I want to be a representative of the people who didn’t come back. They are the ones who paid the real sacrifice.”

For three years, from 1942 to 1945, daylight bombing runs by the 8th’s Flying Fortresses over Nazi Germany unleashed 697,000 tons of bombs.

Of that total, more than 47,000 were from the 8th.

Of that 47,000, the 379th Bomb Group — of which Cook was a part of — dropped 26,459 tons.

The effort to pry the claws of the Third Reich from Europe was met with deadly resistance, prompting torturous contemplation of one’s own mortality while being confronted with casualty totals that, by war’s end, would exceed 115,000 personnel from the U.S. Army Air Force.

Despite such odds, Cook told the WWII Veterans History Project, “Anytime I got in that plane and we took off, I told myself that I’m coming home. That was my attitude.”

Enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943, Cook had dreams of becoming a P-38 fighter pilot. However, according to Cook’s account in the WWII Veterans History Project, he washed out of cadet training for what the Army called a “negative attitude regarding military aviation.”

Undeterred, the slender, 138-pound Cook found his way back to aviation, this time as an aerial gunner in the belly of the four-engine bomber.

“To me that was the most comfortable place in the plane. I was accustomed to that. I fit in it pretty good,” Cook told ABC 25 Columbia.

Flying with the of 524th Bomb Squadron, 379th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force out of Kimbolton, England, Cook participated in the bombings of enemy rail yards, airfields, factories, communication centers, synthetic fuel factories, rocket sites and enemy troop concentrations within France, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Holland.

According to the South Carolina legislature, the 379th’s combat record “was the most successful of all the 8th Air Force heavy bomber groups. The unit held records as far as bomb tonnage dropped … and exceeded all other United Kingdom-based Bomb Groups in the total number of missions flown, carrying out 330 missions between May 1943 and May 1945.”

Cook participated in the air cover during the Battle of France, bombing enemy positions from Normandy through the breakout at St. Lo, as well as during the Battle of the Bulge and the Allied assault across the Rhine River into Germany.

“We would bomb just about anything that would disrupt the [German] war effort,” he explained to the Veterans Project.

Cook flew his last mission — his 35th — on Feb. 16, 1945, and was discharged in October of that year. The veteran returned home to Lexington, South Carolina, where he ran a jewelry store for more than 20 years before his retirement in 1983.

“The Lord’s just been good to me,” said Cook at the ceremony last Thursday. “I have really enjoyed life, and I just thank the Lord for what he’s done for me.”

In the link between distance and ease of aggression, there’s a direct relationship between empathy, physical proximity of the victim and the resultant difficulty and trauma of the kill, according to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman in his 1995 study “On Killing.”

For Vietnam veteran Eugene “Gene” Marion Simmers, a close proximity to death and the actions he wrought haunted him for more than fifty years.

Simmers was drafted soon after he graduated from Granville High School in Ohio in 1966. Serving as a combat medic with Company A, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, Simmers received a Silver Star for heroism after his unit found itself trapped as it approached a booby-trapped bridge over a rice paddy near Mo Duc, Vietnam.

“Upon hearing the explosion,” according to his Army citation, “Specialist Simmers rushed to the front of the company and came under intense sniper fire from scattered positions in the area. After taking momentary cover, he maneuvered through the hostile fire and administered first aid to those wounded in the explosion.

“Despite enemy fire impacting all around him, he moved throughout the area to aid his fellow soldiers. His courageous actions were directly responsible for saving the lives of his comrades.”

When asked about his memory of the incident in 2014 by a local news outlet, the Newark Advocate, Simmers recalled, “I just knew I had seven guys hit, and I had to do whatever I could to keep them alive.”

“War’s a bitch,” Simmers went on. “I was just doing my job, and they gave me a medal for it.”

However, up until his death on Nov. 28, 2022, it was not the lives of those men he saved that stayed with him, but that of an elderly Vietnamese woman he had killed during the war.

While the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death remain unclear, what is evident is the weight of her death on Simmers’ psyche.

The simple etching on his gravestone is short — but poignant. The burden of decades-long grief and trauma:

In memory of the elderly woman I killed in Vietnam.

Forgive me. I’m so sorry.

Gene Simmers

Marvin Glen Shields was born in Port Townsend, Washington, on Dec. 30, 1939. After high school his family moved in 1958 to Hyder, Alaska, where he worked in a gold mining project for the Mineral Basin Mining Company.

On Jan. 8, 1962, he enlisted in the Navy, choosing the multi-training of a construction battalion member, or Seabee. After training at Naval Air Station Glynco, Georgia, and Port Hueneme, California, he graduated as a naval construction mechanic in May 1963, and served his first assignment at Okinawa from Nov. 18 to Sept. 1964.

On Nov. 1, 1964, Construction Mechanic 3rd Class Shields swerved into harm’s way when he was assigned to Seabee Team 1104 of Naval Construction Battalion 11.

After final training, on Jan. 22, 1965, he and his nine-man unit transferred to Saigon, Vietnam, just 10 days later. From there, Team 1104 was transported 55 miles north to Dong Xoai, where it joined the 11 members of Army Special Forces Team, A-342, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, in constructing a fortified Special Forces camp.

Further reinforcing the area were 200 local anti-communist Montagnards and 200 soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).

The area was also crawling with enemy troops, ranging from local guerrillas to full-fledged infantry units trained and organized in North Vietnam before returning south. The latter included the reinforced 272nd Regiment, about 2,000 strong, which on the night of June 9, 1965, set out to eliminate the compound at Dong Xoai.

Soon, every defender at Dong Xoai was fighting for his life.

As described in his citation, that included Shields, who was wounded early in the fighting as was the commander of Team 1104. In spite of that: “Shields continued to resupply his fellow Americans who needed ammunition and to return the enemy fire for a period of approximately three hours, at which time the Viet Cong launched a massive attack at close-range with flame throwers, hand grenades and small-arms fire.”

Though wounded a second time during this attack, Shields assisted in carrying a more critically wounded man to safety, then rejoined the fighting for another four hours.

Then a call came up from 2nd Lt. Charles Quincy Williams who, with the wounding of his commander, had taken charge of the Special Forces troops. He needed a volunteer to join him in a sally to eliminate a well-placed Viet Cong machine gunner whose accuracy was endangering the lives of all personnel in the compound.

Without hesitation, Shields volunteered for this hazardous mission. Proceeding toward their objective with a 3.5-inch rocket launcher, Williams and Shields closed to approximately 500 feet and Williams succeeded in destroying the machine gun emplacement.

As the Green Beret and the Seabee made their way back to their defensive positions, however, Shields was hit a third time and Williams twice more.

After a grueling 14-hour siege, Dong Xoai’s defenders were finally evacuated. In the process, Williams eventually recovered from his injuries. Shields was not so fortunate, dying before he reached Saigon. On June 19, he was buried in the presence of a Marine honor guard in Gardiner Cemetery, Washington.

Although the 272nd Regiment finally overran Dong Xoai, the VC knew enough not to hold it long against an enemy with complete air superiority. As far as casualties went, postwar statistics testify to the overnight siege’s butcher bill.

The Americans claimed to have killed 300 VC and captured 104 weapons, while Vietnamese records claimed the loss of 134 men killed and 290 wounded. On the South Vietnamese side, 416 of the ARVN and Montagnards stationed in and around the compound were killed and 176 wounded and 233 missing.

Of the Americans, nine Special Forces troops were killed and of the Seabees, besides Shields, Petty Officer 2nd Class William C. Hoover was killed in the VC’s opening mortar attack. All seven surviving Seabees were wounded.

On Sept. 13, 1966, Shields’ family traveled to the White House, where President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him a posthumous Medal of Honor. Later, on June 5, 1966, Charles Q. Williams was alive to receive his Medal of Honor. Shields’ name was later christened to the guided missile frigate USS Marvin Shields (FF-1066), as was Camp Marvin Shields Construction Battalion Support Base in Okinawa.

Just a little over a decade after World War I ended, Erich Maria Remarque’s readers found themselves behind the German front lines, empathizing with German soldiers who had once been mortal enemies to the Americans, British and the French.

Like the outcropping of surrealism after WWI, “All Quiet on the Western Front” opened up a new genre of books for veterans to process what they had gone through.

“The novel attracted global audiences in its own time — and continues to do so nearly a century later — because it lays bare features identifiable in virtually any war: deprivation, terror, trauma, kinship, black humor, alienation from society, and (usually) some questioning of the cause,” Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., writes in the forward of the book’s most recent translation.

However, while it is one of the most famous books to come out of WWI — or any war for that matter — “All Quiet on the Western Front” — until recently — had only been translated twice from German to English. Once in 1929 by an Australian; the second translation, from 1993, is available only in the United Kingdom.

Arthur Wesley Wheen’s 1929 edition, despite its numerous mistranslations and stylistic flaws, is the dominant one today, having been the only one available in the U.S. for almost one hundred years.

Maria Tatar, the John L. Loeb professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures & Folklore and Mythology Emerita, saw a gap in the literature and painstakingly restored the novel with contemporary prose while remaining faithful to Remarque’s voice.

With “All Quiet on the Western Front” now in the public domain, she writes in her foreword, “we have the opportunity to try to convey its power in a new translation, and to introduce it to a new generation.”

“I think my real mission was to bring back the voice of [protagonist] Paul Bäumer. To let him speak,” Tatar told Military Times. “In a way, this is a talking book. I’d like to think of it as a book that speaks to us, that gives somebody who is muted by the war, really, a voice.”

“We get to process the violence of war through Paul,” Tatar continued. “And the interesting thing is that, of course, war is this world-shattering experience. Not just world shattering, but also word shattering. So there’s a strange paradox embedded in the book — we’re getting these sorts of unmediated thoughts of the soldier as he’s experiencing combat. I really did see my mission as trying to capture the register of Bäumer’s voice in English, which is, I have to say, not as easy as I thought it would be.”

Calling the translation a “labor of love” and a “struggle,” Tatar strove to bring back, or rather preserve, the Germanness of “All Quiet on the Western Front.”

“Translation means carrying over, carrying across,” said Tatar. “And I felt as I was translating that I was rowing across the River Styx, bringing back a dead man, giving him a voice and channeling Remarque as well.”

Wheen’s 1929 translation has become the definitive translation of Remarque’s work, but according to Tatar, Wheen himself “admitted that his German was not very good.”

“The manuscript was sent to me,” Wheen later reported, “as being one able to understand it, and on reading I found that I understood it less by reason of my knowledge of German, which I have but imperfectly, than by virtue of having made the experience recorded in it.”

In some instances, Wheen includes the word “mate” in his translation — something no German on the Western Front would conceivably call his fellow soldiers. In another, Remarque writes about a guy “getting lucky,” which translates into English literally as “he had a pig.” According to Tatar, Wheen subsequently took that to mean the soldier had pork for dinner.

While Brian Murdoch’s 1993 version comes closer to a true rendering of “All Quiet,” Tatar notes that there were “places where I felt uncomfortable, where the dialog is so difficult to capture in the right way, to get the right tone. And although Murdoch is successful in many ways that’s where I think he fell short, in not working hard enough to get the dialog close to something like a Hemingway style.”

Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” serves as a semiautobiographical account of the author’s war. Conscripted in the German Army in 1917 at the age of 18, Remarque was hit by shrapnel in the leg, arm and neck and sent to a hospital to convalesce before returning once again to the front. Remarque’s unvarnished account of the war is evident in “All Quiet.”

“It is written from the heart, not from the head,” Tatar noted.

“Tim O’Brien describes in ‘The Things They Carried’ the majesty of combat,” said Tatar. “I think he calls it the ‘aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference.’ But what I find in Remarque’s work is more of a grotesque aesthetic. It’s not the majesty of combat. You get this fragmentation, destructive violence, disintegration, dissolution. And yet, in the face of all of that, there’s a subtext that endorses affective engagement, emotional engagement, sympathetic identification, almost as if to compensate for the unspeakable, physical injuries of war. So in the midst of all of this violence, we’re seeing what Paul sees. We’re feeling what he feels. You feel his pain in an extraordinary way.

“As I was translating the novel, I was so often on the edge of tears,” Tatar continued. “And part of it is that Remarque is so skillful as a narrator, in drawing you into combat. First you get all these acoustical effects — the roar of cannon, the explosions. And then he gives you all these sensory, visual details. You’re really drawn into this explosive, terrifying scene of time.”

The novel has endured for almost a century because while the tools for killing have evolved, much of warfare remains the same. There are and will always be soldiers seeking solace in the camaraderie of their peers and “wondering what the hell it achieves to kill and be killed for causes defined by others,” Powers writes.

It also details the painful, deep disconnect of soldiers returning home from war.

“They’re people I don’t understand,” Paul reflects. “And I both envy and loathe them.”

Human nature almost ensures that there will be more generations who empathize with Paul, but Tatar hopes that her translation has “found the words for a story that we must keep reading to keep from repeating it.”

In the early aughts of the 1990s, the Pentagon was working on developing a whole host of non-lethal chemical weapons that would render an enemy force incapable of being anything other than ... amorous or annoyed.

Within a three-page declassified document came a blink-and-you-miss-it line positing using “Chemicals that effect human behavior so that morale and discipline in enemy units is adversely affected.”

“One distasteful but completely non-lethal example,” it continued, “would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.”

In a word, a chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to one another — striking a blow to morale.

The randy chemical, later dubbed “gay bomb,” was just one of the many that the Wright Laboratory explored in its proposal dubbed “Project Sunshine.”

Among others, Project Sunshine contained a litany of ideas ranging from the absurd to impractical, including: making a “chemical that made personnel very sensitive to sunlight”; making a weapon that would attract swarms of enraged wasps or rats to an enemy position; and the development of a chemical that caused “severe and lasting halitosis.”

The lab requested $7.5 millions dollars over a five-year period to make their hair-brained ideas reality. The funding was not forthcoming. It did, however, eventually make its way to the mind of Tina Fey and 30 Rock.

As the saying goes, there are no bad ideas — only great ideas that go horribly wrong — but perhaps the Wright Laboratory is an exception that that rule.

Mike, as his comrades-in-arms universally called him, spent World War II fighting in the Pacific and helping to liberate the Philippines. He was wounded twice over the course of the conflict and after the Japanese surrender, he served in the occupation of Japan.

He had indeed taken to his profession, albeit on his own terms, as explained to the local press by his brother, Alfredo: “One time they offered to make him a lieutenant, but he didn’t want it. He liked the action, the excitement, being with his men.”

As it was, by 1950 he had married and had risen among the non-commissioned ranks to master sergeant in Company F, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.

With a world war behind him, Pena got a new, thoroughly unexpected helping of excitement on June 25, 1950, when the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) surged across the borders of South Korea, seized Seoul and threatened to unite the peninsula under the regime of Kim Il-Sung.

Taken by surprise, the United Nations gathered what armed forces it could muster to back up its Republic of Korea army allies, but by mid-August 1950 the communists had all but overrun the country, save for those UN forces holding onto the port of Pusan. Among them was the 5th Cavalry.

By late August 1950, American aircraft had driven the North Korean air force from sky and the KPA was starting to run out of its most vital advantage: the initiative.

While its senior officers did all they could to win a breakthrough in the Pusan Perimeter, the UN troops did all they could to counter each enemy move.

On Sept. 1, the KPA committed four divisions to face Maj. Gen. Hobart R. Gay’s 1st Cavalry Division and the 1st ROK Division over a 35-mile front from Tabu-dong to the Naktong River.

On the evening of Sept. 4, elements of the “5th Cav” moved up on the town of Waegwan and right into a meeting engagement in which Mike Pena established his place in 1st Cavalry Division annals:

“That evening, under cover of darkness and a dreary mist, an enemy battalion moved to within a few yards of Master Sergeant Pena’s platoon. Recognizing the enemy’s approach, Master Sergeant Pena and his men opened fire, but the enemy’s sudden emergence and accurate point blank fire forced the friendly troops to withdraw. Master Sergeant Pena rapidly reorganized his men and led them in a counterattack which succeeded in regaining the positions they had lost. He and his men quickly established a defensive perimeter and laid down devastating fire, but enemy troops continued to hurl themselves in overwhelming numbers. Realizing that their scarce supply of ammunition would soon make their positions untenable, Master Sgt. Pena ordered his men to fall back and manned a machine gun to cover their withdrawal, he singlehandedly held back the enemy until the early hours of the following morning when his position was overrun and he was killed.”

Pena’s body was recovered the next day, but the North Koreans gradually but slowly forced the 5th Cavalry and the 1st ROK back. On Sept. 15, however, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s landing at Inchon caught the weary North Koreans from their right flank and on the 16th the UN forces broke out of the Pusan Perimeter, driving the KPA into a full rout.

The Korean War had only begun, but the North Koreans would never have another chance like the one they had in September 1950. Saving South Korea and recovering Seoul did not come without sacrifice, however.

By the time the British 27th Commonwealth Brigade arrived to relieve its stretch of front, the 1st Cavalry Division suffered the death of 770 men killed, 2,616 wounded and 62 taken prisoner.

Pena was posthumously awarded Distinguished Service Cross, and a retroactive Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster as well as a Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster.

On March 18, 2014, in accordance with the Defense Authorization Act, Pena was among 14 service personnel judged unfairly honored due to their race, and his DSC was upgraded with President Barack Obama presenting the Medal of Honor to his son, Michael David Pena, in the White House.

“The reality of the men’s identities and their reason for traveling to newly liberated Paris would likely have surprised even the most observant and intuitive onlooker,” writes author and historian Stephen Harding in his latest, “G.I. G-Men.”

The men were not military intelligence officers, nor from the vaunted Office of Strategic Services helmed by William Joseph “Wild Bill” Donovan. They were, in fact, special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation tasked with rooting out American citizens who had collaborated with the Nazis or Italian Fascists.

Harding spoke with Military Times regarding his impeccably researched, superbly paced, stranger-than-fiction book, “G.I. G-Men,” and how and why “there have always been Americans willing to sell out America for money, power or a combination of all of those things.”

Military Times: For most Americans, the war ends on May 8 and Sept. 2, 1945, respectively. There’s a decided lack of awareness or understanding about the days, weeks, months — even years following the end of World War II. Can you talk about the work of the Army Liaison Unit in 1944 and in the immediate aftermath of the war?

Stephen Harding: The Army Liaison Unit was set up by the FBI specifically to track down and interrogate American citizens who had remained in Axis territory or Axis-controlled territory during the war and were suspected of collaborating with either the Italian fascists or the Nazis — either through radio or print propaganda or by, in some cases, providing money to them or simply sleeping with Germans or Italian fascists.

The program was an outgrowth of the FBI called the special intelligence service, the SIS, which [J. Edgar] Hoover had started as a way for FBI agents to operate in Central and South America in a counterintelligence role. Unfortunately, when they first started the program, he was sending agents down there who didn’t speak Portuguese or Spanish, so they kind of stood out.

Pretty quickly after America got into the war, [Hoover] sent an agent named Art Thurston to London. Thurston worked very closely with MI6, Britain’s Foreign Intelligence Service, which was already formulating plans to do the same thing for British subjects. Hoover thought this was a great idea, and he especially wanted to edge out Donovan because Hoover thought the OSS was a bunch of amateurs who were going to not do the job well.

All of these agents who were going to go to Europe needed to speak at least one European language fluently, not out of a Berlitz school or anything else. They had to be almost native speakers, and a couple of them were in the sense that of the roughly 20 guys who ended up going to Europe before the program ended, several of them had grown up in Europe or had been born in the United States of immigrant parents and spoke the language in the in the house.

The first agent sent overseas was a guy named Frank Amprim, who was the son of Italian immigrants. He had been a lawyer in Michigan and after Pearl Harbor he joined the FBI. He had no military background at all, however, and Hoover’s idea was that, because the war in Europe was ongoing, he wanted these guys to work under Army cover — meaning they were going to wear Army uniforms, have Army ranks. To do that, they needed to know something about the Army. So Amprim was the guinea pig.

In the meantime, as Amprim’s crossing North Africa, Hoover wants to put together a team that will operate in continental Europe after the Allied invasion of occupied Europe. The person he chooses to lead this effort is a gentleman named Frederick Ayer and his second in command, Don Daughters.

MT: When one thinks of collaborators, you think of Lord Haw Haw, Tokyo Rose, Coco Chanel. Never the Americans. What did you discover in “G.I. G-Men” that contradicts this notion?

Harding: I think what people have to remember is — and this is something we sort of very conveniently forgot — in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War there were thousands of Americans who were pro-Nazi or pro Italian Fascist. It was a huge movement in the United States, and it was supported by the German government. There were huge rallies at Madison Square Garden that attracted 10-12,000 people, many of them wearing Nazi style uniforms the swastikas. There were huge banners flying from the upper galleries with pictures of [Adolf] Hitler and George Washington. Fascism was a popular idea in the United States in the mid to late 30s.

A lot of Americans who ended up in the U.S. military during the war very conveniently forgot that they had been fascists before the war. And so you might have been a person of German heritage who had been a pro-fascist right up until you ended up going to shore on D-Day.

The interesting thing was, a lot of these files I had to do FOIA requests, both with the National Archives and with the FBI. The FBI was saying, “Well, all this stuff has been sent to the National Archives.” Not true. And unfortunately, when the first Trump administration existed, it started making a lot of stuff in the National Archives harder to get to. I was finding files on people that the FBI had investigated with the ALU that were still classified — and that was all still 75 years after the fact. I started wondering why these files are classified, and some of them were newly classified, meaning within months, in some cases, before I got to them.

These files weren’t redacted in 1945. Interestingly enough, a lot of the stuff that got newly classified at the National Archives was not classified at the U.K. National Archives. It wasn’t classified in the French archives either. I would have a document that I got from the U.S. National Archives that was redacted to the point that the only thing that wasn’t redacted was the heading. I found the same document in the U.K. with absolutely no redaction.

MT: From your research, how many American collaborators were there?

Harding: I had a list that I put together of about 135 people that the ALU either intensely investigated or looked at in a documentary sort of way. Now, they weren’t all German collaborators. There were a lot of French communists and French socialists, and remember, the French Communist Party played a huge role in the French Resistance against the Germans. There was a lot of politics involved.

MT: You write in the acknowledgements that you went into something you call “research rapture.” What was your favorite tidbit while working on “G.I. G-Men”?

Harding: I found out a lot of interesting little things, but there was this German spy who actually operated in the United States. He was one of the more successful. A successful spy should be invisible, both in looks and actions. And Ignatz T. Griebl, who was a doctor and ran a practice in the German parts of New York City. He was one of the most effective spies the Germans had until he split because he was under suspicion.

But it’s interesting, because he was successful despite the fact that he was a serial womanizer. This gentleman was prolific in his affairs, and he was married. He was having affairs with everybody and their sister and yet he was the mousiest looking guy you could ever imagine, in terms of the being invisible. Physically, you’d walk right by this guy and not notice him.

He had several sub-agents working for him, and I found that interesting. He eventually escaped from the United States, and he kept his head down in Austria for all of the war before he got popped by the ALU. He was brought into be interrogated but then he disappeared. He was never charged. He was interrogated, but never charged, and he was never found.

They did look for him because there was some thought that he’d gone over the Soviets. A lot of the files that I found in the U.S. National Archives on Griebl were hugely redacted. Why? What’s the story on that? That’s the kind of thing that catches my attention.

“All the cumulative policies” Trump has promoted, including tax cuts and deregulation, “can’t be upended by a temporary Middle East skirmish,” Hassett said on Fox News. “This is really an economy that can’t be slowed down” added Hassett, director of the National Economic Council.

Hasset spoke as air raid sirens once again sounded in Israel and across the Gulf States to guard against another round of drone and missile strikes from Iran but before reports from the region said that a U.S. warplane had been shot down over Iran and the fate of the crew was unknown.

Later reports from several outlets said that one of the members of the two-member crew had been rescued by U.S. forces and a search was continuing for the second.

Hassett’s rosy analysis was prompted by the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that U.S. employers added 178,000 jobs in March, blowing past estimates that about 60,000 jobs would be added to payrolls.

In a post on X, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said, “The March jobs report blew out expectations with strong construction job growth and a surge in manufacturing job creation as trillions of dollars in investments begin to materialize.”

However, the March jobs report was based on BLS data collected by mid-March, which was before the Feb. 28 start of the Iran war, and did not gauge the impact of $4 gasoline, $104 crude or wild swings in the stock market indexes. The markets were closed Friday, and so the impact of the BLS report on the markets would have to wait for them to re-open Monday.

The jobs report also showed that the national unemployment rate ticked down from 4.4% in February to 4.3% in March, while the jobless rate for all veterans came down from 4.1% in February to 3.9% in March.

The closely-watched unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans also came down from 4.8% in February to 4.5% in March.

Health care added 76,000 jobs in March, construction added 26,000 and manufacturing added 15,000, while federal government employment continued to decline in March, losing 18,000 jobs, the BLS said. Since October 2024, the number of jobs in federal government has declined by 355,000, or 11.8%.

A Department of Defense suicide report found that 471 service members died by suicide in calendar year 2024, down from 531 in 2023, according to the report released Tuesday.

In the Department of Defense’s seventh-annual report on suicide in the military, the department found that even though the total force suicide rate decreased by around 11% for 2024’s calendar year, suicide rates have gradually increased in the active component from 2011 to 2024.

The department began collecting data on service members’ suicides in 2011 when the Defense Suicide Prevention Office was established. After accounting for age and sex, the increase in active component suicide rates from 2011 to 2024 reflects the increase in U.S. population suicide rates, the report says.

“Overall military suicide rates have not differed meaningfully from those of the U.S. population for most years since 2011,” the report states.

“This result indicates that the military suicide rates resemble trends in the country as a whole,” the report continues.

Like previous years, the majority of the active-duty service members who died by suicide in 2024 were enlisted males under the age of 30 — making up 64% of the service members who died by suicide during that year, according to the report.

Even as the active component’s suicides have steadily increased since 2011, the rate has decreased by around 16% from 2023 to 2024, the department found.

While the Reserve suicide rate decreased by approximately 14%, the National Guard suicide rate increased by around 13%. Suicide rates for the Reserve component, including the National Guard, have remained stable from 2011 to 2024.

Divorces or separated service members had a higher suicide rate compared to the overall active component between 2022 and 2024, while female service members who were 30 or older or a warrant or commissioned officer had a lower suicide rate.

The report states that firearm usage was the most common death by suicide method in the active component, Reserve and National Guard in 2024 and in the U.S. population in 2023. Poisoning was the leading method for attempted suicides, the report says.

“Recognizing that every death by suicide is a tragedy, the Department will continue to take action to support our men and women in uniform and their families, promote the wellbeing and resilience of the force, and take steps to prevent suicide in our military community,” the Tuesday statement announcing the report’s results reads.

To help service members in need of support, the Department of Defense has expanded the availability of clinical services, like telehealth, and service members can also self-refer for mental health evaluations as part of the Brandon Act, the report says.

In its 2025 suicide prevention campaign, the department focused on building connections across the military and reducing stigma, while the Defense Suicide Prevention Office uses social media as a way to reach service members.

The Defense Department has paired with the Department of Veterans Affairs, among other federal agencies, to increase publicly accessible mobile app usage that supports mental health, like Virtual Hope Box and Breathe2Relax.

For veterans, there has been a downward trend in suicides since 2018, shown by the February release of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs’ suicide prevention report for 2023. Over 6,000 veterans died by suicide in 2023, with roughly 17.5 veterans’ deaths per day, last month’s VA report found.

Unlike their forefathers, who were met with lethal sprays of machine guns and shells on the shores of the Pacific and Europe during World War II, these Marines were, almost comically, met by the mayor of Da Nang with girls placing wreaths around the Marines’ necks. Four American soldiers met them with a large sign stating: “Welcome, Gallant Marines.”

“Garlanded like ancient heroes, they then marched off to seize Hill 327, which turned out to be occupied only by rock apes — gorillas instead of guerrillas, as the joke went — who did not contest the intrusion of their upright and heavily armed cousins,” writes the Council on Foreign Relations.

While the U.S. had been involved in Vietnam for over a decade, with the U. S. Military Assistance Advisory Group existing in Vietnam as early as 1950, the arrival of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade historically marks the Americanization of the Vietnam War.

Many in the upper echelons of American policymaking welcomed the landings. However, Maxwell Taylor, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam at the time and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed strong reservations. He predicted that it would be difficult to “hold the line” on further force commitments.

His fears would prove accurate.

By the end of 1965, 185,000 U.S. troops were in Vietnam. Less than three years later, the city that welcomed the Americans with handshakes and leis had become the host to high-level U.S. and South Vietnamese operations, including the headquarters of I Corps, the military zone encompassing South Vietnam’s northern provinces.

March of Folly

From the moment he was sworn into the presidency on Nov. 22, 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson was hardened to the notion that he was not going to be the first American president to lose a war, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman in her book “The March of Folly”.

“Johnson’s idea was to fight and negotiate simultaneously,” she wrote. “The difficulty was that the limited war aim … was unachievable by limited war. The North had no intention of ever conceding a non-Communist South, and since such a concession could have been forced upon them only by military victory, and since such a victory was unattainable by the United States short of total war and invasion, which it was unwilling to undertake, the American war aim was therefore foreclosed.

“If this was recognized by some, it was not acted upon because no one was prepared to admit American failure. Activists could believe the bombing might succeed; doubters could vaguely hope some solution would turn up.”

As Johnson chose to fight and negotiate simultaneously, Operation Rolling Thunder began in earnest. The soon-to-be frequently interrupted bombing campaign had begun just prior to the sustained American ground campaign. The operation, which began on Feb. 24, 1965, had initially begun as a diplomatic signal to impress the North Vietnamese of America’s determination and serve as a warning that the violence would continue to escalate unless Ho Chi Minh “blinked.”

According to the Air Force Historical Division, Gen. Curtis LeMay argued that “military targets, rather than the enemy’s resolve, should be attacked and that the blows should be rapid and sharp.” When that outcome failed to arise after the first several weeks in March 1965, “the purpose of the campaign began to change.”

Throughout the next decade, more than 2.6 million U.S. servicemen and women eventually rotated through Vietnam. More than 58,000 of them died there, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Now, with President Donald Trump weighing his next steps in the war against Iran and thousands of soldiers from the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division arriving in the Middle East, certain parallels have begun to emerge between the opening days of the wars with Vietnam and Iran.

Operation Epic Fury

Since Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28, over 11,000 targets have been struck.

“Targetry never makes up for a lack of strategy,” Gen. Jim Mattis, who served as Trump’s first defense secretary, cautioned in a recent interview. “By that I mean 15,000 targets have been hit. There have been significant military successes. But they are not matched by strategic outcomes”

Now, according to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is putting together plans for weeks of ground operations in Iran as U.S. forces amass in the region.

Citing multiple U.S. officials, the Post report suggested ground operations could involve both conventional infantry and special operations elements, but would not yet rise to the level of a full-scale invasion.

“It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander in chief maximum optionality,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement provided to Military Times. “It does not mean the president has made a decision.”

The Post’s report comes as U.S. military assets continue to flood the region. On Friday, U.S. Marines and sailors assigned to the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group arrived in U.S. Central Command waters.

The Pentagon has also confirmed elements from the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade combat team are deploying to the Middle East. Based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the 82nd acts as the Army’s rapid-response force and is often among the first units sent to respond to emerging crises.

The report also comes on the heels of an Iranian missile and drone attack on Friday that injured a dozen U.S. service members at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. Two of the 12 injuries are considered to be serious.

Thirteen service members have been killed in action and nearly 300 wounded during Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28.

The majority of the wounded have since returned to duty, according to U.S. Central Command.

Jon Simkins contributed to this report.

But amid the festivities is a tradition, now in its third year, that intersects America’s favorite pastime and military service.

Ahead of Opening Day, Arlington National Cemetery placed official MLB baseballs — courtesy of the Nationals — on the gravesites of six men, all former baseball players turned citizen soldiers.

The baseballs were placed at the gravesites of:

• Luzerne “Lu” Blue: Blue, a D.C. native who rose to prominence under Ty Cobb’s Detroit Tigers. The first baseman had his career briefly interrupted in 1918 when he was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving at Camp Lee in Virginia until war’s end.
• Abner Doubleday: This Union general was among those who defended Fort Sumter during the 1861 bombardment, rose to fame for his gallantry at Gettysburg and — supposedly — invented baseball, writes Colleen Cheslak-Poulton for the American Battlefield Trust. While the claim is pure fabrication, it does make for an entertaining tale.
• William Eckert: Lt. Gen. Eckert, who at the time of his commission was the youngest three-star in the United States Armed Forces, became baseball’s commissioner following the recommendation of Gen. Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay.
• Elmer Gedeon: Gedeon was a player for the Washington Senators before his time in the league was cut short when he was drafted in 1941. Gedeon was shot down and killed on a mission over France in 1944. He and Harry O’Neill are the only two MLB players to have been killed during World War II.
• Spottswood “Spot” Poles: Poles, a Negro Leagues outfielder known for his speed and batting average — think .487 — served in the 369th Infantry Regiment, aka the Harlem Hellfighters, one of the most renowned Black combat units of World War I. The all-Black unit would go on to spend 191 days in continuous combat, more than any other American unit of its size. During that time, about 1,400 soldiers were killed or wounded, suffering more losses than any other American regiment during the war. In his own right, Poles earned five battle stars and a Purple Heart for his heroism.
• Ernest Judson “Jud” Wilson: Wilson, who grew up in Foggy Bottom, D.C., played for the Negro Leagues Homestead Grays in D.C. between 1931-32 and 1940-45. The third baseman served in World War I as a corporal in Company D, 417th Service Battalion and was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. He is a member of the Ring of Honor at Nationals Park.

Here are seven foreigners who freely joined the fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

1. Baron von Steuben: Fraud Turned Hero

The Prussian’s resume was impressive. America’s diplomats in Paris, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, claimed he was once the major general and quartermaster general in the Prussian army, as well as a one-time aide-de-camp to the legendary warrior-king Frederick the Great. But Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben, or Frederick William Augustus, Baron de Steuben, was a fraud. He had been none of those things.

And yet in America, he became a hero.

“[M]ore than any other individual,” writes historian Paul Lockhart, Baron von Steuben “was responsible for transmitting European military thought and practice to the army of the fledgling United States. He gave form to America’s first true army — and to those that followed.”

Despite his bolstered resume, the 47-year-old was a career soldier and did in fact have a keen military eye. He brought to the Continental Army a wealth of European military experience to rally an ill-clothed, starving and poorly trained army at Valley Forge into a professional force.

There, von Steuben introduced discipline, putting Washington’s entire army through Prussian-style drills. He noted to Washington that short enlistments meant constant turnover at the expense of order. There was no codified regiment size and different officers throughout the Continental Army used different military drill manuals meant chaos if other units attempted to work with one another.

“[It was] Steuben’s ability to bring this army the kind of training and understanding of tactics that made them able to stand toe to toe with the British,” historian Larrie Ferreiro told the Smithsonian.

Appointed inspector general of the Continental Army in May 1778, von Steuben’s methods categorically transformed the fledgling patriots before going on to write “Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States,” the first military manual for the American army.

2. Casimir Pułaski: No English, all courage

“In the 13 months since the United States had declared its independence from Great Britain, the Continental Congress had been unable to develop an effective mounted force or find men who could organize, lead and train one,” writes Ethan S. Rafuse. Yet in December 1776, after numerous defeats and retreats, Gen. George Washington called on the Continental Congress to change that.

“I am convinced there is no carrying on the War without them,” he wrote to John Hancock, “and I would therefore recommend the Establishment of one or more Corps…in Addition to those already raised in Virginia.”

Enter Casimir Pułaski.

Born into Polish nobility, Pułaski had made a name for himself under the Knights of the Holy Cross — the military arm of the Confederation of the Bar that opposed Russian rule.

As a cavalry commander, Pułaski earned widespread acclaim for his 1771 defense of the hallowed monastery of Częstochowa against 3,000 Russians.

However, the Pole was soon forced to flee and found himself in dire financial straits in France. He was soon offered a lifeline by Benjamin Franklin, who agreed to pay for Pułaski’s trip to America in June of 1777.

According to Rafuse, Franklin wrote to Washington lauding Pułaski as “an officer famous throughout Europe for his bravery and conduct in defense of the liberties of his country against the three great invading powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia” and suggesting that he might “be highly useful to our service.”

First an aide to Washington, Pułaski was soon made brigadier general in the Continental cavalry — where, despite not speaking a word of English, soon proved his mettle.

By 1778, Pułaski was awarded command of the “Pulaski Legion,” an independent cavalry unit composed of American and foreign recruits. The following spring Pułaski and his Legion made their way south to defend the besieged city of Charleston. In October that year, Pułaski was mortally wounded by a grapeshop while leading a cavalry charge during the Siege of Savannah. The 34-year-old’s heroic death established him among the American Revolution’s most famous foreign volunteers and earned him the moniker as the “Father of American Cavalry.”

3. Michael Kováts: Hungry for battle

While Pułaski might be known as the Father of American Cavalry, Michael Kováts de Fabricy shouldn’t be overlooked.

He arrived in America four months prior to Pułaski after declaring to Benjamin Franklin, “I am a free man and a Hungarian. I was trained in the Royal Prussian Army and raised from the lowest rank to the dignity of a Captain of the Hussars.”

“Kováts had an even more impressive military record than Pułaski,” according to Rafuse. “Born in Karcag, Hungary, in 1724, Kováts belonged to a noble family whose history of service to the Hungarian crown went back centuries. In Hungary as in Poland, cavalry was the most important element of the army, and for the same reasons: the country’s open plains and acquisitive neighbors — in Hungary’s case, Habsburg Austria and the Ottoman Turks.”

Kováts forged a fiercesome reputation as a brave and effective officer, declaring that he rose through the ranks, “not so much by luck and the mercy of chance than by the most diligent self-discipline and the virtue of my arms.”

As a mercenary soldier, Kováts found himself training participants in Poland’s nascent patriot movement, which included members of the Pułaski family. Like Pułaski, Kováts soon found himself in France and then on a ship to the fledgling nation of America to offer his services to the revolution.

Despite struggling to gain a commission, Kováts eagerly began training men within the Pułaski Legion in April 1778. In his new unit, writes Rafuse, Kováts “particularly emphasized the ‘free corps’ concept popular in Europe in the 1740s and 1750s. To preserve the strength of their rigorously drilled and tightly disciplined battalions of infantry, Eastern European military leaders began accepting into their service units of light forces to operate around the fringes of their armies.” It was here that, under Pułaski, Kováts was able to organize and train one of the first hussar regiments in the American army.

Kováts was mortally wounded by a rifle shot during a clash with the British on May 11, 1779, in defense of Charleston.

4. Tadeusz Kościuszko: Loser in love, winner in war

Commissioned a colonel by the Continental Congress in 1777, the 30-year-old Kościuszko soon established himself as one of the Continental Army’s most brilliant, and much needed, combat engineers — all thanks to an unsuccessful attempt to elope with a lord’s daughter back in Poland.

After discovering his brother had spent all the family’s inheritence, Kościuszko was hired to tutor Louise Sosnowska, a wealthy lord’s daughter. The pair fell in love and attempted to elope in the fall of 1775 after Lord Sosnowski refused Kosciuszko’s request. According to the Smithsonian, “Kosciuszko told various friends, Sosnowski’s guards overtook their carriage on horseback, dragged it to a stop, knocked Kosciuszko unconscious, and took Louise home by force.”

Broke, heartbroken, and perhaps fearing repercussions for his actions, Kościuszko set sail across the Atlantic in June 1776. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, John Hancock appointed him a colonel in the Continental Army that October, and Benjamin Franklin hired him to design and build forts on the Delaware River to help defend Philadelphia from the British navy, writes the Smithsonian.

The Pole oversaw the damming of rivers and flooded fields to stem a British pursuit following their victory at Fort Ticonderoga in 1777. This action bought time for the patriots to regroup and prepare for their first major victory of the war — Saratoga. Fortifying Bemis Heights overlooking the Hudson, Kościuszko’s design contributed to the surrender of General John Burgoyne and precipitated the French’s entry into the war.

From there, Kościuszko’s oversaw the defense of West Point, with his fortifications so thorough that the British never deigned to attempt an assault.

At war’s end he was promoted to brigadier general with Thomas Jefferson praising the Pole, “As pure a son of liberty as I have ever known.”

5. Johann de Kalb: Died doing what he loved — fighting Brits

Who hated the British most during this time period? The French yes, but Germans were a close second.

Born outside the Prussian city of Nuremberg, Baron Johann de Kalb entered the service of France and fought in the Seven Years’ War against the British. He eventually rose to officer rank and was made a Knight of the Royal Order of Merit, according to the American Battlefield Trust.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, the veteran soldier saw a chance not only to fight for the ideals of the Enlightenment but to strike a blow to his old foe the British.

Initially denied a commission, a furious de Kalb was making his way back to France when he learned that the Marquis de Lafayette had influenced Congress to appoint him as major general. De Kalb survived the infamous winter at Valley Forge with George Washington and Lafayette, before taking command of 1,200 Maryland and Delaware troops in the war’s Southern theater in 1780.

His command would, alas, be short.

On the morning of August 16, 1780, Gen. Horatio Gates deployed to meet Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis in the now famous Battle of Camden. When Gates and his inexperienced militia broke ranks and began to run only de Kalb was left to defend against Cornwallis.

De Kalb and his infantry refused to retreat. Yet somewhere in the midst of melee, de Kalb fell — downed by some 11 wounds, the majority from a bayonet. Taken as prisoner by the British, de Kalb survived for three more days before supposedly telling a British officer: “I die the death I always prayed for: the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of man.”

6. Bernardo de Gálvez: Our Spaniard in Louisiana

A best friend is one with deep pockets — especially when you’re trying to win a war. And although Bernardo de Gálvez was never a soldier in the Continental Army, he certainly had the means to help supply the revolution.

As governor of the Spanish province of Louisiana, Gálvez, according to American Battlefield Trust, “began to smuggle supplies to the American Rebels — shipping gunpowder, muskets, uniforms, medicine, and other supplies through the British blockade to Ohio, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia by way of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.”

When Spain joined in the war effort against the British, Gálvez didn’t miss a beat and began planning a military campaign against the British where he eventually captured Pensacola, Mobile, Biloxi and Natchez — all four formerly British ports.

However, Gálvez is best remembered for his role “in denying the British the ability to encircle the American rebels from the south by pressing British forces in West Florida and for keeping a vital flow of supplies to Patriot troops across the colonies,” during the rocky beginnings of the war.

Gálvez was officially recognized by George Washington and the United States Congress for his aid to the colonies during the American Revolution and remains one of eight people in history to receive honorary citizenship.

7. The Marquis de Lafayette: You know this guy

Last but certainly not least, Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette. The skinny, red-haired 19-year-old had a family tradition of fighting against the English.

Three hundred years before he was born, writes James Smart, “a Gilbert Motier had ridden beside Joan of Arc as a marshal of France. In 1759, when Lafayette was two, his father had been cut in half by a cannonball at the Battle of Minden during the Seven Years’ War. In the newly declared and still embattled United States of America, Lafayette probably hoped to run across William Phillips, the officer who commanded the artillery that killed his father.”

Despite a growing feeling of irritation among the Continental Congress due to the high number of French officers applying for commission, the wealthy Lafayette was willing to serve without a salary and pay for his own expenses.

Wounded while commanding a fighting retreat at the Battle of Brandywine on Sept. 11, 1777, Lafayette soon earned the trust and admiration of George Washington.

In November of that year, Congress voted Lafayette command of a division, where the boy general served with distinction at the battles of Gloucester, Barren Hill and Monmouth.

Lafayette was instrumental in rallying crucial support in France for the patriot cause. By 1781, the then 24-year-old had grown out of his moniker as “boy general” and took command of an army in Virginia, playing a pivotal role in the entrapment of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, that eventually led to the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.

The general remains beloved in America to this day, with numerous streets, statues, and buildings erected and named throughout the United States in his honor.

John Windom, who served as a program manager on the Defense Department’s adoption of the Cerner electronic health records platform before moving to the VA to manage its health records modernization program, was indicted for allegedly failing to report more than $16,000 worth of gifts.

According to a grand jury indictment filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Windom allegedly accepted cash and other items from at least seven people and companies supporting the VA’s Cerner Oracle health records contract. He met them regularly at a Maryland casino resort to mentor as part of a self-developed mentorship program on building government contracting businesses, the indictment said.

Court records say Windom allegedly accepted an $8,200 Louis Vuitton gift card, $2,000 in cash, $1,800 worth of casino chips, a $1,000 gift card, $2,000 in cash or casino chips and a $631 high-efficiency particulate air filter.

“As alleged, the defendant exploited his senior position for personal gain and concealed gifts and financial relationships that created serious conflicts of interest in the health care of our nation’s veterans,” U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro said in a statement Wednesday.

“Such conduct is not only a betrayal of the public trust—it undermines confidence in the institutions dedicated to serving those who have sacrificed for this country,” Pirro added.

The VA’s health records modernization program began in 2017 under President Donald Trump’s first term, a sole-source $10 billion contract that followed the DOD’s award to Cerner for a new electronic medical records system.

The project was originally scheduled to take 10 years and cost $16 billion. But nearly nine years later, just six of the VA’s 170-plus medical sites use the program, which was paused in April 2023 following issues regarding safety and usability.

The VA plans to resume adoption this year, announcing last March that it would roll it out to 13 additional sites.

Windom served as executive director of the Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization from 2017 to 2022. In 2022, he was reassigned to the position of deputy director of the Federal Electronic Health Management Office. He is a retired Navy captain with acquisition experience.

He allegedly accepted the gifts between June 2020 and November 2020, according to the indictment.

According to the indictment, Windom allegedly concealed from his leadership and ethics officials that he was “accepting, and sometimes demanding, extravagant gifts” from contractors and subcontractors working on the electronic health records system project.

Windom is charged with concealment of material facts, false statements and falsification of a record or document in relation to his failure to report his receipt of gifts, which he was legally obligated to do.

If found guilty of all charges, he faces more than 20 years in prison, as well as financial penalties.

The Justice Department noted that Windom is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty by the court.

A message left with Windom from Military Times was not answered by publication.

In a 50-48 vote, the Senate rejected a proposal by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, to reinstate VA coverage of abortions.

Blumenthal said the ban, which went into effect last year, was the most restrictive in the federal health care system, noting that it bans the procedure in cases of rape or incest and prohibits physicians from advising veteran patients of their options.

“Many of them suffer from service-connected disabilities that increase the risks associated with pregnancy, and many have experienced military sexual trauma during their time of service. To betray them and take away this kind of health care — their ability to receive an abortion in the most harrowing situation — is unconscionable,” Blumenthal said during a press conference prior to the vote.

The VA finalized a rule Dec. 31 that prohibits the procedure at VA medical centers unless the veteran’s life is at risk. The new policy overturned a policy implemented in September 2022 that allowed the VA to provide the procedure or cover the cost in cases of rape, incest or endangerment of the life or health of the mother.

That policy, implemented by then VA Secretary Denis McDonough, was made in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, removing constitutional protections for abortions.

In overturning the 2022 decision, VA Secretary Doug Collins said veterans will continue to have access to the procedure in medical emergencies. He added that the change represents a return to VA regulations under administrations of Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

A federal law known as the Hyde Amendment bans the use of federal funds for abortion with exceptions for rape, incest or threat to the life of the mother.

Democratic lawmakers say the VA change represents the most restrictive limitations on the procedure in the federal government. The Defense Department and other federal health agencies follow the Hyde Amendment, providing abortion services or covers the cost of the procedure in cases of rape, incest or threat to the mother.

“A female service member who was raped prior to transitioning out of the military … is no longer covered by the VA to have an abortion. If she was still on active duty, DoD would pay or perform the abortion. Even if she was serving in federal prison, she would be covered,” Disabled American Veterans Deputy National Legislative Director Naomi Mathis said during the press conference Wednesday.

Between September 2022 and August 2025, the VA had covered or provided abortions to roughly 100 veterans and 40 CHAMPVA patients, according to data provided by the VA.

Blumenthal’s proposal would have opened debate on whether to repeal the VA’s ban. The vote fell nearly unanimously along party lines, with 50 Republicans voting no and two Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joining 46 Democrats voting yes.

The motion failed.

“Republicans just voted to uphold an abortion ban for 462,000 women veterans — even in cases of rape, incest, or if their health is endangered. Shamefully, they are denying women veterans who have been raped or whose health is at risk the essential health care they need,” Blumenthal said in a statement after the vote.

Upon entering Guam’s harbor on June 20, 1898, instead of experiencing the expected whizz of bullets and the booms of a cannonade, U.S. Navy Capt. Henry Glass and his crew aboard the re-commissioned cruiser USS Charleston were greeted on the beaches by curious residents who mistook Charleston’s warning shoots as a salute.

No one had bothered to tell the residents on the island that they were at war.

The small, neglected island under Spanish rule hadn’t received a message from Spain since April 14, 1898 — a full month before hostilities broke out between their protectorate and the United States.

That did not stop the Americans from attempting to seize the far-flung Spanish holding.

MISSION TO GUAM

Earlier that month, upon receiving orders from Secretary of the Navy John D. Long “to stop at the Spanish Island of Guam … [and] use such force as may be necessary to capture the port,” the Charleston, with Glass at the helm, steamed toward the Spanish-held island.

One sailor recalled, “When the news of our destination and object was learned aboard the Australia there was considerable excitement, of course, and the cause of many pow-wows as ‘What about Guam and where is it anyway, and what do we want of it?’”

A POLITE DISCUSSION ABOUT WAR

Once they arrived in Guam, the Americans were hankering for a fight — Manifest Destiny on their minds — and soon began bombarding the fort at Santa Cruz.

Ironically, however, their act of violence was mistaken for a salute of respect, and the Spanish authorities on the island raced to obtain artillery to return the perceived salutations.

As Guamanian officials approached the Charleston by way of rowboat, they were shocked to learn that a state of war existed between the United States and Spain and that they were now technically prisoners of war.

Glass then dispatched Lt. William Braunersreuther to meet with governor Juan Marina Vega and collect the surrender of the small Spanish garrison.

According to Naval History and Heritage Command, Vega was taken aback that he had to go aboard the American vessel, as such an action was forbidden by Spanish law.

“I regret to have to decline this honor and to ask that you will kindly come on shore, where I await you to accede to your wishes as far as possible, and to agree to our mutual situations,” Vega responded.

Vega eventually acquiesced, along with surrendering his small Spanish garrison to the Americans.

LEFT IN QUESTIONABLE HANDS

Glass, eager to sail on to Manila posthaste to join Commodore George Dewey’s fleet, placed the island in the hands of Francisco Portusach, a 30-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen.

The former janitor was in the right place at the right time. Portusach’s only qualifying attribute was that he was an American, but that was enough for Glass, and he placed the island — and U.S. interests — in Portusach’s less than capable hands.

Unsurprisingly, after Glass’ departure, Portusach was unable to solidify his position as governor and was overthrown by Spaniard Jose Sisto, a former public administrator. Sisto, too, had a short reign and was quickly overthrown by the native Chamorro population.

The 1898 Treaty of Paris formalized the handover of Guam as a U.S. territory, which it remains today.

This story was originally published on HistoryNet.

A dozen Vietnam veterans returned to the Southeast Asian country — with all but one having not been back since their combat boots left the soil of Vietnam for the last time some 50 years ago.

“I got back from Vietnam in ‘68 and luckily, I didn’t experience any disrespect,” Jerry Melcher, a combat medic in the U.S. Army told Military Times. “Just experienced nobody wanted to acknowledge or talk about it. So I went home, took off my uniform and kind of stuffed it in my back pocket.”

Rudy Dixon, who served in an Army recon team from 1970-1971, had a similar experience.

“[I] didn’t talk about it much because didn’t nobody want to hear about it back then,” he said.

The veterans, who range in age from 74 to 80, represent America’s decades-long war in almost every facet by way of air, land and sea, including: a former infantryman, helicopter pilots, combat medics, a Navy boatswain’s mate and Dixon, a former recon soldier.

All 12 men were part of a weeklong trip earlier this month, organized by the Eagle Society, a Nashville-based nonprofit, and Forever Young Veterans, aimed at supporting, honoring and preserving the memory of the veterans who fought in one of America’s most contested wars.

The Eagle Society has done several trips with veterans, including a pilgrimage to Okinawa with veterans of the Second World War, but the trip to Southeast Asia, dubbed “Vietnam Revisited,” was a first for the society.

“How do we honor these veterans? How do we elevate a level of dignity and purpose and ability and honor?” Michael Davidson, founder of Eagle Society, told Military Times in a phone call prior to the eight-day trip. “Let’s help the country digest because … we’re really still processing that era. We are still dealing with issues that reverberated since that era — everything from geopolitics to civic division. So how do we use experience to expose us to all those issues and help the veterans while we’re doing it?”

The war in Vietnam represented a fracture in American society and politics, which ultimately gave way to something new entirely. For the veterans, however, shedding the uniform, did not shed the memories.

“A lot of my friends [came] back and got on drugs and alcohol,” Dixon said. “We were sort of poor when I grew up, so all I had on my mind when I got back was, is going to work.”

“People that’s never been in combat … you can tell them something and you can tell they don’t believe it. They can’t understand it because they’ve never experienced it,” Dixon continued. “A lot of things I just never would say anything about because I knew it be too unbelievable to them. So most people that I’ll talk to about it is [with] other veterans.”

After his tour in Vietnam, Melcher, the Army combat medic, became motivated to heal himself — and his fellow veterans. The combat medic-turned-Army psychologist became a mental health specialist, “in part for self-help,” Melcher said.

“That’s supposed to be some light-hearted humor,” Melcher quipped.

“I never heard the term post-traumatic stress disorder. I just didn’t know what it was,” he continued. “And I didn’t talk to anybody and no one talked to me. Even my friends, my best buddy from high school, is a vet. We never talked about it.”

But even as a medic, Melcher was called to help.

“I talked with guys a lot, meaning, not only was I treating their physical sense, but trying to treat other things. When people got ‘Dear John’ letters and wanted to talk to somebody … I don’t know why, I just wanted to help and wanted to listen, and that’s what I ended up doing.”

Vietnam Revisited presented an opportunity for veterans to talk and reminisce among one another, but as Davidson put it, “when you get on the ground, you see, touch, feel, learn … it deepens engagement.”

The trip took participants through Hanoi, Da Nang, Hue and Ho Chi Minh City, however, the veterans “could opt out of anything” they wanted to opt out of, said Davidson.

“We try to make sure we our goal is to create the space for them, whatever it is, whatever version of grieving, healing, restoring, renewing, any version of it. We are going to respect and support their process. So our goal is to create options now,” Davidson added.

Unrecognizable

For veterans like Dixon, as a member of 1st Battalion, 52nd Infantry Regiment, a combat unit assigned to the 198th Infantry Brigade within the 23rd Infantry Division Americal Division, his memories of Vietnam don’t include city campaigns, but crawling through jungle tunnel complexes and traversing dense foliage against the threat of a hidden enemy.

His recon team, according to Dixon, worked in and off firebase LZ Stinson — going out for seven days, coming back in for four and rotating back and forth like that for nearly a year.

The war-torn nation he left was very much not the same more than 50 years on.

“I don’t know what I was expecting when I went back, but it was a totally different country,” said Dixon. “It wasn’t even the same place. I’ve never seen such a beautiful place in my life. … The beaches the South China Sea there and China beach and all it was just, man, it looked better than Hawaii.”

“I’ve never seen more courteous people. I mean, they acted like they wanted you there. They, you know, done everything they could to make your stay there as pleasant as they could. And I just, I couldn’t get over how the people were there toward us,” Dixon said of his time back in Vietnam.

For Dixon, memories of his service include shards of light.

While in basic training, a senior drill sergeant had found out that Dixon was likewise from Mississippi. Every morning while standing at attention, Dixon recounted, “he’d walk down that line and he’d get to me and he’d put his nose right, nearly against my nose, and he’d say, ‘Dixon, you ain’t never gonna make no soldier.’”

“And I’d say, ‘I know it, won’t you let me go home?’”

Nicholas “Nic” Crews of Marietta, Georgia, died Wednesday as a result of injuries suffered in a shooting at the clinic. He was airlifted from the scene for advanced medical treatment but succumbed to his injuries, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

His assailant, Lawrence Charles Michels, 51, of Jasper, was shot and killed by law enforcement, the GBI said in a release Thursday.

Michels was in the clinic for a walk-in mental health consultation; Crews was the clinic’s social work case manager, according to the GBI.

“Rest in peace to a dedicated @DeptVetAffairs colleague, Nicholas Crews, who died as a result of this week’s tragic shooting at the Pickens County VA Clinic in Jasper, GA. We are making sure Nicholas’ family, coworkers and local Veterans have the support they need during this difficult time,” VA Secretary Doug Collins wrote Thursday on X.

Crews leaves behind a wife and young children. According to the Atlanta-based 11Alive WXIA, Crews’ wife, Alyssa, is expecting the couple’s third child and is due in two weeks. He celebrated his 34^th birthday on March 14.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will be investigating the shooting along with the GBI. The VA’s Office of Inspector General is also assisting with the case, according to VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz.

Following the shooting, Michels left the clinic and encountered an armed civilian and police officers. Michaels, armed with a handgun, opened fire and was struck and killed.

According to the American College of Surgeons, health care workers are five times more likely to experience violence than other occupations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the rate of injuries among medical professionals from violence rose by 63% from 2011 to 2018 and has escalated significantly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Pickens County VA Clinic, part of the VA Atlanta Healthcare System, opened in 2020 and serves thousands of veterans in northern Georgia, providing primary care, mental health treatment, lab services and more.

The clinic remains closed through the remainder of the week. The VA has provided veterans and staff access to counseling and chaplain care, Kasperowicz said.

A family friend has set up a GoFundMe to help in the wake of Crews’ death.

“Our hearts are broken as we grieve the tragic loss of Nic Crews. He was deeply loved by so many and will be missed more than words can express,” wrote Amber Williams, a registered nurse from Cartersville, Georgia.

The historian died on March 14 at a Hiroshima hospital, according to Japanese media reports.

Mori was just eight years old when the B-29 carrying the earth shattering “Little Boy” bomb dropped on the city. Less than a mile and a half from the center of the blast, Mori was thrown into a nearby stream that protected him from the firestorm that followed.

“I found myself inside the mushroom cloud,” Mori would later write. “It was so dark that when I held my hands up about 10 centimeters in front of my face, I couldn’t see them.”

In the ensuing days, Mori scavenged for food and water but only found piles of charred bodies instead. When he did find water, it was poisoned with radiation. Unknowingly, Mori drank it anyway.

As a young man, Mori worked at a brokerage house and, later, at a piano manufacturer. “But I’d always wanted to be a historian,” he told The New York Times in 2016.

And so the budding historian began spending his weekends researching the aftermath of the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing. Mori conducted his own interviews with survivors, double-checking official histories with contemporary newspaper reports.

“There were so many mistakes in the histories,” he told the Times.

One interview with a local university professor, however, set Mori on a decades-long quest. The professor had found a list of names in a government archive and, not sure what to do with them, handed them off to Mori.

The list contained the names of 12 American airmen who had been shot down over the area on July 28, 1945. They had been killed alongside the Japanese when their fellow Americans had dropped the bomb. Their deaths had gone unrecognized, with both governments keeping quiet about their presence in the city.

“When I first learned of the American victims, I realized that none of them had been officially recognized as a victim of the atomic bomb. It was shocking to me,” Mori told Stars and Stripes in 2015.

It took him three years before he found anyone connected to the Americans.

Eventually, in the 1970s, declassified American documents backed up his findings. His subsequent book, “A Secret History of U.S. Servicemembers Who Died in Atomic Bomb,” detailed the fate of the airmen.

Mori worked tirelessly to bring the death of the Americans to light — building a memorial for them at his own expense and advocating for their inclusion at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The name of the first airman was added to the peace memorial in 2004; the additional 11 were added in 2009.

In 2016, Mori was recognized by former President Barack Obama, who was the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima. The pair’s subsequent embrace at the memorial grounds gained international attention.

“My ultimate hope is to send out a message that war deprives people of everything,” Mori told Stars and Stripes in 2008. “We should never repeat the mistake.”

Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., kicked off a series of hearings Wednesday on legislation that would reauthorize several significant VA programs and said he wants to create a comprehensive authorization process — an omnibus-style procedure — that would ensure a yearly legislative review of all VA programs, some of which have not been reauthorized for 30 years.

Bost said such oversight is needed to ensure that the VA remains accountable to its customers, taxpayers and Congress.

“When programs fall short, it is the duty of this committee to ask questions, demand answers and make the legislative changes necessary to fix the problem,” Bost said. “Reauthorization is not simply a procedural exercise. It is how Congress evaluates whether programs are working as intended and whether the department is using its authorities responsibly.”

Last year, the Congressional Budget Office identified more than $122 billion in expenditures at the department with lapsed authorizations. According to the office, Congress has allowed 18 authorization laws — those that set policy and recommend funding levels — for the VA to expire.

Bost said the committee needs to tackle reauthorization to ensure that Congress has “the means to modernize [the] VA.”

“[These bills] are designed to restore accountability, improve transparency and ensure that VA remains focused on veterans,” Bost said.

Since the start of the second Trump administration, members of Congress have complained that the VA has become significantly less responsive to congressional inquiries and oversight. During a hearing in January, Bost scolded VA officials for repeated delays in providing responses and testimony to Congress, saying he considered preventing the department from testifying given its lack of timeliness.

Likewise, at the same hearing, the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Mark Takano of California, said the delays showed “enormous disrespect.”

“It is inexcusable. This should never happen again,” Takano said. “Get your testimony here on time, especially when we’re reviewing $1 trillion [in spending].”

Bost has discussed creating a single authorization bill for the VA since last year, sharing his vision first with Politico Pro.

While none of the 27 bills considered Wednesday was a comprehensive authorization proposal, the collection featured several prioritized by House Republicans for review, including bills that address the VA’s restructuring of its health care system, evaluation of the VA’s national drug formulary and reforms of its leasing and construction and contracting and procurement process.

“The goal is simple: better coordination, stronger accountability and better outcomes for veterans,” Bost said.

For the NDAA, House and Senate Armed Services subcommittee members draft portions of the separate bills for their areas of interest, then vote and move their section along to the full committee for consideration. At each step, lawmakers can propose amendments, which are then voted on by committee and either rolled into the bill or rejected. Eventually, the bills are voted on by the respective chambers, and the versions are reconciled in conference before both are passed again. The final bill is then sent to the president’s desk for signing.

For the VA, the authorization process has been piecemeal, with lawmakers proposing policy bills as they see need. For example, other bills proposed Wednesday included legislation that would expand dental care to all veterans in the VA health system and create a Toxic Exposure Advisory Committee to support implementation of the PACT Act.

VA officials at the hearing said that while they “strongly support congressional oversight and engagement,” the department has concerns on comprehensive legislation, saying it “could cause serious disruption to VA benefits and services.”

“VA believes that a clear accounting of programs and services could be achieved through additional avenues such as additional requests for information, briefing request, additional oversight hearings or requiring additional justification materials,” said Phil Christy, the VA’s chief acquisition officer.

During the hearing, Takano said he wasn’t sure that the NDAA strategy would work but added that he is “certainly willing to try.”

“I welcome an effort by this chamber by our House and by this committee to reclaim its authorities and reaffirm our Article I powers by doing the real oversight the VA so desperately needs,” said Takano, referring to the portion of the Constitution that established Congress and gave it the powers to create laws, raise revenue and declare war.

Bost noted that committee oversight is a constitutional responsibility and VA must be accountable.

“It is a task … not an ask,” Bost said.

A memorandum of understanding announced last week by the department gives VA attorneys the legal authority to enter into state court guardianships or conservatorship proceedings in cases where veterans don’t have family or legal representation to determine medical treatment.

VA officials say the process will help hundreds of veterans hospitalized at VA facilities who are unable to transition to more appropriate settings.

“Our new partnership with the Justice Department reflects our ongoing commitment to ensuring that every veteran receives timely, appropriate care, even in complex cases,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a release.

VA officials said the agreement is aimed at helping roughly 700 veterans languishing in VA facilities, but the announcement, which noted that the agreement includes some veterans who are “either homeless or at risk of homelessness,” raised concerns among advocates that the authority could be applied to a larger population of veterans, such as those living on the streets.

Carl Blake, CEO of Paralyzed Veterans of America, said court-ordered guardianships or conservatorships could result in a veteran’s loss of rights or lead to unnecessary institutionalization.

Blake asked how the VA previously met the needs of incapacitated veterans and whether they would have access to their own legal representation — paid for by the VA — if necessary.

“Guardianship can severely — or permanently — restrict an individual’s autonomy, civil liberties, and access to community-based supports,” Blake said in a statement on March 13. “Veterans who have served our country deserve care that honors their dignity, preserves their rights, and supports their ability to live in the community with appropriate services.”

Under the program, VA attorneys can ask a state court to determine if a veteran needs a court-appointed guardian to “represent the veteran’s best interests” to determine appropriate medical care, VA Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz said in an email to Military Times.

According to Kasperowicz, the decisions would be made with “full due-process and process rights for the veterans involved and continuous court supervision of the guardian,” and the court — not the VA — would appoint the representative.

Despite the VA’s assurances, California Rep. Mark Takano, the ranking Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said the agreement puts VA in a position where it is responsible for a veteran’s well-being as well as the “legal driver of stripping veterans of their rights.”

“Guardianship should always be a last resort, after all less restrictive options have been exhausted, to ensure veterans’ rights are protected. Veterans fought for our freedom and theirs. The federal government should not be engineering ways of taking it away,” Takano said in a statement on March 11.

Kasperowicz said the agreement is not an effort to institutionalize veterans against their will. Instead, he said, it provides the VA an avenue for removing veterans already stuck in VA hospitals who could benefit from other settings.

“We are trying to get them in the most appropriate care setting for their needs,” he said.

Blake asked the VA and Justice Department to commit to transparency, allowing for public scrutiny and independent oversight to ensure that affected veterans do not lose their civil liberties.

“VA must carefully consider any broad use of guardianship as a care-planning shortcut and adopt policies with robust safeguards,” Blake said.

The tool will not, however, be used to pursue potentially fraudulent past claims, a concern that arose recently among veterans following a congressional hearing that divulged the program’s development.

Using a Microsoft data analytics program, the VA program will use information gleaned from forms known as Disability Benefits Questionnaires to identify patterns in language or omissions that could indicate fraud.

VA Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz said the effort, expected to be rolled out sometime this year, is designed to detect filings from companies that pose as legitimate medical providers or file claims on behalf of veterans and charge them excessive fees.

The number of for-profit companies that assist veterans with disability claims has skyrocketed since 2006, when criminal penalties were removed for those who charge veterans for the service. The PACT Act — the landmark legislation that expanded disability benefits to millions of veterans exposed to burn pits and other pollutants — also has presented these companies with business expansion opportunities.

While these companies market themselves as helping veterans navigate the challenging VA claims process and get appropriate disability ratings, veterans’ advocates say the businesses, which they refer to as “claim sharks,” prey on veterans and charge them exorbitant fees.

While veterans are permitted to hire companies or attorneys to appeal claims decisions, the law prohibits anyone from charging for assistance with initial filings.

But that hasn’t stopped for-profit companies from stepping in. And while some may offer legitimate services, others have been targeted by the VA as bad actors.

Over the past 10 years, the department sent “cease and desist letters” to at least 40 companies, according to an investigation by The War Horse and NPR published in December. The VA will use the Power Business Intelligence program to look for fraud.

“[The program] relies on manual data entry and analysis to help identify patterns that may help VA identify when organized fraud rings are posing as legitimate medical providers and preying on Veterans (for example, by excessively charging them),” Kasperowicz said in an email to Military Times.

In 2024, the VA Office of Inspector General said of nearly 32,000 claims completed in 2022, 69% contained “one or more indicators” of potential fraud risk, with an estimated monetary value of $390 million.

Given the amount of money, it’s no wonder the VA is being proactive in investigating disability compensation claims, said David Pineda, an Army veteran who runs a company that helps veterans with claims.

“In education, there were diploma mills where people were using GI Benefits to go to schools — these mills were unethical and illegal and [the VA] cracked down on it. In this space here, it’s a similar thing happening. Some organizations are DBQ mills,” Pineda said in an interview.

During the traditional claims application process, a VA Compensation and Pension examiner completes a veteran’s DBQ and assesses a veteran’s medical records, physical abilities, medications and daily activities. The review determines a veteran’s disability rating which sets the level of benefits and disability compensation.

This claims process can be navigated without cost to the veteran; with assistance provided by accredited veterans service officers at veteran organizations like the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars; through veterans service officers at state and county governments; and at the VA.

For-profit companies can assist veterans for appeals, but some companies unlawfully are charging for initial assistance and in other cases, are charging enormous fees on backdated benefits awards.

One Army veteran who spoke to Military Times said Trajector Medical, one of the companies on the VA’s cease and desist list, provided little assistance and after he canceled his contract, charged him thousands.

The new program is designed to look at discrepancies in DBQs identified by the VA inspector general, such signs of alterations, incorrect contact information, information from a medical examiner more than 100 miles from a veteran’s address or contradicting findings that may indicate fraud.

James Smith, deputy executive director of the VA’s Policy and Procedures for Compensation Service office, said in a February congressional hearing that to develop the program, the VA would scan DBQs back to 2010, which would give it the data and patterns needed to identify future problems.

But a story on Smith’s disclosure in Stars and Stripes generated concerns among veterans that the tool would be used to identify fraudulent claims filed in the past 16 years.

“When veterans hear that the VA is scanning private DBQs for fraud, the community at large interprets this as ‘they’re coming after me,’ whether they have committed fraud or not,” said Clayton Simms, a Marine Corps veteran who created a YouTube channel, The CivDiv, to discuss veterans issues.

VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz said Monday that this is not the case. The VA is only using older claims “to analyze patterns that could indicate fraud and are using that analysis to look at new claims,” he said.

“Those older claims won’t be reopened or reprocessed,” Kasperowicz said. “No veteran’s claim or benefit will be reduced or denied because of this effort.”

In its January 2024 report, the inspector general made five recommendations to the department for improved training and reporting processes and authenticating DBQs, including developing a system for identifying inauthentic or potentially fraudulent questionnaires.

A bill is under consideration in Congress that would require the VA to identify and report instances of fraud in DBQs. The legislation would require the VA to establish a process for veterans and claims processors to report suspected fraud.

VA officials said in the February hearing that the legislation would be a duplication of efforts.

“VA’s been proactive in this space,” Smith said. “We recognize that there are some problem players out there, but we’ve developed training that the claims processors are required to take so that they can understand their responsibility to potentially identify fraudulent DBQs, as well as a defined process for them to report suspected fraudulent DBQs up.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include information obtained by The War Horse and NPR through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Melissa DuBose ruled in favor of the American Federation of Government Employees National Veterans Affairs Council, ordering the VA to recognize the bargaining contract that represents roughly 300,000 VA employees.

In her decision, DuBose noted that an executive order issued in March, 2025 by President Donald Trump allowed federal agencies that are involved in national security to terminate union contracts, including the VA, which may provide medical care to the general public during national health crises.

But the VA did not cite national security concerns in ending the AFGE contract, DuBose said.

Instead, the VA cited cost and an inability to terminate employees for performance issues or bad conduct as reasons for terminating AFGE’s agreement.

“Other than the one, vague, post hoc statement about national security that appears in [a] declaration, there is zero indication from the [VA] that the termination decision would have been made or implemented without the retaliatory motive,” DuBose wrote.

She also said some unions clearly were favored over others in the VA’s decision process since the department did not terminate all agreements, and the termination did not follow the executive order, which allowed decisions on an “agency or subdivision basis and not union by union.”

The VA ended most of its collective bargaining contracts with federal unions last August, affecting thousands of employees represented by AFGE, the AFL-CIO, the National Association of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees, the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United and the Service Employees International Union.

VA officials said the move would make it easier to “promote high-performing employees” and “hold poor performers accountable.”

“Too often, unions that represent VA employees fight against the best interests of veterans while protecting and rewarding bad workers,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said at the time. “We’re making sure VA resources and employees are singularly focused on the job we were sent here to do: providing top-notch care and service to those who wore the uniform.”

AFGE filed a lawsuit in November over the termination, which included the VA stopping the withholding of union dues from employees’ paychecks.

In their suit, AFGE officials said the move was harming employees and the union, with employees seeing a decline in benefits, such as a decrease in parental leave from 16 weeks to 12 weeks, and loss of safeguards, while the union has been losing members.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley said Friday that DuBose’ ruling holds the VA accountable. He added that AFGE will monitor the VA to make sure it complies with the decision.

“Secretary Collins singled out AFGE and our members for retaliation because we refused to stay silent about cuts and changes at the VA that would harm veterans. His decision to exempt other unions from the President’s executive order and then terminate AFGE/NVAC’s collective bargaining agreement made the retaliation impossible to deny,” Kelley said in a statement.

It’s not clear how long the reinstatement will last. The VA did not respond by publication to a request for comment.

But the department is likely to appeal the decision, and the outcome is uncertain. In a separate lawsuit filed by AFGE on behalf of all government employees, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the administration’s termination of collective bargaining agreements was not retaliatory, and it overturned a preliminary injunction put in place by a different federal judge.

Before the start of the second Trump administration, the VA had about 450,000 employees, nearly 80% of whom were represented by a union.

VA employee unions that were allowed to keep operating following the executive order included those representing 4,000 VA police officers, firefighters and security guards.

Kim Opitz, Retzsch’s great-niece, a freelance writer who lives in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, told Kare 11 News that her “mother never, never let us forget about him.”

Retzsch, a member of Company C, 1st Marine Raider Battalion, 1st Marine Raider Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Amphibious Corps, was first reported missing in action on July 9, 1943, during the Battle of Enogai on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands.

The New Georgia campaign, dubbed Operation Toenails, was led by Rear Adm. Richmond Turner, with amphibious forces landing at various points on New Georgia on June 30, 1943, beginning a campaign that lasted until the Japanese evacuated Vella Lavella on Oct. 7.

On July 9, Company C came under intense Japanese fire as they rushed toward enemy positions. In his post-war account, “Bloody Ridge and Beyond,” Marine Corps veteran Marlin Groft wrote, “All hell broke loose up front. C Company had blundered into a prepared killing field of Nambu machine gun nests, aided by snipers cleverly concealed in the surrounding trees.”

Retzsch was one of three Marines reported missing after the battle.

According to DPAA, from November to December 1947, units from the 604th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company searched for Retzsch, but after conducting an unsuccessful search of the Bairoko Harbor and Enogai Inlet, the case was closed.

Interred as an unknown at the Enogai Cemetery in 1943, Retzsch was then exhumed twice before final burial in Manila. The Marine’s remains were subsequently designated X-182, while Retzsch’s name was recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.

In 2019, however, “after researching losses on New Georgia,” according to DPAA, they “recommended disinterment of several Unknowns potentially associated with losses in the Bairoko-Enogai area.”

That’s where Opitz’s DNA, submitted to the military in 2006, came into play.

In 2025, DPAA, using dental and other DNA analysis, identified Retzsch’s remains and contacted his great-niece.

“It was like elation, like I’ve never felt so spiritually high,” Opitz told Kare 11 News. “He’s going to be brought home with honors.”

Retzsch will be buried on April 13, 2026, in Marana, Arizona.

Lewis, the co-pilot of the B-29 Enola Gay, was en route to Japan from the Pacific island of Tinian when he began recording. Now, his account, written during and in the immediate aftermath of dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, is for sale.

His “blow by blow description,” which includes his famous reaction: “My God what have we done,” has just been put up for sale by Dan Whitmore, a rare book dealer in Pasadena, California, the Washington Post was first to report.

The price: $950,000.

This will be the fifth time that Lewis’ record has appeared at auction: the first being sold for $37,000 by Sotheby’s in 1971. Lewis, present for the auction, reportedly said that he believed that the account was of great historical importance, adding that he “didn’t know what else to do with it.”

It sold once again for $85,000 at Sotheby’s in 1978; $391,000 at Christie’s in 2002 (as part of the Malcolm Forbes sale); and $543,000 at Heritage in 2022, according to Whitmore.

The eight-page account was made at the behest of William L. Laurence, a science writer for the New York Times, who received a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on what he coined as the “Atomic Age.”

As the official historian of the Manhattan Project, Laurence was the only journalist to witness the Trinity test and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. He was supposed to journey alongside Enola Gay’s crew but arrived too late at the bomber’s base on Tinian.

Over the course of the 12-hour flight from Tinian to Hiroshima and back again, Lewis “recorded both what he saw — including a sketch of the mushroom cloud over the city — and what he felt — apprehension, confusion, shock, awe — as he and his crew entered history,” according to the rare book dealer.

Much of Lewis’ writing occurred in near-total darkness, and as he notes, halfway through, he ran out of ink and finished his account in pencil.

Leaving the Pacific island at 2:25 a.m., Lewis recorded at 7:30 a.m. that “we are loaded, the bomb is now alive and it’s a funny feeling knowing its right in back of you. Knock wood. We started out climb to 30,000ft…well folks its not long now.”

As the B-29 approached the city, Lewis wrote: “There will be a short intermission while we bomb our target.”

At 8:15 a.m., the Enola Gay dropped the bomb.

“Little Boy” fell harmlessly for roughly 45 seconds before detonating, instantly killing 70,000 people in the initial blast. At least 100,000 deaths directly resulted from the attacks. A minimum of another 100,000 people also died from illnesses caused by radiation exposure in the weeks, months and decades that followed, according to the National Archives.

In that moment, Lewis wrote:

“We [Bob Caron our tail gunner] got excellent pictures and everyone on the shop is actually crossed out dumbstruck even though we had expected something fierce, it was the actual sight that we saw that caused the crew to feel that they were a part of Buck Rogers 25 century warriors. This essay on the bombing results could go on indefinitely by telling how huge it grew, even after an hour [and half.] [400] miles from the target, then the billow of smoke reached [5500] ft and contained very weird colors. But perhaps the Japs that are left can save me the trouble and let us know. We then headed ho[m]e on 150° and [our ship] sure had a happy [but puzzled crew]. Mission home was as briefed weather the same everyone got a few cat naps.”

Lewis, perhaps more reflective, later recorded in the days after the attack, “I am certain the entire crew felt this experience was more than anyone human had ever thought possible. It just seems impossible to comprehend. Just how many did we kill? I honestly have the feeling of groping for words to explain this … My God what have we done. If I live a hundred years I’ll never quite get these few minutes out of my mind.”

That later recollection was taped into place by Lewis shortly after the bombing. The yellowed tape, according to Whitmore, is still there.

In August 1945, Lewis was a confident, rambunctious 27-year-old with a reputation as a skilled pilot and determined ladies’ man. But the events of that summer day left him haunted.

In his later years, Lewis took to sculpture as a form of healing.

His piece — a mushroom cloud with streams of blood flowing down the side — was later given to Dr. Glenn Van Warrebey, an American psychiatrist who treated Lewis, seemingly for post-traumatic stress disorder.

According to the Washington Post, Whitmore has plans to exhibit the notebook at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, which begins April 30.

While there are two firsthand accounts of the Hiroshima bombing by the Enola Gay crew — the other being Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk’s navigator’s log — only Lewis’ contains a uniquely emotional commentary of the day’s historic events.