But it was on July 5, 1776, that the former colonials got down to the nuts-and-bolts of governing and winning a war.

One of the first orders of business that day for members of the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia was getting cooking kettles to the militia. The Committees of Inspection and Observation were told to “furnish a good kettle to every six men, and give all the assistance in their power, that the said militia be well armed and equipped, and march with the greatest expedition,” according to the Journals of the Continental Congress at the Library of Congress.

It was also resolved “That a chaplain be appointed to each regiment in the Continental Army, and their allowance be increased to thirty three dollars and one third of a dollar a month.”

Members then had to deal with the always grumpy John Adams, who got approval to send a copy of the Declaration to Mary Palmer, the daughter of family friends of the Adamses in Braintree, Massachusetts, along with a somewhat-snotty note now preserved by the Massachusetts Historical Society.

“I will enclose to you a Declaration, in which all America is remarkably united,” Adams’ letter read. “It completes a Revolution, which will make as good a Figure in the History of Mankind, as any that has preceded it — provided always, that the Ladies take Care to record the Circumstances of it, for by the Experience I have had of the other Sex, they are either too lazy, or too active, to commemorate them.”

On the morning of July 5, the members of the Congress also ordered copies of the Declaration printed by John Dunlap to be distributed throughout the former colonies.

The thought also occurred to them that somebody ought to tell the troops what they were fighting for now that independence had been declared.

And so John Hancock, the Boston merchant-smuggler and president of the Second Continental Congress, was authorized to tell Gen. George Washington to have the Declaration read to his fledgling army at formations.

In his letter to Washington, Hancock wrote that “the Congress have judged it necessary to dissolve the Connection between Great Britain and the American Colonies, and to declare them free and independent States; as you will perceive by the enclosed Declaration, which I am directed to transmit to you, and to request you will have it proclaimed at the Head of the Army in the Way, you shall think most proper.”

Washington was in New York at the time, warily watching the buildup near the harbor of a British armada that would grow to 400 ships and 32,000 British regulars and Hessians. He scheduled the reading of the Declaration for July 9.

“The Honorable the Continental Congress, impelled by the dictates of duty, policy and necessity, having been pleased to dissolve the Connection which subsisted between this Country, and Great Britain, and to declare the United Colonies of North America, free and independent STATES,” Washington’s General Orders for July 9 read.

“The several brigades are to be drawn up this evening on their respective Parades, at six [o’clock], when the declaration of Congress, shewing the grounds and reasons of this measure, is to be read with an audible voice.”

Washington hoped that movement would “serve as a fresh incentive to every officer, and soldier, to act with Fidelity and Courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of his Country depends (under God) solely on the success of our arms.

“And that he is now in the service of a State, possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit, and advance him to the highest Honors of a free Country.”

Things did not immediately go according to plan, however.

Washington was livid when a mob of troops and locals rioted, storming down Broadway to Bowling Green where they toppled a statue of King George III and lopped off its head.

The report also showed an increase in the unemployment rate for all veterans from a remarkably low 3.2% in May to 4.1% in June, despite the continued strong showing of women veterans in the labor market.

The BLS data showed that the jobless rate for women veterans has come down from 7.1% in March to 4.4% in April and 3.3% in May before ticking up to 3.6% in June, which was still well below the month’s unemployment rate for the general population (4.1%).

For many analysts, the most concerning figures in the BLS report were the weak numbers on job creation. Total nonfarm payroll employment changed little in June by adding 57,000 jobs, about half of what analysts predicted.

A main concern was the hiring slowdown in the healthcare sector, which has consistently been setting the pace for adding jobs through both the Biden and Trump administrations.

The BLS report said that employment in healthcare added 22,000 jobs in June, “but at a slower pace than the average monthly gain over the prior 12 months of 38,000.”

Leisure and hospitality employment, meanwhile, usually a strong performer, declined by 61,000 jobs in June, “reflecting weaker than usual seasonal hiring,” the report said. Thus far in 2026, “employment in the industry has shown little net change.”

Overall, “it’s a pretty disappointing jobs report,” Heather Long, chief economist for the Navy Federal Credit Union, told Military Times in a phone interview.

“Tech is still strong,” she said, “but healthcare has cooled off a little bit,” and “wages are not keeping up with inflation.”

Long noted increases in the unemployment rates for veterans but added that the data is from a relatively small sample.

“That’s why you see a lot of movement” in the numbers for veterans, she said, adding that the “verdict is still out” on whether artificial intelligence will be the major job killer that many expect.

The AI impact on the jobs market is “not showing up in the data yet,” Natasha Sarin, a former assistant secretary at the Treasury Department under the Biden administration, told MS Now, which could be the result of new research showing that the expected impact of AI on white collar entry-level jobs may have been overstated.

The Trump administration sought to put the best face on the BLS report, showing a weakening labor market. Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, posted that the report “reinforces that the American labor market remains solid thanks to President Trump’s economic agenda.”

He called attention to the report that the nation added 3,000 manufacturing jobs in June, although that was down from 7,000 manufacturing jobs added in May.

New acting Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling stated that “Manufacturing employment, which was devastated under the Biden Administration, continues to grow as we secure historic investments and reshoring of critical industries,” despite the loss of 4,000 manufacturing jobs cited in the BLS report.

“President Trump’s America first agenda continues to provide greater wages for workers and certainty to the sectors which will fuel the next 250 years of U.S. economic security,” he added.

Despite the claims, the BLS data showed that wages were not keeping up with inflation. The report showed that wages rose 3.5% in June, while the annual inflation rate through May noted in a separate BLS report (the Consumer Price Index) rose by 4.2%.

Crandall, while recognized for his heroism, will be best remembered for the “warmth of his wit, the depth of his humility and the fierce loyalty he gave to the people and communities he loved,” according to a Congressional Medal of Honor Society release.

Born in February 1933, Olympia, Washington, the All-American athlete had dreams of being drafted by the New York Yankees and earned a scholarship to the University of Washington. That dream was deferred, however, when Crandall was drafted by the U.S. Army in 1953.

Crandall would subsequently receive the nation’s highest honor for valor during the Nov. 14, 1965, Battle of Ia Drang — the first major clash of the Vietnam War, made famous by the book We Were Soldiers Once … and Young: Ia Drang–The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam and the subsequent movie of the same name.

On that day, Crandall led 16 helicopters carrying soldiers into Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, but as the fighting intensified, orders came down for follow-on aircraft to abort their mission, meaning all medevac assistance had been cut off to the men of the 1/7 Cav.

“The medevac pilots were all great pilots, but they weren’t allowed to land on a landing zone until it was ‘green’ for a period of five minutes,” meaning it wasn’t being relentlessly attacked, Crandall later recalled.

Crandall recognized that the men he had shuttled into Ia Drang were trapped, in desperate need of ammunition and, for some, medical evacuation.

Contacted on the radio by Col. Ramon Antonio “Tony” Nadal, Crandall recalled that Nadal was yelling, “I got to have — get my wounded out of here. I’ve got 12 guys that are — and they’re collected, and I have a hole where a helicopter can get in, but they won’t come.”

In response, Crandall refueled, kicked off his door gunner and weaponry to lighten his load.

“If you have infantry on the ground, you can’t shoot up their backside,” Crandall said, calling the M60 guns “worthless.”

Ignoring the heavy enemy fire, Crandall, alongside his friend Maj. Ed Freeman, voluntarily flew 22 missions into the valley to deliver ammunition and evacuate some 70 wounded soldiers.

“While medical evacuation was not his mission,” reads his Medal of Honor citation, “he immediately sought volunteers and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, led the two aircraft to Landing Zone X-Ray. Despite the fact that the landing zone was still under relentless enemy fire, Major Crandall landed and proceeded to supervise the loading of seriously wounded soldiers aboard the aircraft.

“Major Crandall’s voluntary decision to land under the most extreme fire instilled in the other pilots the will and spirit to continue to land their own aircraft, and in the ground forces the realization that they would be resupplied and that friendly wounded would be promptly evacuated,” the citation continues. “This greatly enhanced morale and the will to fight at a critical time.”

Crandall would ultimately fly nearly 1,000 combat missions and was further commended for rescuing 12 wounded soldiers during a dense jungle operation in January 1966, according to the Department of Defense.

In 1968, four months into his second tour in Vietnam flying Huey gunships in support of the 1st Cavalry Division, Crandall’s helicopter crashed, breaking the pilot’s back among other severe injuries that left him hospitalized for five months.

The broken back didn’t deter Crandall from flying, but a subsequent stroke in the early 1970s ended his flying career. He retired from the Army in 1977.

Crandall, who initially received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions at Ia Drang, was awarded the Medal of Honor on Feb. 26, 2007, by President George W. Bush.

With Crandall’s passing there are now only 63 living Medal of Honor recipients.

The 55th and 48th Rescue Squadrons, as well as airmen from the 355th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, all located at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, received the awards April 17 and Jan. 17, respectively, according to a service release.

The two rescue squadrons and airmen in the maintenance group were included in the Personnel Recovery Task Force, a 176-member joint team specifically formed to carry out the noncombatant evacuation operation in Afghanistan.

The release stated that the team, which encompassed airmen from 20 different career fields, included pilots, maintainers, intelligence personnel and Special Warfare Airmen who created their own “unconventional recovery network” by initiating their own operations, security and communications in a “rapidly deteriorating deployed environment.”

The team saved thousands of Americans and at-risk Afghans, according to the release, and established a safe evacuation station for over 12,000 refugees between July 16 and Aug. 31, 2021.

Every unit in the task force prepared through exercises, such as the Red Flag-Rescue, to learn how to perform outside usual duties, per the release.

“But during this mission in 2021, our team also led security teams to fortify aircraft and key command and control positions and manned defensive fighting positions along unsecured airfield areas, providing front-line defense that prevented the NATO compound from being overrun,” Air Force 1st Lt. Sebastian Marano, the 355th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron’s interim director of operations, said in the statement.

In total, the task force operated through 864 hours of continuous alert over 53 days, assisting the safe evaluation of 124,000 people, according to the release. The force maintained its alert status until the last U.S. aircraft left Afghanistan.

Another unit said to be crucial to the evacuation was the Combat Search and Rescue forces in the 66th Rescue Squadron, which executed air-to-ground operations, the release says. The 66th officially deactivated before April’s ceremony, so the 55th accepted the award on the unit’s behalf.

The 58th Rescue Squadron was also included in the task force, but it too was deactivated before the ceremony. The 48th accepted the citation on its behalf.

By the end of the operation, individual task force members accounted for one Bronze Star with Valor, 18 Bronze Stars and 151 Air Force Commendation Medals with Combat Devices for bravery and resolve under “extreme hazard.”

“Every couple of years, there’s something that happens that defines the next generation of rescue Airmen,” U.S. Air Force Col. Jose Cabrera, 355th Wing commander, said in the statement.

“Every generation has their time and I think we’re seeing that today — your defining moment,” Cabrera added. “This will go down in Air Force history as one of the greatest accomplishments of the Air Force rescue community.”

Maj. Gen. Charles Bolton, the 18th Air Force Commander, presided over the ceremony and bestowed the medals upon the Fairchild Air Force Base airmen, assigned to the 92nd Air Refueling Wing, according to a Wednesday release.

“These historic missions were fraught with peril and required decisive reactions to dynamic operational environments,” Bolton said during the ceremony. “The way they choose to respond, the way they adapt and work together – that’s what we’re highlighting today.”

During missions in contested airspace, the airmen provided crucial refueling that allowed for other Air Force “assets to continue the fight and return home,” the release reads.

The release says the airmen were involved in Operation Midnight Hammer — the Jan. 22, 2025 U.S. attack on three main Iranian nuclear facilities — but did not detail the extent of their involvement.

Bolton said during the ceremony that the members’ skills and perseverance led to the success of the overall mission, and he acknowledged the efforts of all Fairchild’s personnel in the mission, as well.

“From maintainers ensuring aircraft readiness, to mission planners and support crews, none of this could happen without the collective efforts of our Air Force family,” Bolton said.

The ceremony drew a crowd of around 300 people, the release says, with Fairchild personnel, local community heads and family members in attendance.

Fairchild Air Force Base, located in Spokane County, Washington, houses the force’s premier tanker base and survival training school, according to the base’s website.

The Distinguished Flying Cross recognizes heroism or extraordinary achievement in aerial flight, and the Bronze Star Medal is awarded for heroism in combat.

A dramatized version of Charley’s story was recently made into the movie “I Heard the Bells,” but the true story behind the origins of the Christmastime poem-turned-song is just as, if not more, interesting.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow vehemently objected to his son’s desire to enlist in the Union Army. But in 1863, at the age of 18, Charley ran away from home and enlisted in the 1st Massachusetts Artillery.

He informed his father of his decision in a letter mailed from Portland, Maine.

“I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave but I cannot any longer,” he wrote. “I feel it to be my first duty to do what I can for my country and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good.”

Within two weeks of his arrival, likely because of his famous father’s connections, Longfellow was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry.

On Nov. 27, 1863, while involved in a skirmish during a battle of the Mine Run Campaign, Charley was shot through the left shoulder. The bullet exited under his right shoulder blade and skimmed his spine.

The wound was considered grave, and the army surgeon told the elder Longfellow that “paralysis might ensue” for his son.

On Christmas day 1863, as his son recovered from his wounds, Henry penned the poem “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” with many references to the Civil War.

The cannon thundered in the South

And with the sound    

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,    

And made forlorn    

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

“There is no peace on earth,” I said;    

“For hate is strong,    

And mocks the song 

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;    

The Wrong shall fail,    

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Charley would survive his wounds, but did not return to the war.

He kept in touch with friends made during his brief career as a soldier, receiving letters and photographs from them and creating a scrapbook of newspaper articles relating to his unit’s role in the war.

He went on to become a world traveler and author.

The famed documentary filmmaker and his co-producers, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, have stumped across the United States, speaking, gently of course, about their upcoming docuseries, “American Revolution,” which premieres Sunday on PBS.

During their six-month promotional tour across 32 cities and 17 states, the trio has consistently delivered a nonpartisan, hopeful message to Americans.

“We think always in sort of Chicken Little terms,” Burns told an audience during a panel event at Mount Vernon, Virginia, on Oct. 29, “that our time must be the very, very worst.”

“You can have at least the possible reassurance that things were really divided back then. It was a civil war,” he said of the American Revolution. “Examining the origin story provides you with a kind of renewal and a fresh understanding.”

Burns has endeavored to provide such reassurances. The director and his team have spoken to a spectrum of media over the course of the year, from podcasters like Theo Von and Joe Rogan to MSNBC and The New York Times.

Burns spent nearly two hours on Von’s show and three on Rogan’s, with one listener noting in the latter’s YouTube comment section, “We need an annual Ken Burns discussion, if not more. This is cathartic.”

“We’re trying to reach as many people as we can,” Schmidt told Military Times in a recent interview. “If anybody wants to talk to us, we’re really happy to speak to them.”

The makings of liberty

For Burns and his team, the decision to make a documentary on the American Revolution was “spontaneous,” according to the director.

To put it into context, the year was 2015, President Barack Obama still had 13 months left in his presidency and “nobody was talking 250” — America’s semiquincentennial anniversary in 2026 — Burns told the audience at Mount Vernon.

“But I was looking at this map that we had of the Ia Drang Valley, in the central highlands [of Vietnam], and I just said, ‘That could be the British moving west on Long Island towards American positions in Brooklyn,” Burns recalled at the Mount Vernon panel. “I just went, ‘We could do it.’”

The filmmakers, however, had to get creative. Without photographs, B-roll or archival footage, the trio resorted to maps, diaries and reenactors to tell the epic tale of Great Britain’s 13 North American colonies’ fight for independence.

“We went out and filmed with reenactors,” Schmidt said of the filmmaking process, which also included commissioning watercolors from a group called Wood Ronsaville Harlin.

“Probably the most expensive line item in our budget is re-creating North America as faithfully as we could in a map,” he noted. “That was challenging, but also really fun. Waterways across America have changed since the 18th century. We had to erase the Erie Canal. Stuff like that you just don’t think of.”

Despite such challenges, according to Schmidt, the lack of visual primary sources presented opportunities to find “new ways to solve these problems.”

Over the course of several years, the trio shot original footage of nearly 100 locations within the original 13 colonies, as well as in London and the English countryside.

For 10 years — and to the tune of more than $30 million — Burns and his team built up a vast archive of knowledge.

“Part of the reason it was so exciting to make [this film] is that we got to spend a decade learning what actually happened and finding out the way to artistically shape that into a 12-hour film to share with the American people,” Schmidt shared.

“We aren’t trying to dispel myths. We’re not mythbusters out there poking holes in your understanding of the American Revolution. In fact, what we’re doing is taking what you already know and rebooting it,” he said. “It’s going to supplement what you already know and make it make more sense.”

Heart of the story

The six-part series follows more than just the well-known characters of the American Revolution.

While it includes rank-and-file Continental soldiers, militiamen and American Loyalists, the series also delves into the oft-unheard stories of Indigenous soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free African Americans, German soldiers in the British service, French and Spanish allies and an array of civilians living in North America.

The documentary highlights a war that not only touched the lives of those living within the 13 colonies, but also engaged and inspired millions of people in North America and beyond.

“The war begins in Lexington,” Schmidt said, “but it spreads all throughout — not just the original 13 colonies — but over the mountains to the Ohio River, along the Gulf Coast, even out to the Mississippi River. It’s also in the Caribbean. It’s fought off the coast of England. It’s fought in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s fought along the coast of France, along the coast of Africa, even in the Indian subcontinent — and that’s just the war.

“The ideas just grow and grow and inspire revolutions — and have inspired revolutions for the past 250 years all throughout the world. Ho Chi Minh, when he declared Vietnamese independence, had two United States OSS officers standing next to him and was quoting Thomas Jefferson in Vietnamese.”

Despite these ideas that have shaped the world since 1776 (many argue that date is even earlier), Schmidt recalls how surprised he was when learning about the original aims of the conflict.

The now-lauded notions of civilian rule and non-partisanship that created the republic that we still live under were not, says Schmidt, “on the table at the start.”

“Those weren’t war objectives,” he continued. “On April 19, 1775, they became necessary to win the war. But they were kind of outcomes of the war, rather than goals. What they were really trying to do at the start was to liberate Boston, to get a redress of grievances and to bring things back to the way they were under the British Empire. But in order to win the war, they had to involve all sorts of American people who otherwise might not get along.

“Coalition building made it a war about liberty. It made it this fight for a union. Then in order to win the war, they had to involve foreign powers. The French came in. The Spanish came in as the allies of the French. The Dutch declared war on the British,” ultimately creating a coalition war.

Former Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, who spoke alongside Burns at the panel at Mount Vernon, echoed Schmidt.

“I would argue — and I think it’d be tough to argue against it — that our strategic center of gravity as a country comes from allies and partners,” Dunford said. “There’s almost nothing that we have to deal with, certainly in the 21st century, where coherent collective action isn’t required to address a problem.”

That coalition is what makes up the heart of the documentary. Nearly 150 characters are highlighted in the series, with their stories read by a staggering 61 different voice actors, including: Kenneth Branagh, Josh Brolin, Jeff Daniels, Morgan Freeman, Paul Giamatti, Domhnall Gleeson, Tom Hanks, Ethan Hawke, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton, Damian Lewis, Laura Linney, Edward Norton, Mandy Patinkin and Meryl Streep, among many others.

The military story itself features 36 battle sequences that range from the well-known, like Bunker Hill and Yorktown, to the more obscure, while showing that the American Revolution was a test of logistics and strategy as much as it was a war of ideals.

George Washington is, naturally, also front and center in the series — a point that Burns noted while speaking at the historic home of America’s first president.

“He’s our guy, and that’s pretty amazing. Look, we do not soft pedal the flaws. Not only are there really bad tactical mistakes: there’s the rashness of riding out on the battlefield, not just as Princeton but at Monmouth and Kip’s Bay; and he owns hundreds of human beings. You can’t square that circle. But we are so lucky [to have had him], and we’re here because of him.”

Civilians, not subjects

One point that Burns and his team spend considerable time exploring is the notion of citizenship.

“I’m really still overwhelmed by some of the obvious things, that for the first time, we were creating citizens, not subjects under authoritarian rule,” says Burns.

“Thomas Jefferson says, ‘All experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable.’ That just means that for most of human history, people have been under authoritarian rule and they’ve accepted it. They’ve acquiesced that those evils are sufferable. Essentially this [American] ‘project’ was to say no to that.”

The war, however violent and bloody it was (which Burns succeeds in displaying) was the vehicle for that freedom.

“I’m really proud to have worked on this film. I’m prouder to be a citizen of a country that invented that idea,” he added.

Burns ended the panel with a potent mix of patriotism grounded in history, closing with one of his favorite quotes from a Hessian soldier, Johann Ewald, who served under the British during the war.

“Who would have thought 100 years ago that out of this multitude of rabble would arise a people who could defy kings?” Ewald once quipped.

“That to me,” says Burns, “is the whole essence of the project. The right to defy kings.”

After dropping its load of 20 500-pound bombs on a target along the Yalu River, the aircraft was caught in a strong wind and blown over the border into Manchuria. President Harry S. Truman had forbidden any U.S. Air Force planes from crossing into Chinese airspace to prevent further escalation of the Korean War.

However, instead of a reprimand, the crews of the 307th Bombardment Group of the 13th Air Force were treated to breakfast. Running low on gas, the squadron diverted to Japan for refueling and a meal of fresh eggs — a welcome reprieve from the powdered eggs served in the unit’s mess at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.

“We were not supposed to be in Manchurian airspace,” Stevens, now 92 and living in Overland Park, Kansas, told Military Times. “It was something the officers laughed about, but we knew we needed to get out of there in a hurry.”

He added with a chuckle, “We did enjoy the breakfast.”

Stevens is one of five veterans featured in “Gunners! B-29 Machine Gunners in the Korean War” by author and military analyst James Blackwell. The others include the late Philip Aaronson, who was shot down and spent 36 months in a POW camp, Dale Crist, Romaine Gregg and Jack Bernaciak, who flew the last B-29 combat mission in Korea. Blackwell conducted personal interviews and reviewed oral histories and military records of the five men in compiling this account of their service.

“In many ways, Korea was the ‘Forgotten War,’” the author said. “This was my father’s generation. They were young children during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. They were the ‘Silent Generation,’ as Time Magazine referred to them. I wanted to write something that reflected who they were and what they went through.”

The new book examines a nearly forgotten chapter of the air war over Korea. With a limited number of jet bombers in service at the time, the Air Force reactivated the Superfortress to deliver payloads against enemy targets. Technologically superior only a few years earlier, the slow, four-engine heavy bombers were now relics in a supersonic jet war.

“The B-29 against MiG-15s — it was like David and Goliath,” Stevens said. “It was no contest against those jet fighters.”

Stevens flew 27 missions over North Korea and accidentally over China. From his position as a tail gunner, he had a bird’s-eye view of the results of his aircraft’s bombing runs. He could also view the fighting on the ground as Marines and soldiers slugged it out with North Korean and Chinese forces.

“I could look down at what was happening,” he recalled. “I was glad I was not down there.”

It was no joy ride in the air either. In addition to enemy jets, Superfortresses were susceptible to antiaircraft fire. The last few minutes to the target were always the toughest. Stevens remembered hearing the deafening sound of shrapnel from exploding flak hitting and occasionally piercing the aircraft’s fuselage.

“It made a loud bang, like a car in a hailstorm,” he said. “There would be little dents and holes all over the aircraft. Flak hits varied. One time it was so close that it bumped me out of my seat. We had flak suits. I couldn’t wear mine because of the tight space in the tail, so I put mine on the floor to help protect me.”

As a 19-year-old farm boy from Missouri, Stevens stated he was too young to be frightened by the danger he faced at the time. He couldn’t wear a parachute because of the confines of his firing position, so he just assumed he would go down with the plane if anything happened.

“When I think back now, I say, ‘Did I really do that? Was I that crazy?’” he stated. “We had our orders and we followed them. It was an exciting time.”

Capable of delivering conventional and nuclear weapons, the B-29 was a modern marvel when it first flew in World War II. The high-altitude strategic bomber featured an analog computerized firing system that enabled one person to direct four remote-controlled machine gun turrets, known as “blisters” because of rounded Plexiglas covers. If a gunner was wounded, the fire-control officer could direct shooting at enemy planes at that position.

Instead of firing by Kentucky windage, airmen sat in seats with a screen that showed the target and adjusted for speed, distance and other factors. When an enemy aircraft appeared in a circle of dots, the gunner flipped a switch.

“It was an analog system that was essentially mechanical, so it didn’t have the speed of a modern computer,” Blackwell said. “It was designed for shooting down German and Japanese fighters. It was a little slow against jets, but still did a good job.”

Blackwell began researching the book believing the slower Superfortress was overmatched by a faster Soviet Union jet flown in the Chinese and North Korean air forces. However, he found that premise to be not quite true.

“I had heard the stories and came to this with the impression that B-29s were obsolete and outclassed in the Korean War,” he said. “After checking the statistics, I came to a different conclusion and changed my approach to writing the book.”

While the propeller-driven heavy bombers were outpaced by enemy jets, they managed to hold their own in combat. Blackwell’s analysis of statistics showed the Superfortress was at a definite disadvantage in the early days of the Korean War when the Air Force was flying daytime missions using World War II formations. However, air command changed tactics and had the B-29s fly only at night while making single-file bombing runs. By the end of the war, B-29s had shot down 25 MiG-15s compared to 16 bombers lost to enemy jets.

“The Air Force flipped the trend by adapting new techniques,” Blackwell said. “Ending daytime missions was critical because MiG-15s weren’t equipped for nighttime attacks. Flying single file on bombing runs also reduced losses. In addition, our gunnery training outpaced that of the enemy, enabling the B-29s to stay ahead of enemy jets in terms of kills.”

Since Stevens flew only night missions, he rarely saw MiG-15s chasing his Superfortress. In fact, he did not use his two 50-caliber machine guns against a threat.

“I never fired them in combat,” he said. “Only test-fired them at the start of missions.”

After Korea, Stevens left the Air Force as a staff sergeant in 1955. He married and raised two sons while attending college on the GI Bill. He then joined Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, retiring as a district manager after 33 years.

However, Stevens’ work was not done. In 2006, he helped build and dedicate the Korean War Veterans Memorial Park in his retirement community of Overland Park, Kansas. In 2010, he was elected to the national board of the Korean War Veterans Association, serving eventually as president. In that role, he championed the cause of Korean War vets in meetings with President Barack Obama and Vice President Mike Pence, as well as other government officials.

Today, Stevens continues to speak to school groups and others about the “Forgotten War” and the sacrifices made by the men and women who served in the conflict. He is especially proud of his time in the Air Force and all he learned as an airman.

“It was an invaluable experience that helped shape the rest of my life,” he said.

Blackwell hopes his book inform readers of the debt they owe to Korean War veterans. On his speaking tour, he gives away free copies of his book to veterans so they “never forget” the people who came before them.

“Korean War vets have the same needs and hurts as the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “We need to sit and listen to what they have to say, too.”

Some nurses were killed by enemy fire. Others spent years as prisoners of war. Most returned home to quiet lives, receiving little recognition.

Darrow sat with patients, even after-hours. One of them had arrived at her hospital on California’s Mare Island with a bullet lodged in his heart. He was not expected to survive surgery, yet he would change her life.

“To them, you’re everything because you’re taking care of them,” she said, sitting at her home in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Danville.

Eighty years after the war ended, a coalition of retired military nurses and others is campaigning to award one of the nation’s highest civilian honors, the Congressional Gold Medal, to all nurses who served in WWII. Other groups, such as the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII and the real-life Rosie the Riveters, have already received the honor.

“The general public doesn’t often recognize, I think, the contribution that the nurses have made in pretty much every war,” said Patricia Upah, a retired colonel who served as an Army nurse in conflicts abroad, and whose late mother was also a Army nurse in the South Pacific in World War II.

Only a handful, like Darrow, are still alive. The coalition knows of five World War II nurses who are still living — including Elsie Chin Yuen Seetoo, 107, who became the first Chinese American nurse to join the Army Nurse Corps. They fear time is running out to honor the trailblazers.

“It’s high time we honor the nurses who stepped up and did their part to defend our freedom,” U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, said in a statement.

Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, have sponsored legislation to award the medal, but it faces steep odds. It needs two-thirds of each chamber — 67 cosponsors in the Senate and 290 in the House — and so far, the bills have eight and six cosponsors, respectively.

Saving lives in the face of danger

Before the war, there were fewer than 600 nurses with the U.S. Army and 1,700 with the U.S. Navy. By the end of the war, those numbers had ballooned to 59,000 in the Army and 14,000 in the Navy.

The Congressional bills cite harrowing examples of bravery. Some nurses served on Navy hospital ships treating patients as the vessels came under fire. Sixty nurses landed off the coast of North Africa on Nov. 8, 1942, to set up shop and care for invading troops.

“Without weapons, they waded ashore amid enemy sniper fire and ultimately took shelter in an abandoned civilian hospital,” the legislation states.

The nurses saved lives. Fewer than 4% of U.S. soldiers in WWII who received medical care in the field or underwent evacuation died from wounds or disease, the legislation states.

“They probably saw more infections. They probably saw more chemical casualties. Remember, they didn’t have disposable products, so they had to sterilize everything,” says Edward Yackel, a retired colonel and president of the Army Nurse Corps Association, of World War II nurses.

“Without them,” he says, “we would not have the knowledge base we need now to fight the wars of today.”

Some nurses endured harsh captivity. In 1942, nearly 80 military nurses were captured when the U.S. surrendered the Philippines to Japan. Held as prisoners of war, the women endured starvation rations and disease but continued to work until their liberation three years later.

Nurses played outsized roles in 600 U.S. Army hospitals worldwide and 700 prisoner-of-war camps at military bases in the U.S., said Phoebe Pollitt, a retired nurse and professor of nursing at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. But their role has largely gone unrecognized.

“Within even women’s history and health care history, nurses are kind of at the bottom of the barrel,” she said.

Breaking color barriers

The majority of military nurses were white, and those who were not often had to fight for the right to serve.

In 1941, only 56 Black nurses were allowed into the U.S. Army. Japanese American applicants, whose families were incarcerated during the war, were not accepted into the Army Nurse Corps until 1943.

Elsie Chin Yuen Seetoo was born in Stockton, California, but spent her teens China. She joined the Chinese Red Cross Medical Relief Corps in unoccupied China after fleeing Japanese forces in Hong Kong.

She later applied to the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, but they said she had an obligation to serve her country — and that meant China.

An indignant Chinese American medical officer fired off a letter on Seetoo’s behalf, stating that she was a U.S. citizen. She became the first Chinese American nurse to join the Army Nurse Corps, working in China and India before returning to the U.S.

She already has a Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Chinese Americans for their service in the war despite the discrimination they faced.

“We answered the call to duty when our country faced threats to our freedom,” she said in video recorded remarks at the 2020 ceremony.

A love story

Among the patients Darrow cared for was a young soldier wounded in Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Before surgery to remove the bullet in his heart, he asked if she would go on a date with him, if he made it through.

“I said, ‘Well sure, you can count on me,’” she says, and laughs. “I couldn’t say, ‘No, I don’t think you’re going to make it.’”

Dean Darrow did survive and they did go out. The couple kept the 7.7 mm bullet. They married and raised four children. He died in 1991.

In September, Alice Darrow took a cruise to Hawaii with her daughter and son-in-law, where she donated the bullet to the Pearl Harbor National Memorial so visitors from around the world could learn of its significance and the love story behind it.

Darrow said she’s looking forward to seeing the bullet on display. The Congressional Gold Medal would be another treasure to look forward to.

“It would be an honor,” she said.

Terry Tang of AP’s race and ethnicity team contributed from Phoenix, Arizona.