Both the Montgomery and the Post-9/11 GI Bills offer up to 36 months of tuition assistance, but eligibility and payment structures differ. Although veterans can only use one GI Bill at a time, those eligible for both programs can extend their benefits to a maximum of 48 months, receiving another benefit for 12 months.

Post-9/11 GI Bill

Under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the VA will pay up to the in-state tuition price tag of public universities. For veterans enrolled in a private institution, tuition assistance is capped at a current national maximum of $26,042.81.

The Post-9/11 GI Bill also offers benefits including a monthly housing allowance, annual book stipend of up to $1,000, and a one-time relocation payment for eligible recipients.

The monthly housing allowance is typically the same as the basic allowance for housing that an E-5 with dependents would receive in the same zip code.

For veterans who separated prior to Jan. 1, 2013, Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits expire 15 years after separation, but the “Forever GI Bill” passed in 2017 removed this limitation for servicemembers separating after Jan. 1, 2013.

Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits can also be transferred to the servicemember’s dependents.

Veterans receiving Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits can also apply to school with a Yellow Ribbon program, which helps cover the gap between benefits and out-of-state tuition, graduate school tuition, or costs at private institutions. Only certain schools have Yellow Ribbon agreements with the VA, so be sure to check with your desired institution first.

The Montgomery GI Bill

The Montgomery GI Bill breaks down into two types, the MGIB Active Duty and the MGIB Selected Reserve. MGIB-SR benefits, which are open to members of reserve and National Guard forces, pay a flat-rate check of $397 to full-time students each month.

The MGIB-AD, however, offers up to a $2,122 monthly rate. These rates change each year.

Instead of paying tuition benefits to the school, as the Post-9/11 GI Bill does, the MGIB sends a monthly check directly to the student. Students are not eligible for housing allowances or book stipends and cannot receive additional funds through the Yellow Ribbon Program. MGIB benefits cannot be transferred to dependents.

While on active duty, the MGIB offers a buy-up program for servicemembers to contribute to. Servicemembers who paid into this fund to increase their benefits can only use their contributions under the MGIB.

So, which GI Bill is better?

In most scenarios, the Post-9/11 GI Bill offers veteran students more financial assistance than the MGIB, especially when pursuing a standard, four-year degree at an accredited higher learning institution or passing your benefits to a dependent. There are a few exceptions, however. Namely:

Taking tests: When pursuing a license or paying for a standardized test, the Post-9/11 GI Bill may charge you a greater amount of benefits entitlement than the MGIB. This depends on the cost of the test and varies by scenario.

Part-time students: If you’re only taking classes part time, it may be more beneficial to use MGIB benefits. This is because the Post-9/11 GI Bill doesn’t pay monthly housing allowances to students with a rate of pursuit under 50 percent. Tuition assistance is then paid relative to the rate of pursuit. Under the MGIB, lower percentages of benefits could wind up giving you more cash than receiving the Post-9/11 GI Bill without a housing allowance would.

Ineligible for 100% of the Post-9/11 GI Bill: Veterans who didn’t serve on active duty for more than 36 months aren’t eligible for 100% of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The Post-9/11 GI Bill pro-rates your allowances based on the amount of time you did serve on active duty, whereas the MGIB allows veterans to make a lump-sum contribution to close the gap between their time served and 100-percent eligibility requirements.

Online classes: If taking online classes with a low cost per credit, veterans can pocket more cash by taking advantage of their MGIB benefits instead of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. This is because the Post-9/11 GI Bill limits the housing allowance paid to students who are entirely online.

For veterans thinking about using their GI Bill benefits to pursue an education, the smartest thing to do is research options well in advance.

Every veteran has unique educational goals and circumstances, so there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to using your GI Bill.

Kimberly Zapata, former deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, is accused of taking advantage of relaxed requirements intended to help service members vote. A criminal complaint says Zapata used fictitious voter information to send three military absentee ballots to the home of a state lawmaker in October. Investigators said Zapata told them she was trying to expose vulnerabilities in the election system.

Wisconsin’s election practices have been effective at preventing widespread fraud, but Zapata’s actions damaged the public trust, said Meagan Wolfe, the nonpartisan administrator of the Wisconsin Election Commission.

The episode has prompted officials to consider how they could change the military ballot process to protect against small-scale fraud — and whether such adjustments would even be worth the effort.

Military absentee ballots are a tiny part of the vote in Wisconsin — on average about 0.07% of the absentee ballots requested, according to the election commission. That has translated to around 2,800 ballots in recent midterm elections.

“It just is really not possible to engage in much fraudulent activity without being noticed very quickly,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

One change members of the Wisconsin Election Commission said they’re eyeing would add a layer of security by requiring military voters to verify their identity with a common access card, the standard ID issued to all service members by the Department of Defense. It’s a matter the Legislature would have to take up if it were to go anywhere.

Military voters don’t have to register to vote in Wisconsin and must only provide their name, address and date of birth to get an absentee ballot. Federal law prohibits states from requiring permanent overseas and military voters to provide a photo ID.

However, there could be ways to use common access cards to verify a service member’s identity without running up against the restrictions in federal law, Wolfe said.

Common access cards include a microchip that stores a service member’s personal identifying information and an authentication certificate that verifies their identity when accessing government computer systems. The same information could be used as an electronic signature for military absentee ballots.

“It’s not necessarily a photo ID requirement from what I understand how that would look,” said Wolfe. “It’s more or less an opportunity for military voters to be able to verify their identity using the technologies that they may have.”

A law enacted in Michigan earlier this year could provide a model for Wisconsin. The Michigan Legislature established electronic voting as an option for military voters, tying the unique information on their common access card to a digital ballot and thus securing the return process with the same verification used by military networks. Similar bills were introduced by Democrats in Virginia and New York.

It’s not clear that requiring a common access card to request a military ballot — the most direct option to address concerns over Zapata’s actions — would also comply with federal requirements.

“It’s very possible that federal law would not allow such a framework since it would be adding an additional requirement to the voting process,” said Riley Vetterkind, a spokesman for the election commission.

While establishing electronic voting wouldn’t altogether remove the possibility for fraudulent requests, it would allow clerks to instantly verify digital ballots.

Military advocates say electronic voting is a great option to expand accessibility.

“Allowing us to vote electronically would help us more easily participate in the very democracy we serve to protect,” said Sarah Streyder, executive director of the Secure Families Initiative, a nonpartisan group advocating for military voters and their families.

Any change in Wisconsin law would need to pass the Republican-controlled state Legislature and receive the approval of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who vetoed more than a dozen election-related bills from Republicans in his last term.

Some lawmakers favor exploring the idea. Republican Sen. Duey Stroebel said a military ID requirement “would probably go a long way towards rectifying the problem that was highlighted with the Kimberly Zapata case in Milwaukee.” But Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said Tuesday he has no plans to address military absentee voting in the upcoming legislative session.

The election commission can still vote to recommend legislative action, though.

“It would solve two problems: one, it would prevent the abuse – potential abuse – and it would make it easier for military voters, especially those overseas where mail can be an issue,” said Don Millis, the Republican chair of the election commission.

Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs said military ID legislation could be a good idea if executed in a way that doesn’t create additional barriers for service members to vote.

Local police and first responders often lack the military knowledge and on-base connections to ensure a service member receives the care they need after attempting suicide, according to David Conley, head of suicide prevention organization One More Day.

That’s why One More Day created Operation Better Together, which pairs police officers and service members in a suicide prevention course with the goal of combining resources in the fight against military and veteran suicide.

“Military personnel don’t commit suicide on bases. It’s just so rare that that happens,” Conley told Military Times. “They commit suicide out in the civilian world, so it makes sense that we get these officers as trained as we can.”

Operation Better Together uses the ASIST program — a 16-hour course that Conley calls the “Rolls Royce of suicide prevention” — to teach the basics of responding to suicide attempts and to get military and law enforcement personnel acquainted with one another.

The new program has already been through one iteration, a pilot course last November with approximately 40 members of the Idaho National Guard and 10-15 police officers from local departments.

Police Lt. Ray Talbot, of the Canyon County Sherriff’s Department, was one of the officers in attendance.

As a former Marine and commander of his department’s negotiations team, Talbot is well-acquainted with the issue of military suicide. But not every officer on his department is.

“If this were a new line officer who hadn’t been through the training I’ve been through, they would be opened up to a whole new world of ideas on how to help a veteran in crisis,” said Talbot.

“It’s the same problem as we have with law enforcement, where you have a real stigma of soldiers or police officers who are in crisis asking for help,” he added. The police lieutenant stressed the importance of learning how to start a dialogue and help service members and veterans, who are used to being in control, feel empowered in a crisis situation.

Being paired up with service members and suicide prevention officials from nearby bases, Talbot said, built a basis for future communications where a service member’s wellbeing might hang in the balance.

After completing only one training workshop, Conley said he’s already hearing success stories from local police who’ve been able to communicate with service members’ units when they’re in need of care.

Operation Better Together is expected to launch in Wyoming in July and, according to Conley, nine other states have confirmed their interest in the program. One More Day’s suicide prevention webinars, which take place every other month, have also attracted the attention of flag officers and service-level suicide prevention officials.

“It’s a program that helps us take the diverse resources that are out there and tries to bring them together to work on that slippery problem of the veteran or current service member in crisis and get a reach out to them,” Tim Sheppard, executive director of the Wyoming Veterans Commission, said of Operation Better Together.

Sheppard and other officials said the new program made perfect sense as they looked for a way to bring together the many suicide prevention resources already in Wyoming.

“There’s a lot of work to be done in this space. It’s been very difficult, though, to reach out across the different stovepipes and get that done,” said Maj. Gen. Greg Porter, Wyoming’s adjutant general. “I think that’s going to be pretty much the greatest measure of success: if we all know what each other are doing and what the resources are.”

Wyoming’s first ASIST training will take place from July 19-23 and will certify members of the 90th Missile Wing, the Wyoming Military Department, various veterans service organizations, and state law enforcement to teach the 16-hour ASIST module across the state.

If it’s successful in reducing suicides, Porter hopes Wyoming’s version of the program can serve as a proof of concept to other states’ military departments and the active-duty branches.

For police Col. Kebin Haller, head of the Wyoming Highway Patrol, the compact design of Operation Better Together’s offerings was a major selling point. Some of the force’s existing suicide prevention training, he said, was difficult to implement because it took up to a week to teach.

Haller expects to send 50 troopers through the program by the end of the calendar year, and eventually hopes to see the entire Wyoming Highway Patrol attend training.

“I’m looking forward to taking the training myself,” he said. “I have family members and several troopers and lieutenants in the National Guard, and just having a better overall awareness is going to be a benefit.”

As it grows Operation Better Together, One More Day continues to host conversations on its initiatives and the topic of suicide prevention. Its next webinar will take place on July 16, featuring suicide prevention speaker Kevin Hines, who attempted suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge in 2000 and lived to tell his story.

If you or a loved one is experiencing thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255, which offers a crisis line specifically for service members and veterans.

As the United States winds down its commitment of troops to Afghanistan and decreases deployments to Iraq, the number of those who have died in service to the country overseas has reached its lowest level since the initial military response to 9/11.

In the year since Memorial Day, 2020, 18 U.S. service members have died while supporting overseas operations, including Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, Operation Inherent Resolve, and NATO’s Kosovo Force. In 2001, 11 servicemembers died, but by 2003, numbers had soared to more than 500 deaths. The death toll peaked in 2007 at 1,020. And, as of May 27, there have been three deaths in 2021.

None of the deaths were caused by hostile forces, and most were attributable to vehicle accidents. A U.S. servicemember has not been killed in action since March 11, 2020, when a rocket attack on Camp Taji in Iraq killed Army Spc. Juan Covarrubias and Air Force Staff Sgt. Marshal Roberts.

At 13 deaths, soldiers accounted for a majority of those killed overseas in the past year. Three airmen, one sailor and one Marine were also among those who died, according to Military Time’s “Honor the Fallen” database.

Of the total 18 deaths in the past year, five took place in Kuwait and five were the result of a helicopter crash in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Alongside the five U.S. soldiers killed in the helicopter crash were a French and Czech service member.

Other deaths took place in the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Jordan, Bahrain, the North Arabian Sea, and Kosovo.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, at least 7,047 service members have given their lives in support of overseas operations, including deaths by hostile forces, accidents, illness and suicide.

The Pentagon declined to comment on service member deaths in the past year, and instead pointed to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s upcoming Memorial Day message — a tradition normally published on Memorial Day.

Recent decreases in overseas deaths are in part due to force drawdowns in the Middle East. By mid January 2021, the Pentagon announced that it had reduced troops to 2,500 each in Iraq and Afghanistan, as opposed to peak numbers of 100,000 troops in Afghanistan in August 2010 and 170,000 in Iraq in 2007.

President Joe Biden announced on April 14 plans to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11 of this year.

“I’m immensely grateful for the bravery and backbone that [U.S. service members] have shown through nearly two decades of combat deployments,” Biden said at the time. “We as a nation are forever indebted to them and to their families.”

For the families of many current service members, force drawdowns are seen as a relief. But for the families of fallen soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, it can be a reminder that their loved ones won’t be coming home.

“I won’t lie, it hurts to watch them all come home when my husband cannot. However, I am very happy because other families do not have to go through what I am going through,” Kathleen Sherman told Military Times. “No one should have to risk their life, but these men and women do. They are so noble and honorable.”

Her husband, Sgt. Jeremy Cain Sherman, 23, was one of the five soldiers killed on a peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Desert when their UH-60 Black Hawk experienced a technical failure and crashed. Kathleen Sherman remembers her husband as a selfless and kind person who had joined the Army to make a career as part of something greater than himself.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Dallas Gerald Garza, 34, was on board the same helicopter when it crashed on Nov. 12, 2020. His parents, both former paratroopers in the Army, said there was never any doubt that their son would join the Army, too. Garza’s two loves in life were the Army and flying. He left behind a fiancé and three children. After the peacekeeping mission to Egypt, he was to report to Fort Campbell, Kentucky to fly with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

“People who are not involved in the military like we are, rarely understand what it is like,” said mother Maria De Jesus Garza. “As service members, we understand in the back of our mind that there’s always that possibility, but at the same time, we feel invincible and say it’s not going to happen to us, we’re going to be okay.”

Among the resources made available to the Garzas and Kathleen Sherman after the accident was the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, the nation’s leading organization providing care and support to families of fallen service members.

“While there have been fewer combat losses overseas, we continue to see steep increases in military and veteran deaths at home due to suicide and illnesses as a result of exposures to toxins,” TAPS spokesperson Leigh Edmonds told Military Times. “More than 50 percent of newly bereaved survivors who connect with TAPS have lost a military loved one to suicide or illness loss.”

TAPS sees almost 23 new enrollees every day to its services like emotional support groups, casework assistance, and a 24/7 survivor hotline.

Also available to the families of those who die on active duty are Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance, a DoD death gratuity payment, eligibility for some military loans and scholarships, and Tricare For Life medical care—small compensation for what they’ve lost.

“It’s not just the service member that serves, it’s the whole family because the whole family makes sacrifices and, in some cases like us, we make the ultimate sacrifice,” said Maria De Jesus Garza.

Survivors of a fallen service member in need of support can reach TAPS 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 800-959-8277.

These are the 18 service members who died in overseas incidents since last Memorial Day. Take a moment to remember them and the sacrifice made by they and their loved ones:

• Army Spc. Nick Bravo-Regules; Jordan; June 23, 2020
• Army Spc. Vincent Ibarria; Farah, Afghanistan; July 3, 2020
• Army Pfc. Alexander Klass; Camp Novo Selo, Kosovo; July 4, 2020
• Army 1st Lt. Joseph Allbaugh; Kandahar Province, Afghanistan; July 12, 2020
• Army Sgt. Bryan Mount; Syria; July 21, 2020
• Marine Corps Sgt. Trevor Goldyn; Bahrain; Aug. 11, 2020
• Navy Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Ian McKnight; North Arabian Sea; Sept. 6, 2020
• Air Force Senior Airman Jason Phan; Ali Al Salem Airbase, Kuwait; Sept. 12, 2020
• Air Force Staff Sgt. Ronald Ouellette; Ali Al Salem Airbase, Kuwait; Sept. 14, 2020
• Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Dallas Garza; Sinai Peninsula, Egypt; Nov. 12, 2020
• Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Marwan Ghabour; Sinai Peninsula, Egypt; Nov. 12, 2020
• Army Staff Sgt. Kyle McKee; Sinai Peninsula, Egypt; Nov. 12, 2020
• Army Sgt. Jeremy Sherman; Sinai Peninsula, Egypt; Nov. 12, 2020
• Army Capt. Seth Vandekamp; Sinai Peninsula, Egypt; Nov. 12, 2020
• Air Force Capt. Kelliann Leli; Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates; Nov. 27, 2020
• Army Staff Sgt. Anthony Bermudez; Camp Buehring, Kuwait; Jan. 11, 2021
• Army Staff Sgt. Timothy Manchester; Camp Arifjan, Kuwait; Jan. 20, 2021
• Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Pantos; Ali Al Salem Airbase, Kuwait; April 26, 2021

Between the four military branches, the Army had the lowest rate of vaccination. Marines were 52 percent more likely to get vaccinated than soldiers. Sailors and airmen were respectively 45 percent and 15 percent more likely.

Black service members were least likely to choose to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, as well as female service members and those with lower ranks and education levels. Research surveying the civilian population also suggests high rates of vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans.

During the term of the study, 29 percent of white service members initiated the vaccine process, while only 25.5 percent of Hispanic and 18.7 percent of Black service members across the military chose to do so.

“This suggests that forces external to the U.S. military, such as interpersonal and societal factors, also contribute towards vaccine hesitancy among military service members, as has been suggested for other disease processes,” the study stated. “Military leadership and vaccine planners should be knowledgeable about and aware of the disparities in vaccine initiation.”

Researchers tracked the medical data of all active duty service members from December 2020 through March 2021. During this time, 361,538 service members, or 27.2 percent of the active-duty military, received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The study was published in the April edition of the Medical Surveillance Monthly Report, the military’s peer-reviewed medical journal.

When analyzing completion of the vaccine process, researchers only looked at the 181,127 service members who had received their first dose prior to Jan. 29, 2021. Of these service members, 93.8 percent received a second dose within six weeks of their first.

Service members who had previously contracted COVID-19 were 20 percent less likely to get vaccinated.

No significant differences were observed between demographic groupings for completion of the vaccine after receiving a first dose, but soldiers did complete their vaccinations at a slightly lower rate.

When broken down by occupational specialty, data showed that motor transport specialties had the lowest rates of vaccine initiation, whereas pilots and healthcare workers were most likely to choose to get vaccinated.

Of the 110,456 health care personnel serving on active duty at the time of the study, 55 percent initiated at least one dose of the vaccine.

As of May 17, 715,936 service members are fully vaccinated, and 308,127 have received at least one dose, according to the DoD’s publicly available numbers.

Army officials announced on Wednesday that their medical treatment facilities had administered more than 1 million doses of the vaccine.

It was the first time former Navy pilots Bob Wetzel, 60, and Jeff Zaun, 58, had seen Layth Muneer since the deserts of Iraq in 1991, when their plane was shot down and Muneer, a former major general in the Iraqi Air Force, stopped search parties of Iraqi security forces from killing them.

Now, almost another decade later, Muneer, 74, is still in the U.S. and struggling to be granted asylum, let alone get a green card. Wetzel and Zaun are committed to helping their captor-turned-friend become a citizen.

Jan. 17, 1991

Four U.S. Navy A-6 Intruders flew low over the Iraqi desert as they approached H-3 Airbase. Their mission, to cripple the base’s missile and air defense capabilities with cluster bombs, was a key part of the air war in Operation Desert Storm, which had begun fewer than 24 hours before.

Wetzel and Zaun piloted the second A-6 in the strike force, escorted by a complement of fighter jets and radar-jamming aircraft. They were only minutes from their target when anti-aircraft artillery and parachute flares lit up the clear night sky.

“The AAA was very intense, and I knew from there that we were going to get shot down,” said Wetzel. “I knew we weren’t going to get through this without getting hit by something, because the whole sky was lit up.”

At 10 miles away from H-3 (just over a minute at their speed of 450 knots), Wetzel spotted an incoming surface-to-air missile to their front and outmaneuvered it. About 30 seconds later, another came in from the right. Wetzel looked up from the gauges in his cockpit just in time to see it pulling lead on their jet. Turning hard in the SAM’s direction, he managed to outmaneuver his second SAM of the night.

He wouldn’t be so lucky with the third.

As Wetzel watched the evaded missile fly off into the night and continued his turn away from it, an explosion rocked the plane. A third SAM he hadn’t seen coming had struck the right-side engine. The plane shook violently, and warning lights brightened the cockpit.

“The only thing I remember really clearly was a fire that I could see in the windscreen, and I could hear the engine eating itself,” said Zaun. Seconds after the plane’s first engine went out, the second ground to a halt.

Unable to fly further, Zaun and Wetzel both remember calling for ejection. Next thing they knew, the pilots were on the desert floor in clear sight of the enemy airfield. The ejector blast had knocked them unconscious for the descent and left Wetzel with multiple broken bones.

A dazed and disoriented Zaun rose to his feet but was unable to locate his weapon or radio. In his delirium, he recalls repeatedly searched his parachute for the missing items. Wetzel had landed nearby and was in poor condition, but they were too close to the airfield to be safe. They needed to get moving.

Zaun helped Wetzel remove his parachute harness, and the two began walking and crawling up steep sand dunes in the direction of the Jordanian border to their southwest. The duo only made it about a half-mile into their trek when they turned around and saw trucks investigating the site where they’d stowed their parachutes. Search parties from the airbase were on their tracks; it was only a matter of time now before they were captured.

The pilots hid in a gulley, but as an Iraqi truck approached their position, it was clear the enemy couldn’t see them hiding and might run them over. Zaun stepped out in front of the truck with his arms raised, and the downed pilots made their surrender.

Small arms fire filled the air — the Iraqis’ signal that they had found the men. More troops began to gather around, and soon an angry mob had formed, kicking and grabbing at the two pilots.

Then a new group showed up on the scene — an Iraqi Air Force officer and his airmen — and brought order to the crowd.

“He was with some of his troops and he formed like a little perimeter around us with his guys — I want to say maybe eight or 10 guys — who were protecting us from this angry mob and got us over to his jeep,” said Wetzel.

The officer saw to it that the two pilots were safely delivered onto H-3 and to the infirmary, where they were given medical care until the following morning, when they were taken to Baghdad.

H-3 Airbase

General Layth Muneer was a seasoned veteran of the Iraqi Air Force. As a fighter pilot, he had spent the early years of his career training in Pakistan and Iraq on both American and Russian-made platforms including T-37s, F-86s, and MiG 21s and 23s. He also served on flight missions for allied countries like India and Egypt. In 1991, he was serving as commander of H-3, an Iraqi air force base about 300 miles west of Baghdad in Al-Anbar Governate.

When the attacking A-6 Intruders made their approach on Jan. 17, Muneer’s radar officer didn’t spot the aircraft until they were about four minutes out.

“I said, ‘Oh my God.’ Then I gave the order for all the weapons and missiles to be alert and on fire,” Muneer told Military Times.

Minutes later, the bombing began. From the officer’s mess to administrative offices, hangars to soldiers’ quarters, Muneer said coalition planes bombed nearly everything. The general and his airmen hid from the strikes in underground shelters, emerging only after the aircraft had passed.

Throughout the attack, Muneer’s airmen had been firing AAA and SAMs, including both Russian radar-guided missiles and the heat-seeking French Rolands that took down Wetzel and Zaun. H-3 had been mercilessly punished by coalition cluster bombs and missiles, but Muneer’s airmen kept fighting, and they kept thinking they had shot down enemy aircraft.

“Every day, every hour, my security force would bring me pieces of bombs and drop tanks and frame them as an aircraft they had shot down,” said Muneer. “Finally, they brought me a nosewheel and I said, ‘Oh, look at this. This is an aircraft. Now you are right… it is an American airplane.’”

H-3′s air defense also managed to hit another A-6 in the strike on Jan. 17. Although the plane was damaged, its crew was able to continue flying to safety over Saudi Arabia.

The nosewheel his security forces had recovered was still hot, so Muneer gathered a search party to locate the downed aircraft and its pilots. He instructed the searchers to fire a weapon into the air when they’d found something.

The first searchers to locate the downed pilots, however, weren’t Muneer’s airmen; they were the military commandos who guarded H-3 from the outside.

“[Wetzel and Zaun] were scared by those people,” said Muneer. “As the commander of the base, I gave my order: ‘Stop shooting, and don’t harm the pilots. They are prisoners of war; we should go according to the Geneva Convention.’”

“But they still wanted to kill them. They hit them, they stole their things before I arrived,” said Muneer. Muneer safely escorted the prisoners to his jeep and then left them at the base infirmary under the watch of guards he personally trusted.

At the time, Saddam Hussein’s government offered rewards to citizens who brought in enemy combatants, dead or alive. But military personnel were not eligible for such rewards, so some of the Iraqi soldiers and airmen wanted to hand over the pilots to locals and divvy up the prize, according to Muneer. Despite pressure from other officials on the base, including a cousin of Saddam Hussein, Muneer would not let them take the prisoners.

The next day, the general sent the two POWs to Baghdad with his personal driver.

Preparing for Desert Storm

Back on the aircraft carrier Saratoga, anchored some 500 miles from H-3 in the Red Sea, Zaun and Wetzel’s chain of command had no idea whether they were dead or alive.

The carrier had steamed out of port in August 1990 for a six-month cruise in the Mediterranean. Just a week before the ship was set to leave, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

Instead of the Mediterranean port calls the sailors on board the Saratoga had been expecting, the cruise became a trip to the Red Sea, where pilots like Zaun and Wetzel would spend their days training and planning for war with Iraq.

“The idea that we were maybe going on a war cruise made saying goodbye a little more emotional this time,” said Wetzel, who had to bid farewell to his fiancé. But he was hopeful that it would all work out according to schedule. The cruise left in August, and the wedding date was set for March 2 — more than six months away.

Both Zaun and Wetzel were on their second cruises and relatively experienced as pilots when the war began. In fact, when the duo was shot down over H-3, Zaun was only three hours away from having flown 1,000 hours in an A-6 cockpit.

Given his experience, Zaun served as lead planner for the strike on H-3. “I planned the dickens out of it… I really knew that airfield well because I’d studied it for months,” he said.

The first plane through would hit the airfield’s control tower. Wetzel and Zaun would follow and destroy the fuel farm, and the final two planes would target the base’s hangars where fighter jets were located. The attack aircraft would fly low over the desert to avoid radar and make it difficult for high-flying enemy fighter jets to shoot down at them.

The twinjet, all-weather-attack A-6 Intruder was the perfect plane for the job. Grumman designed the aircraft to be capable of flying low, even at night, and the side-by-side seats in the cockpit made the bombardier/navigator’s job significantly easier.

Zaun would serve as the duo’s B/N on Jan. 17, monitoring the plane’s large radar display and targeting computers to ensure their bombs would land on target. They would be dropping Mark 20 Rockeye II cluster bombs, which carry 247 individual bomblets to spread destruction over a wide area.

“The A-6 was the workhorse for attack, especially at night. We could carry way more and we weren’t any more vulnerable,” said Zaun.

When Wetzel was still in training, he knew the A-6 was the plane he wanted to pilot.

“The A-6 was my first choice instead of a fighter plane. I liked to fly at the low levels,” said Wetzel.

For both men, the beginning of the Gulf War was the result of years of preparation.

Zaun and Wetzel both grew up in New Jersey. Zaun graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1984 with the goal of flying attack planes. Wetzel, who entered Aviation Officer Candidate School in 1985, was in his senior year of college when he ran into a Navy recruiter who showed him videos of the Blue Angels and convinced him he could become a pilot. “I always thought of flying airplanes, but I didn’t know anybody that was a pilot. I didn’t even know many people in the military,” said Wetzel.

Captivity

The bumpy ride from H-3 to Baghdad would be the last time the two pilots saw each other for more than a month.

Zaun was sent to the Iraqi secret police, where he was beaten, often with rubber mallets or hoses to the shins. He recalls rarely being punched with a closed fist; however, slaps were regular. His interrogators eventually said that they would kill him unless he went on TV and answered interview questions as he was instructed to.

“They told me all the questions they were going to ask along with all the answers I was supposed to give,” said Zaun. “… I just tried to sound as insincere as possible. I was pretty sure Americans wouldn’t buy it.”

The interview was the first time Zaun’s family and shipmates learned he was still alive.

Shortly after being brought to the TV station, Zaun was transferred to the custody of the Republican Guard, where the beatings and harassment lessened but food and living quarters were still poor. Despite being malnourished, he focused on doing pushups and maintaining his fitness to pass the time.

The majority of Zaun’s stay was at Biltmore Prison, home of the secret police headquarters. He describes the prison as a dungeon, with dark lighting and cold cells. Prisoners of war were regularly dragged out for interrogations and beatings.

When Wetzel arrived in Baghdad, he was immediately brought to a hospital and treated for a broken left ulna, broken right humerus, compression fracture of his vertebrae, broken right collarbone, and a broken finger. After six days of hospital recovery, he, too, was put in Biltmore to be interrogated.

Wetzel recalls being treated more gently because of his injuries, but secret police interrogators still whipped him and burnt his skin with cigarettes, he said. He would drag on his answers to every question, repeating statements and adding excessive lies and stories to avoid giving away information or being beaten again.

The long, dark days in a prison cell brought on depression for Wetzel, and starting off with serious injuries only made his time in captivity more difficult. He says he prayed and daydreamed every chance he could, often thinking of his hometown in New Jersey or of his fiancé Jackie, waiting for him stateside.

Wetzel never appeared on a TV interview, and until the two pilots were released, his family didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. Zaun and Wetzel saw each other only once in passing during their stay at Biltmore, and it wasn’t until their release that they would speak again.

On Feb. 24, the same day the ground war to push Iraq out of Kuwait began, Air Force pilots bombed the secret police headquarters at Biltmore. As a result, Zaun and Wetzel were transferred to Abu Ghraib and then to another prison in Baghdad, spending no more than a few days at each before their release.

On March 2, the same day Wetzel was supposed to be married, the prisoners learned that the war was coming to an end and they would be sent home soon. Two days later, they were released to the Red Cross.

The two spent a total of 46 days in captivity.

In the air, on Wall Street, and on the run

Wetzel and his fiancé were married on June 1, 1991, with many members of his squadron in attendance. This June marks their 30th anniversary.

After receiving medical treatment and evaluations to correct the screws that were put in his arm at the hospital in Baghdad, Wetzel continued to serve as a flight instructor until the Navy began to phase the A-6 out of service. Upon separating from the Navy in September 1995 at the rank of lieutenant, he became a pilot for United Airlines, where he worked for 25 years before retiring to Colorado last fall.

Zaun left the Navy in 1998 at the rank of lieutenant commander and went on to earn his master’s in business administration at the Wharton School of Business. Twice more in his career, he would be present as catastrophe struck. On Sept. 11, 2001, Zaun was working on Wall Street just a few blocks from the World Trade Center when the planes struck.

Then, in 2008, he was working as a credit analyst in a rating agency when the financial crisis hit. Zaun still lives in New Jersey and is in the early stages of writing a book on his experiences.

Muneer continued to serve as the commander of H-3 Airbase and in the Iraqi Air Force for years after Desert Storm, leaving the military in 2003 when the invasion of Iraq began.

He had served his country for 36 years, including as a pilot in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. When Saddam Hussein was overthrown and Iraq’s infrastructure began to collapse, Iranian assassins poured over the border to exact their revenge on Iraqi pilots for their part in the conflict. Hundreds of pilots who flew in the Iran-Iraq War were killed, and hundreds more fled.

Muneer first fled to Syria because the country had no laws against Iraqi citizens immigrating, but when he refused to help former Iraqi government officials in hiding plan to take back their government from coalition forces, he was pushed out of Syria as well, according to his son.

Muneer finally moved to Egypt, where his son says he had previously been one of a just a handful of allied pilots to serve under the command of then-Air Force Commander Hosni Mubarak during the Yom Kippur War.

By the time Muneer was on the run, Mubarak was Egypt’s president, and he welcomed his old friend into the country. Muneer enjoyed a comfortable life teaching classes at the Egyptian air academy and talking about the Yom Kippur War on TV.

But in 2011, Mubarak was overthrown and the Muslim Brotherhood was elected into power over Egypt. The new government would not renew Muneer’s residency papers, which were signed off on by Mubarak’s administration, unless he agreed to use his status to spread propaganda in support of the new president. Muneer refused to do so and was forced to flee yet another country.

The former Iraqi general arrived in the U.S. in 2012 to visit his son, Zea Muneer, a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army and Bronze Star recipient. Zea, 43, had immigrated to the U.S. in 2003 and spent more than six years on deployment in Iraq. He is currently a cryptologic analyst in the Army Reserve with more than 15 years of service.

Rather than return to Egypt from his visit, the elder Muneer applied for asylum in the U.S. in 2012. He still hasn’t received it.

Muneer’s case was rejected by immigration services and then reinstated when Zea employed the help of his congressional representative. The case was then transferred to the immigration courts, where the former general’s hearing has been postponed repeatedly. His current hearing date is scheduled for 2024.

Until he receives asylum, Muneer cannot apply for a green card, which would allow him to travel and visit the rest of his children, who are spread out around the world. In the meantime, he has started a business teaching chess and tennis to children in elementary schools in the DC area.

He’s also taken up work as a military advisor, speaking three to four times a year to military intelligence units preparing to engage with foreign countries.

“I don’t know why they don’t approve it. He’s stuck,” said Zea. “Is it something personally? Is there an order saying, ‘General Muneer cannot get asylum?’ I don’t know. He’s just stuck in the immigration system like many people are.”

Reunion

In the months following his arrival in the U.S., Muneer worked hard to locate the two POWs he had saved in the desert decades ago. Despite the best efforts of his son and his attorney, they were unable to do so.

Finally, Muneer told the story to his tennis partner, Rodrigo Cruze. Cruze searched the internet and found contact information for Zaun’s mother.

“My mom called me and told me some Iraqi general wanted to talk to me,” said Zaun. He got in contact with Muneer and set up a time and place for the meeting. Then he called Wetzel.

The two pilots met with Cruze and Layth and Zea Muneer in Crystal City on Nov. 15, 2012. They’ve reconvened almost every year since on Jan. 17 to reminisce and retell their stories of Desert Storm.

“I think about it and I still get the chills. It’s amazing that we ever met up with him again,” said Wetzel. “… I knew who he was on the ground there, but I never saw him again, and in my talks I always talked about this guy who captured us and really saved us from this angry mob.”

It’s hard to imagine that the now 74-year-old man teaching chess at elementary schools and working as a tennis coach is the same man who commanded H-3 Airbase through Desert Storm. For Wetzel and Zaun, it’s even harder to imagine that their friend is unable to gain citizenship after everything he’s done.

“Jeff and I were going to go in January to his trial date and be there alongside him as a character reference, and it got postponed for several years,” said Wetzel. “Hopefully, when the time comes, he’ll be able to get his citizenship. I know there’s a lot of people behind us willing to support him.”

To Zaun, the case for Muneer’s citizenship is clear. “At this point, he is not only someone who acted professionally and probably saved the lives of two Americans, but he has also become a solid American himself,” he said.

Some prescriptions were filled for up to a year’s supply of Schedule II drugs that have a high potential for abuse and dependence.

“These MTFs dispensed Schedule II amphetamines to beneficiaries in a manner that was inconsistent with DHA policy and may have increased the risk of overdose and diversion from legal sources to the illicit market,” the audit report states.

The DHA instructed MTFs in December 2019 to limit prescriptions of Schedule II amphetamines for ADHD to 90-day supplies with no refills. Military departments were given until April 14, 2020 to implement the change.

The new guidance was intended to reduce the risk of addiction and overdose and ensure standardized practices across the force.

Schedule II amphetamines are typically prescribed to treat ADHD and narcolepsy. The Drug Enforcement Agency defines Schedule II drugs as having “a high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence.” Adderall, Ritalin and Vyvanse are all Schedule II amphetamines.

Using a military health database, DoDIG auditors found that between April 15 and Aug. 13, 2020, 96 percent of the 89,356 prescriptions filled for Schedule II amphetamines were in accordance with the new guidance.

However, 65 MTFs continued issuing prescriptions for 100-day supplies. During the period examined by the audit, these MTFs dispensed 2,967 100-day supplies. Of those prescriptions, 43 percent went to active duty servicemembers while 57 percent went to retired servicemembers and military family members.

According to a Congressional Research Service report in December 2020, there are 721 MTFs around the world, meaning about 9 percent of all MTFs failed to comply with the new DHA guidelines.

The DHA director disagreed with DoDIG’s conclusion that filling prescriptions for just 10 days longer than recommended could increase the risk of overdose.

In addition to 100-day supplies, auditors found that MTFs dispensed 302 prescriptions for even longer periods of time, including five prescriptions supplying enough amphetamines for 301-365 days.

The MTFs at fault were mostly located on Navy and Air Force installations. According to the audit, the Navy failed to implement the new 90-day prescription guidance and continued to operate using existing 100-day limitations.

In a study conducted from January 2014 through December 2018, the military’s peer reviewed medical journal found that the prevalence of ADHD in the military decreased from 3.9 percent to 2.8 percent of active duty servicemembers.

Of those servicemembers with ADHD, approximately 60.2 percent were prescribed some sort of medication for their condition, with stimulants like amphetamines being the most common.

ADHD is a common barrier to entry into the military, but if an applicant has not taken medication for more than 24 cumulative months after the age of 14, a waiver is not necessary for their enlistment. In 2017, ADHD and disruptive disorders were the fifth most common medical disqualifier for first-time enlistees, according to the Medical Surveillance Monthly Report.

To address the problem of overprescribing amphetamines for ADHD, the DoDIG recommended that DHA officials ensure military pharmacies and healthcare providers adopt and enforce the 90-day limit.

Black service members, women, and enlisted personnel with lower levels of education are most at risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, according to the study published in the March edition of the Medical Surveillance Monthly Report, a peer-reviewed military health journal.

The study analyzed administrative data and reports from all four branches of the military to provide a comprehensive picture of STIs between 2012 and 2020, using medical and diagnostic codes to identify instances of the five most common STIs — chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, genital herpes and human papillomavirus, or HPV.

Patterns in STI frequency mirrored those of the civilian population, but rates of infection in the military were in many cases disproportionately higher.

Of the four branches, the Army had the highest rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and genital herpes. The Navy had the highest rates of syphilis, and the Air Force had the highest rates of HPV.

Motor transportation workers had higher rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis than any other occupational specialty, while health care occupations had higher rates of HPV. Communications and intelligence specialists, alongside transportation and health care occupations, displayed the highest rates of genital herpes.

Service members under the age of 24 were found to be the most likely to contract an STI, accounting for almost 64 percent of observed cases.

Rates of infection decreased steadily with age, but STIs can having lasting effects regardless of the age at which they’re contracted. An HPV infection, for instance, can cause cervical cancer and congenital infections years later, according to the National Cancer Institute.

While chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis infection rates increased during the period of the study, HPV and genital herpes declined in frequency. According to the study, this could be in part due to the prevalence of the HPV vaccine, which has been available for more than a decade now.

The 2015 Health Related Behaviors Survey, the most recent DoD survey of sexual behaviors available, found that in the past year 19.4 percent of respondents had more than one sexual partner and 36.7 percent had unprotected sex with a new partner. Men and women had no significant statistical differences on these behaviors.

The survey concluded that service members’ sexual behaviors may present increased risk of contracting STIs.

To limit the spread of STIs, the Military Health System and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend limiting anonymous sexual encounters, avoiding unprotected sex of any form, limiting number of sexual partners, and not having sex while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. MHS also advises service members not to assume it will be obvious whether or not their partner has an STI.

According to data from the CDC, chlamydia infections increased in frequency in the civilian population by just under 20 percent from 2012 to 2018, the latest year for which the CDC’s STI data is available.

Military cases of chlamydia, however, increased by 64 percent between 2013 and 2019. Women contracted the infection at nearly three times the rate men did.

Although military cases of chlamydia began to decline in the final year of the study, the average rate from 2012 to 2020 was 192.4 cases per 10,000 people per year. Even at its highest recorded point in 2018, the rate of chlamydia infections in the civilian population was only about 54 cases per 10,000 people.

Likewise, gonorrhea cases increased steadily in both the military and civilian populations. Despite military cases decreasing in the final two years of the study, the military’s reported average rate of 30.2 cases per 10,000 people per year from 2012 to 2020 far outpaced civilian rates, which ranged from 10.7 to 17.9 between 2012 and 2018.

Civilian and military rates of syphilis more than doubled between 2012 and 2018. Military cases began to decline in 2019 and 2020, but still sit at 2.2 times the rate observed in 2012. On average, men contracted syphilis at 1.3 times the rate of women in the military. Men in the civilian population also contract syphilis at significantly higher rates than women.

Female service members had significantly higher incidence rates than their male counterparts for every other STI observed.

This disparity could likely be attributed to better STI screening programs available for women, according to the study. Improved screening availability for men over the period of the study could also have contributed to increased case counts.

Servicemembers from the Civil War through current conflicts are buried in the rolling hills and lush landscapes of this cultural landmark located in Brooklyn’s Greenwood Heights neighborhood, but Green-Wood officials don’t know just how many veterans have been interred on the grounds.

As one of the nation’s first rural cemeteries, Green-Wood has seen more than 575,000 interments since 1840, according to the cemetery’s full-time historian, Jeff Richman.

History of service has never been recorded in Green-Wood’s burial records.

The cemetery’s latest initiative seeks to identify the burial sites of every World War II veteran buried in Green-Wood. The project is the third in a series that has previously identified and honored Civil War and World War I veterans laid to rest in the cemetery.

It all started in 2002 after the rededication of Green-Wood’s Civil War monument inspired Richman to begin locating the gravestones of Civil War veterans.

“After the ceremony, I was speaking with a number of the reenactors there, and they said what an honor it was to be there. It occurred to me that we really should be looking for Civil War veterans,” said Richman. “I said at the time that we might find 500.”

Since Richman launched the cemetery’s ongoing Civil War project, more than 5,200 Civil War veterans have been identified.

In addition to identifying the burial sites of Civil War veterans, Richman wanted to recognize their service. Thanks to the help of volunteer writers and researchers, the cemetery’s website now contains a biography of each Civil War veteran identified.

Richman has also been working to secure headstones from the Department of Veterans Affairs for Civil War veterans in Green-Wood, approximately 40 percent of whom lie in unmarked graves.

He repeated the process in 2017 for Green-Wood’s WWI project, locating and writing biographies for about 200 veterans.

Now, as Richman shifts his focus toward identifying the graves of WWII veterans in the cemetery, things have changed: The stories of WWII veterans are much closer to their descendants than the stories of Civil War and WWI veterans.

“My only regret is that we didn’t do this sooner, but it really has been remarkable,” Richman told Military Times. “Certainly, when we did the Civil War and even the World War I projects, we didn’t have the ability to talk to people who had lived with these veterans and knew intimately their stories.”

Friends and family members of WWII veterans buried at Green-Wood can fill out a form on the cemetery’s website giving details of their loved one’s military service and personal life.

The responses so far have been astounding, according to Richman.

“We have heard from people whose ancestors landed in Normandy, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, liberated Dachau, and fought across North Africa and in the Pacific,” Richman said.

After receiving forms with details about a Green-Wood veteran, Richman and a team of volunteers follow up with background research, looking for census data online and contacting neighbors and family members to learn more.

“What’s been remarkable also is the depth and wonder of the photographs people have been able to share of people in uniform during World War II,” said Richman.

Jessica Waverka started regularly taking her children to Green-Wood during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when other parks in Brooklyn felt too crowded. Having lived in New York City for years, she had always appreciated the history held in the landmark cemetery.

“It’s a really beautiful and wonderful place to be. We would spend hours and hours walking and looking at the graves, reading their names, and thinking about the history,” she said.

When she heard about the WWII project, Waverka leapt at the opportunity to volunteer as a researcher.

“I’m so excited. I really can’t wait to contact people and capture those stories and pictures before they die out. We want to capture that,” said Waverka.

Although Richman has no idea how many how many veterans he expects to identify this time around, his preliminary research found more than 1,000 different obituaries citing both WWII and Green-Wood. The greatest challenge he’s encountered is finding accurate and accessible service records, since many were destroyed in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

The historian hopes to hold a commemoration for Green-Wood’s WWII project with contributing family members in attendance sometime in the next year, depending on the state of the pandemic.

If all goes well with the WWII project, Richman said the cemetery may begin similar initiatives to identify Korean and Vietnam War veterans in the future.

To Steve Downey, that’s 770,000 stories to be told.

“Once they’re gone, if they don’t tell their stories, their stories go with them,” said Downey, a former Army specialist and project manager for Operation Triumphus, a web platform built to compile the legacies of Vietnam veterans. “That’s why this project’s just so important, because those stories, their history, their legacy deserves to be preserved.”

Operation Triumphus, named for the triumphant return many Vietnam veterans never received and funded by the Berry Law Firm in Lincoln, Nebraska, records veterans’ stories just as they tell them.

Keeping in mind the age of veterans from the Vietnam era, Downey has designed the submission process to be as intuitive as possible. To submit a story, veterans simply need to go to Operation Triumphus’ website, create an account, and begin typing their experiences or uploading a video.

Operation Triumphus even provides guidelines for shooting good video and asking the right questions in interviews.

The platform’s mission is to preserve the experiences of servicemembers in the Vietnam War for future generations, but stories aren’t limited to battle accounts. Vietnam veterans can also submit their military experiences from basic training or time in garrison.

Once submitted, stories will be compiled by similarities like location, events, and keywords to encourage users to read multiple articles.

Downey expects the site to draw viewers of all generations, not just Vietnam veterans.

“It’s an opportunity for Iraq War and current veterans to pay tribute to Vietnam veterans,” he said.

As a former Army combat medic who served with the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq from 2006-2007, Downey knows firsthand just how valuable the support of Vietnam veterans has been for new generations of servicemembers.

While studying at the University of Akron, Ohio in 2012, he was influenced by the support of donor and Vietnam veteran Jay Mussen, who, among other initiatives, funded the construction of a lounge just for veteran students.

Downey expressed his gratitude for the encouragement and mentorship of Vietnam veterans who vowed to never let another generation of servicemembers return home without support and appreciation.

“Operation Triumphus is an opportunity to give Vietnam veterans the triumphant return and celebration they certainly didn’t get when they did return,” said Downey.

The website plans to go live with a soft launch on Apr. 15. If successful, the full launch will follow in May.

Downey’s personal goal for the site is to collect 5,000 unique pieces of user generated content by the end of the year. User generated content includes stories, videos and photographs from veterans.

Denny Gillem is one such veteran who’s submitted his story. A retired Army lieutenant colonel, Gillem now hosts the Frontlines of Freedom talk radio show. As part of his story, the West Point grad recounted his first time taking contact as a young platoon leader in Vietnam.

I was thinking about…

the first time that I was ever shot at—in combat, of course. It was on my first tour in Vietnam as a rifle platoon leader in the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One. My company was moving through some thick jungle looking for an enemy basecamp. My platoon was leading the company, and we weren’t finding anything. The Company Commander (CO) called for a halt and for all platoon leaders (the company had three rifle platoons) to join him. My troops got down, established some good firing positions, and started probing out to our front, exactly what they were supposed to be doing. I was talking with the CO and the other officers when there was a huge, nearby boom and bullets were flying everywhere. We all hit the ground. Needless to say, I was afraid. The obvious thing for all of us to do was to get back to our platoons quickly. I decided to get up and run back to the platoon, but after I got up on my knees and got my right foot out in front of me, I just couldn’t get my left leg and foot to move so I could stand up. This was likely a response to the fear that was running through me—along with adrenalin. So, I ran on one foot and one knee; that was the best I could do. After a dozen or so steps my left foot decided to cooperate, and I went the rest of the way on two feet. I’ll bet I was one funny looking second lieutenant as I began my run, but no one was laughing.

It turns out that when the CO told us to stop, my platoon was just a few yards from the enemy base camp we were looking for, and the probing my guys were doing found them. They were as surprised as we were, and there were a lot more of them than we expected. My platoon kept them engaged and covered the rest of the company while they moved away; then we fell back under fire. Then we worked the area over with artillery and air strikes. I’m glad we didn’t have smartphones back then; someone would have filmed me waddling back to my platoon.

As the platform’s launch date approaches, Downey encourages any and all Vietnam veterans to submit their own stories.

“If you’re a Vietnam veteran or a family member with a story, we’d love to preserve that. If you’re a veterans organization that’s interested in supporting this project and helping preserve these legacies, we’d love to work with you,” said Downey.