Marine veteran Hershel “Woody” Williams died Wednesday at 3:15 a.m. at the Huntington, West Virginia, Veterans Affairs hospital named after him, according to a statement from his foundation.

“Woody peacefully joined his beloved wife Ruby while surrounded by his family at the VA Medical Center which bears his name,” according to the statement on the foundation’s Facebook page. “Woody’s family would like to express their sincere gratitude for all the love and support.”

Born in 1923 on a dairy farm in Quiet Dell, West Virginia, Williams was the youngest of 11 children, according to the Weirton, West Virginia, Daily Times.

Initially disqualified for being too short, Williams enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1943, according to his biography. The demolition sergeant landed on Iwo Jima on Feb. 21, 1945, with 1st Battalion, 21st Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.

Two days later, on Feb. 23, 1945, he famously destroyed enemy emplacements with a flamethrower, going forward alone into machinegun fire, covered only by four riflemen.

His citation states, “he fought desperately for 4 hours under terrific enemy small-arms fire and repeatedly returned to his own lines to prepare demolition charges and obtain serviced flamethrowers,” before wiping out one enemy position after another.

On one occasion, he “daringly mounted a pillbox to insert the nozzle of his flamethrower through the air vent,” which killed all enemy occupants and silenced its gun.

Williams received the Medal of Honor from President Harry S. Truman at the White House in October 1945 for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”

He retired after serving 20 years in the Corps and reserves, according to his foundation’s website. Following World War II, he worked for the VA for 33 years as a veterans service representative.

He had a special place in his heart for supporting Gold Star Families, an affinity which started at the beginning of World War II. While he was delivering Western Union telegrams containing the news of the loss of a loved one, he developed a deep understanding of the sacrifice of “those lost serving in the military for their country.”

With his foundation, Williams established more than 100 Gold Star Families memorial monuments across the United States, with 72 more on the way, according to his foundation’s website.

In 2020, the war hero got to see a Navy expeditionary mobile base ― the USNS Hershel “Woody” Williams ― commissioned in his honor.

He said at the time, “May all those who serve aboard this ship that bears my name be safe and proud. May she have God’s blessings for a long life of service to America, the greatest country on Earth.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, said in a Wednesday statement that Williams was “the embodiment of a true American hero.”

“Last Sunday, I was honored to visit with Woody one last time,” Manchin said. “We called VA Secretary Denis McDonough so he could thank Woody directly for his unparalleled service to our nation. In true Woody fashion, he wanted to discuss the importance of completing the Donel C. Kinnard Memorial State Veterans Cemetery in Dunbar ― his most recent Veterans project ― to ensure that the families of our fallen soldiers and Veterans have a safe place to lay their loved ones to rest, protected from the weather throughout the year.”

Details about memorial services and a funeral are not yet available, according to a statement on his foundation’s Facebook page. City flags in Huntington, West Virginia, will be flown at half mast to honor the Marine veteran.

Correspondence and condolences may be sent to the Woody Williams Foundation at 12123 Shelbyville Road, Suite 100, Louisville, Kentucky, 40243.

“Woody’s wish is that people continue to carry on his mission,” the foundation’s statement said.

Andrea Scott is editor of Marine Corps Times. On Twitter: @_andreascott.

Veterans, their families and French and international visitors braved the rainy weather to take part in series of events this weekend and on Monday for the 78th anniversary of D-Day.

This year’s D-Day anniversary comes after two successive years of the COVID-19 pandemic restricted or deterred visitors. Many felt the celebrations paying tribute to those who brought peace and freedom on the continent held special meaning this year as war is raging again in Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Dozens of U.S. veterans were also attending events in the region, ahead of Monday’s ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, home to the gravesites of 9,386 who died fighting on D-Day and in the operations that followed.

Peter Smoothy, 97, served in the British Royal Navy and landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.

“The first thing I remember are the poor lads who didn’t come back … It’s a long time ago now, nearly 80 years … And here we are still living,” he told The Associated Press. “We’re thinking about all these poor lads who didn’t get off the beach that day, their last day, but they’re always in our minds.”

Welcomed to the sound of bagpipes at the Pegasus Memorial in the French town of Ranville, British veterans attended a ceremony commemorating a key operation in the first minutes of the Allied invasion of Normandy, when troops had to take control a strategically crucial bridge.

Bill Gladden, 98, took part to the D-Day British airborne operation and was later shot while defending the bridge.

“I landed on D-Day and was injured on the 18th of June … So I was three years at the hospital,” he said.

Meanwhile, on the British side of the Channel, then 17-year-old Mary Scott was working at the communications center in Portsmouth, listening to the coded messages coming from the front line and passing them on as part of the operations on Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword Beaches.

“The war was in my ears,” she recalled, describing the radio machine she operated via levers.

“When they [communication officers] had to respond to my messages and they lifted their lever, you heard all the sounds of the men on the beaches: bombs, machine guns, men shouting, screaming.”

Scott, who will soon turn 96, said she got very “emotional” when arriving to Normandy on Saturday on a trip organized by the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans. She was in tears when seeing the D-Day beaches.

“Suddenly I thought maybe some of those young men I spoke to… that they had died,” she said.

The symbol is even stronger as across the Channel, Queen Elizabeth II, who served in World War II as an army driver and mechanic, is celebrating her 70 years on the throne.

“Women were involved,” Scott stressed. “I mean, I’m enormously proud to have been a minute part of Operation Overlord.”

Scott’s face turned to sadness when she mentioned the war in Ukraine.

“Why can’t we learn from past experiences? Why can’t we do that? What’s wrong with us?” she asked. “War should teach us something but it never penetrates for very long.”

Many visitors this year came to see the monuments marking the key moments of the fight and show their gratitude to the soldiers. World War II history enthusiasts dressed in wartime uniforms were seen in jeeps and military vehicles on the small roads of Normandy.

Greg Jensen, 51, came with his 20-year-old daughter from Dallas. On Saturday, they visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, overlooking Omaha Beach.

“I took a moment to just hold the sand and you think, gosh, the blood that was spilled to give me that moment and the freedom to hold that sand,” he said. “That was emotional for me.”

“I hope a lot of this younger generation is watching because we can’t forget what happened 78 years ago,” Jensen said, especially thinking of the fighting in Ukraine.

Andy Hamilton, a 57-year-old retired police officer, came on holiday with his family, including his two 8-year-old grandsons, from Shropshire in England.

“We’re now showing our respects of the sites here and to give the grandchildren a sense of what World War II was like … and the amount of people that have given their lives to sacrifice for the freedom of everyone,” he said.

On D-Day, Allied troops landed on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. On that single day, 4,414 Allied soldiers lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.

Born Dec. 20, 1937, in Caledonia, Arkansas, Canley was 84 years old. He had enlisted in the Corps in 1953 and retired as a sergeant major in 1981, with three deployments to Vietnam.

He died in Bend, Oregon, with his family at his side, the Corps said Thursday in a press release.

Canley received the Medal of Honor in October 2018 from then-President Donald Trump, after a separate decade-long battle: one with the Pentagon’s red tape to approve his award.

Canley originally was awarded the Navy Cross for 1968 actions at Hue City, Vietnam, Marine Corps Times previously reported. In 2005, there was a push to have his medal upgraded ― and for 13 years the Marines leading the effort were hit with setbacks and bureaucratic delays until he finally received his recognition, 50 years after his bloody street battles in Vietnam.

In 1968 in Hue City, Canley had been serving as company gunnery sergeant for Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. Canley and his Marines “fought off multiple attacks” while patrolling the streets and relieving another Marine company.

During these bloody firefights, Canley “repeatedly rushed across gunfire-swept terrain” and carried wounded Marines to safety, according to his award citation.

After the company commander was severely wounded during what later became known as the Tet Offensive, Canley took command for three days.

“Under his leadership, Alpha Company Marines destroyed fortified enemy positions throughout the city as Sgt. Maj. Canley continued to carry wounded Marines to safety,” his award citation says.

On Feb. 4, 1968, in an effort to draw the enemy out and locate its position, “Canley moved to an open area, receiving machinegun fire” while his Marines destroyed the threat and completely took over the occupied building from the enemy.

Just two day later in a hospital compound firefight, Canley “twice scaled a wall in full view of the enemy to carry wounded Marines to safety.”

John Ligato, a former Marine private first class who had served under Canley, previously told Marine Corps Times, “We’d all be dead if it wasn’t for the gunny.”

Canley will be buried at a later date at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia with full military honors, the Marine Corps said.

In addition to the Medal of Honor, his awards included the Bronze Star with Combat “V,” the Purple Heart, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat “V” and the Combat Action Ribbon.

Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Troy Black said in a statement, ”The actions in the face of danger Sgt. Maj. Canley took are incredible and remarkable.“

“Sgt. Maj. Canley was a leader and a warfighter who undoubtedly contributed to the battles won in Vietnam. His first priority was and has always been his Marines ― a true example of Semper Fidelis.”

His legacy will live on with the 90,000-ton expeditionary sea base John L. Canley, which is preparing for its christening in San Diego on June 25, the Corps said. It will be forward-deployed to the Western Pacific.

Sixty-four Medal of Honor recipients are now alive today, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

Andrea Scott is editor of Marine Corps Times. On Twitter: @_andreascott.

Munson, 73, died Nov. 16. The obit, written by Munson’s sons, ran Thursday in the Hastings Tribune, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. It caught fire on social media and captured the attention of two radio hosts, Josh Peterson, co-host of an afternoon sports talk show on KOZN-AM in Omaha and Jack Mitchell of KLIN-AM in Lincoln.

They decided to throw in some money and make a bet for the Huskers to pull an upset in Friday night’s game in Lincoln, but once word got out, listeners and others pitched in and the total grew to nearly $5,000.

“I mentioned it (Monday) on the air,” Peterson said. “We talked about it for four or five minutes and said ‘Here’s my Venmo if you want to donate.’ It’s blown up.”

Munson’s son, Todd, was on Peterson’s show Tuesday and said the family will give some of the money to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and will use some to bet on the Cornhuskers to beat the Hawkeyes, who are favored by a point-and-a-half.

Todd Munson, a writer who lives in Los Angeles, said he and his brother had a complicated relationship with their father, who battled bipolar disorder and addiction. But when they had a conversation, it almost always involved the Huskers.

“Milt, as he was known to friends, family, and scorned rivals, was born to Minnie and Milton Andrew Munson Sr. in Hastings, Nebraska on October 29, 1948,” according to his obituary in the Hastings Tribune. “Following his graduation from Hastings High, he enlisted in the United States Air Force and was stationed at Hickham Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii during the Vietnam War”

Milton Munson’s love for the Huskers, and gambling, had to be part of his story, said Todd’s brother, Troy, a neurosurgeon in Des Moines, Iowa.

Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez is out for Friday’s game, but Todd Munson wrote on Twitter that the Huskers will be getting some help from other places.

“If the ghost of my old man can’t will the Huskers to victory on Friday, then they truly are a lost cause.”

Family members said she “passed on to journey to the next world” late Sunday in Eagle Butte, South Dakota after experiencing problems with her digestive system and losing her appetite. LeBeau had remained active all of her life and earlier this month traveled to Oklahoma for a ceremony honoring her induction into the National Native American Hall of Fame.

Her daughter, Gerri Lebeau, said the matriarch of her family demonstrated fortitude, as well as an ability to seek healing, as she overcame the abuses she faced at an Indian boarding school during her youth. She went on to treat frontline soldiers as an Army nurse in Europe during the Allied invasion of Normandy. After returning home, she became an outspoken advocate for health in the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

“She was the foundation of our family,” said her grandson Ryman LeBeau. “She had a lifetime of good things that she had accomplished.”

Lebeau was born in 1919 and grew up in Promise, South Dakota, as a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Her mother died when she was 10 years old, and her grandmother gave her the name Wigmunke’ Waste Win’, or Pretty Rainbow Woman.

But LeBeau grew up at a time when the government was attempting to eradicate her culture — while her grandmother only spoke the Lakota language, she could be punished for speaking it at the boarding school she attended.

LeBeau’s father had instilled the importance of education, and that led her to become a registered nurse, Gerri LeBeau said. At 24 years old, LeBeau served with the Army Nurse Corps’ 76th General Hospital based in Minster, England. As Allied forces retook France and Belgium, she treated injured soldiers from medical tents, sometimes with bombs buzzing overhead.

“It was one of my greatest privileges and honor to have cared for those soldiers,” LeBeau told the Rapid City Journal in 2004 when she was honored with the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest civilian honor.

After the war, LeBeau kept treating patients on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation and with Indian Health Services for over 30 years.

“In addition to keeping her people healthy, she protected their heritage by helping repatriate important cultural items belonging to the tribes,” Gov. Kristi Noem said in a statement. “Through it all, it was her joyful spirit that connected her with many in her community.”

As a member of the tribal council in the 1990s, LeBeau helped push an ordinance to ban smoking in tribal office buildings, even as she initially faced tribal council meetings that billowed with smoke from her fellow councilmembers.

Ryman LeBeau, who was inspired by his grandmother to become a tribal councilman, said she demonstrated how to stand her ground while keeping relationships intact.

“She never got mad at people, definitely disagreed with people but never in a disrespectful manner,” he said.

In recent years, LeBeau also advocated for Congress to rescind the Medals of Honor awarded after the Wounded Knee Massacre on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. When Democratic presidential candidates made their way through Iowa in 2019 for a debate centered around Native American issues, she asked each candidate whether they would support removing the medals and invoked the grief that still pervades Native American communities.

For Ryman LeBeau, it was yet another example of her compassion for others.

“She always supported justice for those that are treated unfairly,” he said.

All three measures easily passed Congress earlier this month and were approved by the president without comment.

The accounting bill, named the “VA Transparency and Trust Act of 2021,” will require department officials to provide biweekly reports to Congress about how pandemic relief funds are being spent and mandate the VA Inspector General look into those costs for any evidence of fraud or waste.

The idea was pushed by Republican lawmakers (but also backed by Democratic members of Congress) who voiced concerns about nearly $17 billion in emergency funding given to VA leaders as part of pandemic spending plans earlier this year.

Department officials have said the money would largely go to offsetting health care costs, but lawmakers will now get a more specific and timely accounting of that spending.

More than 61,000 patients have been hospitalized in VA hospitals in the last 20 months for coronavirus-related illnesses, and more than 16,600 have died from complications related to the virus.

The second bill mandates a report by VA officials within a year on “the policies, use, and maintenance of cameras deployed by the department for patient safety and law enforcement.”

A lack of cameras in VA hospitals have been a concern among lawmakers for years, especially in areas with patients who are prone to self harm.

The new bill will not require the installation of any new cameras, but is designed to get a better sense of how the existing equipment is being used and where gaps in coverage might exist.

The final bill signed by Biden, known as the “Veterans and Family Information Act,” will require VA make all fact sheets for the department available in the 10 most commonly spoken languages in America other than English.

The goal of the change is to ensure that veterans and caregivers for them have all the information available to ensure they can access services when needed.

Department officials have six months to report to Congress on how much translating those fact sheets will cost and when the work will be complete.

Tools for Veterans is housed in a workshop that Billard, 42, set up in his home garage. There, he collects old hand tools, cleans and restores them and sells them online or at local events, the Livingston Daily reports.

He plans to expand the business to a larger workshop in the Brighton area in the next year. He also hopes to fill the shop with veterans who love restoring old tools.

“You want to contribute to something you understand and believe in,” he said. “If you have a connection, you are more passionate.”

Billard previously ran a private detective agency. But now with a wife, a 4-year-old daughter and a set of newborn twins, it was time to pivot to a less risky career, he said.

Billard’s new company, Tools of Veterans, will donate a percentage of profits on a quarterly basis to charities that support veterans’ causes with an emphasis on those in Livingston County, Michigan.

He currently employs two veterans and one employee who is not a veteran. He hopes to hire more in the future.

Billard is also working on a series of videos telling veterans’ stories — he describes them as “kitchen table” interviews — which he’ll share on social media.

“I think documenting those stories is important to get the whole picture. What did they do when they returned? Were they married during their service? Some guys have 30 or 40 years of career experience after the service.”

He said he’ll also post instructional videos on tool restoration.

Billard’s favorite tool he’s restored is a bench vise he found at a neighborhood garage sale.

When he found it at the sale, it was covered in grime and rusted. The parts didn’t move at all.

While restoring the vise, he uncovered stamped words on a small plaque on the side of the tool that gave him a clue as to its history.

The plaque indicated that the vise was in the World War II era by the Defense Plant Corp., a government-chartered agency that supported manufacturing during the war.

Today, the Columbian vise is in full working condition and a centerpiece of one of Billard’s workbenches.

Each tool he sells to buyers will come with a thank you note.

“It talks about how the tools have a story and journey and then it becomes a part of their story.”

Other prized restorations in his workshop include a 1930s dye filler that was used by one of the auto manufacturers in Detroit at the time.

He found a late-1800s workbench at a house in Troy. He is restoring it to use once he moves into a larger workshop.

He also acquired and a one-of-a-kind iron American flag made for a retiring Detroit union ironworker in the 1990s.

“These are the interactions I love,” he said. “Hearing stories of the tools.”

Billard said he’s invested about $50,000 in inventory to get the business off the ground.

Tools for Veterans will take donations of old tools that need to be restored.

“We’ll pick up at people’s houses. Maybe they have boxes of their dad’s old tools and they don’t know what to do with them and don’t want to throw them out.”

To start, they’ll plan pick-up days once a week in Livingston County and surrounding communities, including Ann Arbor, Lansing and Metro Detroit.

“Our other goal is to be at farmers markets and partner with existing businesses, like maybe set up in something like a brewery parking lot and do a ‘fill the trailer’ event.”

He said he’s working on getting a trailer and adorning it with business’s logo and other graphics to use for drop-off events.

He’ll sell the restored tools on eBay, Etsy and the Tools for Veterans website, toolsforveterans.com, which launches Veterans Day, Billard said.

“There is a market for this stuff online, especially things that have stories,” he said.

He also plans to sell some tools at events, but the focus will be on spreading word of the business and how to donate tools.

He said he wants to operate as close to “zero waste” as possible. Anything that doesn’t get restored will be sold for scrap.

Billard grew up with a sense of duty to his country. His father and grandfather both served in the military.

“I was going to do college and a career path, but there was always this sense of duty, and I was able-bodied.”

He served in the U.S. Marine Corps. for eight years with a Marine Wing Support Squadron. He was deployed in Iraq from 2004-2005.

He said he witnessed an exchange of cultural experiences when he was overseas.

“We were doing a lot of humanitarian missions,” he said.

He recalls, for instance, standing guard over Iraq’s first free elections.

Billard exited the military in 2006 when he was 28. He started his detective agency when he was living in Boston and started another after moving to Michigan.

He said the charities he plans to support will be local, rather that large agencies and national nonprofits.

“Donating to some of these national organizations, I can’t really see the impact, but I can make a bigger local impact. I like the littler groups that do mental health in the community and not big like the VA.”

He said he’s inspired by the initiative The Empowerment Plan, based in Detroit, which repurposes surplus fabrics from automakers to create coats that convert to sleeping bags for individuals experiencing homelessness.

“If we could buy just 25 of those jackets and they can hand them out, it is a very local, memorable thing we can do.”

He said he is passionate about causes that address mental health counseling, training service dogs for veterans, veteran homelessness and suicide prevention.

His wife, Tesa, tells him he’s going to be a daddy.

The second is four months later. This time, his wife gets the call. The news isn’t good.

While leading his squad, Stinson stepped on an improvised explosive device. Both of his legs are gone, amputated high above the knee. So is his right thumb and parts of several other fingers. He also suffered internal injuries.

Tesa Stinson, then living in North Carolina, rushes to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, where her 21-year-old husband would lay in an induced coma, unaware for weeks that his young life has been forever altered.

Stinson, attached to 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, was leading his squad in Marjah, southern Helmand province, on Nov. 9, 2010. The mission was an after-action damage assessment at a village that was a source of enemy gunfire targeting his unit.

The U.S. fired back with GPS-guided rockets. It was the second time in as many weeks this had happened.

Rules of engagement dictated that Stinson’s squad check for any civilian casualties in the bombed-out village.

They were on foot walking along a north-to-south wall that ran the length of the village. They came to an opening. A trail to the town lay on the other side.

Stinson insisted on being the first over the wall.

“I was initially third or fourth in line. But when we got to that [opening] in the wall, I stopped my lead guy and I jumped the wall first,” he recalls.

The decision would change his life.

“I was probably like 10 or 15 meters on the other side, and I remember I stepped down with my left leg. And it was like, BOOM! It felt like a pogo stick. I was in the air, and I knew what I did immediately.”

But he didn’t know how badly he was injured. His team rushed to him. Stinson couldn’t move, but he saw it in their faces.

“They thought I was dead,” Stinson says.

He acted accordingly.

“I was laying there. I said a prayer. I told one of my team leaders to tell my wife I loved her,” he says. “They started working on me, and I just remember everything slowly whiting out. I’m guessing it was shock setting in. Everything got really, really white. I figured I was gone.”

He wasn’t. Just as quickly, something brought him back.

Nov. 9 became his “Alive Day,” the moment he survived. The date he was reborn, in fact.

“All of a sudden, everything shot back to color,” he says. “Everything was fine after that. I don’t remember coming close to it afterwards.”

Except Stinson wasn’t fine. Worse, none of his men would tell him the extent of his injuries.

“I knew it was bad,” Stinson recalls. “I kept asking my guys, ‘do I have my legs?’ No one would give me a straight answer. I was pretty sure that I at least lost one leg. I couldn’t move.”

Stinson never lost consciousness again as they airlifted him to the military hospital at Bagram Air Base, where he would undergo emergency surgery.

“I remember going into the operating room,” he says. “That’s when they put a mask on me.”

Everything went dark. Six days later, Stinson awoke in a Bethesda ICU.

Tesa was by his hospital bed. But under all the drugs and the painkillers, he would float in and out of consciousness for the next two weeks. As a result, Stinson would be forced to relive receiving the news about his life-altering injuries, again and again.

“It was kind of like a slow come-to thing, just being so medicated and everything,” he says. “I would wake up, and they would tell me something. I would go back to sleep, then wake up, and they would have to tell me the same thing over again. It was a long time, over weeks, that I actually realized the extent of my injuries.”

Needless to say, the life-long athlete who signed up with the Marines as a Chambersburg High School, Pennsylvania, junior thinking it would be a great way to stay in shape didn’t react well to the devastating news.

“I had a really bad attitude initially.”

This is all Stinson will say about his descent into despair and self-pity.

Weeks went by. Stinson faced dozens more surgeries. He stopped counting after 35. A full year of excruciating rehab and painstaking recovery lay ahead.

Somewhere along the line, Stinson realized his attitude and mindset were the only things still under his control. Everything else was in God’s hands.

“That was my turning point,” he says, recalling the conversation he had with himself. “I was like, ‘OK, let’s try to make the best out of this and just keep going forward from here.’ I decided I can either have a really bad attitude about this, or I can have a really good attitude. But the world doesn’t care. That’s kind of the way I’ve tackled it.”

Stinson’s approach was further cemented by a chance encounter on a rehab mat.

“I was really having a bad day,” he recalls. “We were having physical therapy. I was on one side of the mat, and then John, he’s a quad-amputee from the war, he came and jumped on the other side of the mat. After that, I said I can’t complain about my day. At least I have my arms. Now I just take everything, and there’s always a silver lining. We just find the best thing.”

A decade later, Stinson enjoys a life his younger self couldn’t have dreamt of back then.

His wife and two daughters — 10-year-old Olivia and 6-year-old Rylee — live happily in a specially equipped house outside of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Stinson is a world-class para-triathlete with a goal of medaling in the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. He and Tesa travel the country and the world competing. Stinson is ranked 21st in the world and rising. He’s just getting started, in fact.

“We’ve had our ups and downs like anybody,” Stinson says. “I married way above my head. I tell everybody. We’ve been very, very blessed. Me, especially. She’s my best friend, literally. We enjoy spending time with each other, and chasing this athletic dream. Tesa said, ‘You know what, that’s where we feel like God is pulling you.’ She went along with it.”

Tesa didn’t just go along with it. She does the heavy lifting, often hand-carrying her husband’s racing equipment from the airport curb to the baggage check-in area.

“She has gone with me everywhere,” Stinson says. “As a wheelchair athlete, I’m allowed to have a handler, basically because I have so much gear to travel around with. She helps me.”

For each racing trip, Stinson must pack his hand-pedal bike, the racing wheelchair he uses for the running portion, his regular wheelchair, plus plenty of tools, other racing gear and spare parts. It’s quite the undertaking.

“We kind of figured it out,” he says. “I just drop her off at the terminal, and she starts the checking-in process. I go park the car, and by the time I get to the terminal, she’s usually just finishing up or she’s already finished.”

When Stinson is racing, the two are a team. But when the Marine ventures into the woods to hunt, he does so alone. This has proven a sanctuary for him. His first solo hunting trip in 2014 was a major step toward recovering his sense of independence and self-reliance.

“Being in a wheelchair and being handicapped, it’s not exactly the easiest thing,” he says. “But I realized what all I could do. I was relying a lot on my wife a lot. But when I went on that first hunting trip, I realized, I can do this. It took me going out on my own to realize it. There’s no how-to guide to getting injured.”

These days when Stinson takes to the woods, it’s just him, his specially-equipped pick-up truck and his tank-like wheelchair that even has a snowplow attachment. Stinson credits the Semper Fi & America’s Fund with supporting many of his needs for such specialized equipment, including much of his racing gear.

“Anytime I need support, they’re always there,” he says.

With his family, God and such groups in his corner, Stinson is reaching new highs in his racing career, which only got serious in 2018.

“It was like, ‘OK, let’s see what I can do if I start applying myself’,” he recalls.

With that, a new passion was born.

“There’s never been some deep, like, finding myself or anything,” he explains. “I’ve learned between athletics, using that, and getting closer with God in general, and through hunting. Getting out on my own and getting that alone time with myself kind of thing, I’ve learned how to handle it. You always need a reason to get up in the morning.”

These days, Stinson has plenty of reasons. Not the least of which are his paratriathlon coach and daily training regimen. Despite the 2020 racing season being all-but wiped out by COVID-19, Stinson won this year’s National Paratriathlon Championship. The Paralympics are next in his sights.

“It’s going to be a lot of big things happening. I really feel that,” Stinson says.

At such times, Afghanistan and all that happened there seem long ago and far, far away. Until they aren’t.

This year’s American military pull-out ordered by President Biden and the resulting horrific scenes of death and despair as Afghanistan fell back into Taliban control was hard for many veterans.

Stinson is one of them.

He recalled how the cunning enemy set up the IED that claimed his legs. Their gunfire prompted the U.S. rocket response, which was followed up by his squad’s after-action assessment. The first time this occurred, the squad made it through. A week later, with Stinson in the lead and the Taliban having studied the U.S. response, the IED was hidden along the village path the enemy now knew the Americans would take.

“We had done the same thing a week prior,” Stinson says. “They’re not dumb. They know our reaction, our tactics and, sometimes, our ROEs [Rules of Engagement] better than we do.”

As for watching his sacrifice and that of so many other American troops seemingly go to waste as Afghanistan fell, Stinson said he did what he always does when times get tough. He turned to the Bible. He looked to God.

“It wasn’t good at all, honestly,” he says. “I took a few days off, stayed off the phone and away from the news. There was a couple days of just prayer and being in the Bible and stuff. Just kind of clearing my head with it.”

Another thing that clears Stinson’s mind and lifts his spirits is being out on the rolling hills of Franklin County, riding his low-slung hand-pedal bike. Yet even this act of freedom, independence and athleticism by a wounded warrior isn’t without worry and risk.

This time the enemy is distracted drivers and road rage.

“It’s scary. It really is. I leave the house and I pray,” Stinson says. “I had a close call in May. It’s just people not paying attention. And I’ve known a few guys [wounded warrior bikers] who’ve gotten run over and killed. Like I say, just keep praying and hope for the best.”

So if you see Stinson’s slick, black bike with the orange flag flying in back, here’s a bit of advice: Don’t lay on the horn.

“I had a guy beep at me,” he says. “He was behind me, and I think he was a little ticked at me. So I just stopped in the middle of the road and tried fighting him.”

All it took was a flash of the Marine’s steely-eyed glare.

“He drove away.”

In other words, Sgt. Zach Stinson is the same as he ever was: tough as hell.

The online event came the day leaders of the two countries held a summit by video link at a time when ties have sunk to a multi-decade low due to conflict over trade, Taiwan, human rights and other issues.

“Our remembrance of the Flying Tigers today is to build a bridge of communication and friendship between China and the United States,” said Zheng Jianbang, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an umbrella body for non-communist entities allowed by the government.

Relations face a “serious test,” said the Chinese ambassador to Washington, Qin Gang. He pointed to the Flying Tigers as an example of cooperation for tackling global issues such as COVID-19 and climate change.

“Our two countries should carry forward the friendship forged in battle by our people, rather than falling into misunderstanding, miscalculation or even conflict and confrontation,” Qin said on Tuesday, the day after the virtual meeting between Biden and Xi.

The Flying Tigers were sent by President Franklin Roosevelt before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, drew the United States into the war.

The Americans helped to protect planes carrying supplies from British-ruled South Asia over the Himalayas into China.

“It was some of the most difficult flying in the world,” said Robin Moore, a veteran of the Flying Tigers. “You could fly on a clear day from Assam to China by following the shining planes that had gone down.”

The clandestine effort was led by retired army officer Claire Lee Chennault, whose daughter Cynthia Chennault read during the meeting from a letter he wrote.

“When all well-known roads are blocked, a new path must be opened,” she read.

Cynthia Chennault, an emeritus professor of Chinese literature at the University of Florida, expressed hope that “Americans and Chinese will not be blocked by past failure, but together open new paths of collaboration for the world’s well-being.”

The Flying Tigers were credited with destroying 296 enemy aircraft. Fourteen of the American pilots were shot down.

One American fighter pilot survived a crash landing and was hidden by an elderly woman who refused to give him up despite torture by Japanese soldiers, said Zheng.

“The fascist thug cut off all 10 fingers of the elderly woman,” said Zheng. “The old lady refused to disclose any information resolutely.”

U.S. Reps Ted Liu and Judy Chu of California praised historic China-U.S. relations during the event.

Chu, whose father served in the U.S. military during World War II, said the lesson of Chinese and American cooperation against fascism should inspire new efforts to fight global warming.

“Just as the Flying Tigers showed us 80 years ago, protecting the world is all about accountability together,” Chu said. “It is only when we cooperate that we can truly address the greatest challenges.”

Flying Tiger tail gunner Bill Peterson, 95, spoke from Denver, Colorado, wearing his pilot’s hat studded with medals.

“I just plain love the Chinese people,” he said. “If you ever need us again, we will always be there to help you.”

It was during that period of his life he served as a White House aide, marrying President Lyndon B. Johnson’s daughter and led a company of Marines in combat Vietnam.

And despite decades of public life and now another life in retirement, the octogenarian starts and ends his new memoir with his time in uniform.

The book, “In the Arena: A memoir of love, war and politics” rolls through Robb’s life from childhood to his leaving politics.

He drew the book title from President Theodore Roosevelt, “It is not the critic who counts; not the main how points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”

The former senator served on active duty in the Marine Corps from 1960–1970, rising to the rank of major.

Robb talked recently with Marine Corps Times about his life in service, his new book and what he hopes to share with others, especially Marines, about his experiences.

*The following Q&A section has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Will you share with readers why you chose the Marine Corps and how you became a Marine Corps officer?

A: I always expected to go into the service. In college, you were required to sign up for Reserve Officer Training Corps, out of the three services the Navy option looked more squared away but the Marines seemed to take a little extra effort to make sure they got it right and looked as sharp as they could.

I had signed up for the U.S. Naval Academy but wasn’t accepted until after my freshman year and I was already in ROTC. I didn’t want to start college over at the academy so I opted for the NROTC route. A Marine major in the program had a no-nonsense way of selling the program, ‘If you think you’re tough enough to join our ranks, then prove it.”

Q: What are some of your most significant memories from Officer Candidate School and The Basic School?

A: There were a series of tests for small unit training. But the most memorable was the “Hill Trail.” It was a physical test shared by every Marine officer candidate in that era — a grueling march through a heavily wooded area on a rocky trail that tested our strength, endurance and ability to gut it out while struggling up and down steep hills carrying full combat gear: a rifle, helmet, field pack and two full canteens. There were serious injuries in the regiment during training, one death, one critically injured and one who ended up in a coma.

Q: Early in your officer career you served as an aide to various senior leaders, at the Marine Barracks Washington and as an aide to the president. But you sought a combat tour in Vietnam though you could have avoided it. Why was that important to you?

A: Yes, I was grateful for each of the plum assignments I’d been given in my then-six years on active duty, but I had repeatedly requested a combat assignment and felt like I’d be shirking my responsibility if I let this opportunity pass me by.

Most of the Marines I’d trained and served with had, by then, already been to Vietnam. A few of them were on their second tour of duty. It was my own sense, particularly if I didn’t stay any longer than I was obligated to in the Corps that I do duty with the “muddy boot” Marines in addition to the “spit and polish Marines.”

Q: Your 13 months as a company commander in Vietnam in 1968 surely had its share of experiences. You’re fairly blunt about some of the more personal episodes you faced in the book, do you care to share more with readers?

A: There was a Marine who’d been disciplined for poor behavior only a few days before who deliberately stood up in a firefight, exposing himself to enemy fire to draw attention from the enemy gunner. He was cut down by AK-47 fire. In May 1968, 2nd Lt. Terry Hale, a likable and gung ho University of Texas graduate went with my company on his very first operation in the bush and was killed by a Viet Cong booby trap. Pale and still in an unzipped black rubber bag, Terry Hale was laid out for identification. It is not something one forgets. The astringent smell stayed in my nostrils long after I left the tent.

Within a few days, a replacement for Lt. Hill arrived at Hill 65. One staff sergeant, who was then the acting platoon commander, had a malfunctioning M16 rifle. He wrote a letter to the manufacturer who sent him a replacement direct to Vietnam. He was proud of that. A week after he got the rifle we were on a night movement, just a little moonlight in the trees. We were spread out moving through dense vegetation. The staff sergeant hit a tripwire, triggering an unexploded, captured U.S. 105mm round that was hidden in a hedgerow.

I happened to be closest to him when the shell exploded but just far enough to avoid being hit. I called in a medevac helicopter and carried him with another Marine to a cleared road. I could hear the gurgle in his throat as he struggled to breathe. We hurried to the helo but the sounds he made became fainter and fainter. By the time we reached the thumping chopper, he was silent.

The staff sergeant was the first of two Marines who would die in my arms during my thirteen months in Vietnam. There was no fanfare or extraordinary drama to it; the life simply slipped from his body.

Q: The period during the Vietnam War and its aftermath were some of the most politically contentious times in U.S. history. How did you navigate your service and the war’s impact on the nation as you later pursued a political career?

A: At that time the only way most people looked at military service in Vietnam was how to get out of service in Vietnam. Immediately after I returned from Vietnam I served as a representative of the Platoon Leaders Class program, speaking on college campuses about how students could become Marine officers. I could communicate reasonably effectively and always sought to understand any opposition. So, I read an anti-war book, “The Greening of America,” by Charles Reich, to better understand the other side of the argument, which is still what I recommend people do.

During one event a student shouted, “You are teaching people to kill. What does that have to do with pacification?” I responded, “Most people know how to kill already. We don’t have to teach them that.” I also said that I didn’t like being engaged in war and found nothing satisfying about it. The dialogue surprised some students. At the very least, I hoped to give them a sense that I, like other returning veterans, was not an automaton or a warmonger but a human being, not so different from any of them and fully capable of developing personal opinions. I don’t know if I changed anybody’s stance on the war that day, but by the time I finished, the audience gave me a standing ovation.

Q: During your time as a U.S. senator, you served on various committees and groups with direct links to military and veterans affairs. One included the formation of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy under President Clinton to allow for homosexual people to continue to serve in the military. Looking back on that time, can you share with readers why that was important for you?

A: The first time I became more aware of how acute the problem and the need for DADT was after the military in law school. During a clerkship, I kept officer qualification records for those who’d been disciplined in the Marines. I found two majors, and I was a major by that point, who had performed well in combat but they were accused of being homosexuals and were going to be discharged. Not for their conduct but over the accusations. I said, you know, “This is wrong.” That was my first direct experience.

Q: You served on committees that took you back to Vietnam and to neighboring countries. What was it like to return to Vietnam years later?

A: It’s an interesting experience to talk to people on the other side of combat. While I was there I was taken out to some of the areas where I had fought. Then afterward when I met with many of the now-former Viet Cong for the most part, we didn’t have many meetings with the North Vietnamese Army officials at that point, but you could talk to them and in effect acknowledge yes we fought on opposite sides of the war and we’re now at peace. It was also clear at that point they were a little reluctant still to talk too much to a foreign dignitary. You can’t get that experience any other way than to have been in combat and then to have a chance to talk to some of the people who were trying to kill you.

Q: Much later in your career you served on the Iraq Study Group and the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. How did your military experience help you with that work?

A: There is no question in my mind that you gain an amount of credibility if you’ve been there. If you’re talking about war, if you have been involved in combat, most of your peers will allow you a certain leeway because you’ve been there on the ground and are willing to put your life on the line. And you know if you’re going to suggest certain types of activities you know what else is involved.

Q: You end the book with a reference to an early challenge in officer training. Why did you make that choice as an author?

A: It made a nice way to close it so that people could understand your visceral feelings, especially the challenge to do your best, particularly when you’re being evaluated in direct competition with all of the other peers who are the same rank. And you’re able to deliver the goods.