Former POW Ralph Galati ’70 Found Purpose in Service

Documentary honors Vietnam War Veteran Daniel H. Hefel

After 14 years of gathering war stories, Tim Breitbach created a documentary depicting his cousin’s life, Daniel Hefel, a Vietnam War veteran. The film was shown for free March 30 during a public gathering at Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville, which was attended by a diverse audience of college students,

‘You feel a camaraderie’: Vietnam vets reconnect (William Talley)

William “Bill” Talley was eating lunch in the cafeteria at his senior living center one day in June when a man walked up to him. This was the man’s greeting: “Hey, I’m Jim Null. I remember when you got shot down.” U.S. Air Force pilots Talley, 88, and Null, 77, were

The Volunteer State Goes to War: A Salute to Tennessee Veterans (Robert Peel)

The Vietnam War was, essentially, an internal conflict between communist forces in North Vietnam and the pro-western government in South Vietnam. It had begun as a war between colonial French and nationalist Vietnamese armies, but after France’s devastating defeat in the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ in 1954, the country

POW: James Latham

Brigadier General (Ret.) James Latham is an Air Force veteran who served for more than 27 years, from March 1969 to August 1997. He was a command pilot with more than 5,000 flying hours to include 383 combat missions in Southeast and Southwest Asia. On October 5th, 1972, while operating

Freedom is Life: Remembering one of Fairchild’s Favored Few (James Nagahiro)

James Yoshikazu Nagahiro was born in 1932 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He attended Mid-Pacific Institute and after two years at the University of Hawaii, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was selected for the Aviation Cadet Program in 1953. Nagahiro served as B-52 pilot and instructor pilot with the