A Wounded Soldier Stands Tall At Reunion With His Platoon
U.S. Army Spc. Tyler Jeffries spent most of last year in Afghanistan, on dusty, hot patrols in the villages outside Kandahar. Last fall, on Oct. 6, his tour ended three months early."I was clearing an...
View ArticleFemale Soldiers Face Tough Switch From Front Lines To Homefront
In a series of reports this week, NPR's Quil Lawrence looks at some of the most pressing challenges facing America's nearly 2 million female veterans. Like men, they often need assistance in finding...
View ArticleWomen In Combat, And The Price They Pay
America has been debating the role of women in combat since 1779.That's when the Continental Congress first awarded a military disability pension to Mary Corbin after she manned a cannon in the...
View ArticleOff The Battlefield, Military Women Face Risks From Male Troops
Dora Hernandez gave a decade of her life to the U.S. Navy and the Army National Guard, but some of the dangers surprised her."The worst thing for me is that you don't have to worry about the enemy, you...
View ArticleSexual Violence Victims Say Military Justice System Is 'Broken'
Myla Haider took a roundabout route to becoming an agent in the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, or CID. Wars kept interrupting her training."My commander wanted to take me to Iraq as the...
View ArticleSearching For Veterans On Alaska's Remote Edges
When he was in Vietnam, Isaac Oxereok's small build made him ideal for tunnel-ratting: running with a pistol and a flashlight into underground passages built by the Viet Cong. In 1967 he finished his...
View ArticleForgotten For Decades, WWII Alaskans Finally Get Their Due
Alaskan Clyde Iyatunguk grew up hearing stories about the U.S. Army colonel, Marvin 'Muktuk' Marston, who helped his father trade his spear for a rifle, to protect his homeland during World War...
View ArticleFor Ailing Vets In Rural Areas, Tele-Medicine Can Be The Cure
Howard Lincoln of White Mountain, Alaska, doesn't always hear it when people knock on his door. He's 82 and he still has a little shrapnel in his jaw from a mortar shell that nearly killed him in the...
View ArticleAt A Texas Base, Battling Army's Top Threat: Suicide
Suicide killed more American troops last year than combat in Afghanistan, and that is likely to be the case again this year.According to the Pentagon, there were at least 349 confirmed suicides in...
View ArticleA Veteran's Piercing True Story Leaps From Page To Stage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiFLmSS83Ag
View ArticleVA Still Under Pressure To Reduce Disability Claim Backlog
Transcript MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: And I'm Audie Cornish.For years, the backlog of disability claims for veterans has...
View ArticleFor Wounded Vets, Climbing Half Dome Only Half The Mission
Timmy O'Neill is guiding Steve Baskis through ancient yellow pines that almost touch the sky. They're hiking all day to base camp in California's Yosemite National Park, 2,000 feet up in Little...
View ArticleU.S. Soldier Fights For Afghan Interpreter Who Saved His Life
Army Capt. Matt Zeller had been told that his Afghan comrades would make a big show of hospitality. He'd read that the Afghan code of honor would mean protecting his life with their own. Sure enough,...
View ArticleVets-Turned-Firefighters Find Brotherhood, Purpose
Veteran Chris Delplato wanted to be a firefighter for a long time."Ever since I was a little kid — [toy] truck and everything," Delplato says. But he only just got his dream job, after first joining...
View ArticleOther-Than-Honorable Discharge Burdens Like A Scarlet Letter
Eric Highfill spent five years in the Navy, fixing airplanes for special operations forces. His discharge papers show an Iraq campaign medal and an Afghanistan campaign medal, a good-conduct medal, and...
View ArticleFor Veterans, 'Bad Paper' Is A Catch-22 For Treatment
Transcript RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: In many ways, military veterans hold a privileged place in American society, but not all vets have access to what goes along with that privilege. In the past decade of...
View ArticleAn Honorable Last Wish For A Dying Marine
Hal Faulkner is 79 years old and he's already lived months longer than his doctors predicted."I don't know what to say, it's just incredible that I'm still here," Faulkner says in a halting voice made...
View ArticleFallujah Veterans Ask Hard Questions About Their Sacrifices
Will Walsh got to know the Iraqi city of Fallujah while running across its bridges in the middle of the night, under fire, looking for IEDs. That was nearly 10 years ago.Last weekend, the former Army...
View ArticleYale Law Students Raise Case For Discharged Vets
Transcript AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: In the U.S., posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD has become part of our national vocabulary. During the Vietnam War, though, it wasn't yet a medical diagnosis, nor was...
View ArticleAmong Soldiers, Risk Of Suicide May Have Surprising Roots
Transcript AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: And I'm Melissa Block.For years, people in the military had a lower rate of suicide...
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