Charlotte Lebovic Weiss was born in 1924 to a Jewish family in Teresva, Czechoslovakia. She had four sisters and a younger brother. After their town was invaded by Nazi-aligned Hungarian soldiers in 1938, Charlotte was no longer allowed to go to school with her peers. All of the Jews in her town were forced to identify themselves with yellow Star of David patches on their shoulders. As the war escalated, life became even more difficult, and members of Charlotte’s family were taken away and never heard from again.

Barney Old Coyote was born April 10, 1923, on the Crow Reservation in Montana. As one of eight children, he learned at an early age to speak Crow and English. His grandfather, Old Coyote, was a well-known Crow Indian who fought alongside the US Army and was wounded at the Battle of the Rosebud, a prelude to the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Barney and his brother, Henry, joined the US military just after Pearl Harbor—the first Native Americans from Montana to enlist following the attack.

Jimmie Kanaya was born in Clackamas, Oregon, in 1920 to Japanese immigrants. Food was scarce, so they ate what they harvested from farming. In late 1936, the family moved into town, and his father sold produce. With war looming and many of his friends going into the military, Jimmie joined the US Army in April 1941 at age 20. He wanted to be an airplane mechanic but was assigned as a medic to Hoff General Hospital in Santa Barbara, California. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, his family was forced from their home and sent to an incarceration camp in Idaho.

Marvin Perrett was born in 1925 to a wounded WW I veteran and his childhood sweetheart in New Orleans, Louisiana. He attended Warren Easton High School in New Orleans, the oldest public high school in the city. The morning before he turned 18, Perrett went to the US Coast Guard recruiting office. After being sworn in that same evening, he was on a train bound for boot camp in St. Augustine, Florida.

William Lansford was born in Los Angeles on July 13, 1922, to a Caucasian father and Mexican mother who divorced when he was six months old. He and his brother were raised by their grandmother in a Spanish-speaking household in East Los Angeles. Lansford didn't speak English well until he was 14 years old. After dropping out of high school at 16, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Too small to enlist in the US Navy, he joined the Marine Corps in October 1940. His high school ROTC and CCC experience meant he was ahead of most of the other recruits at boot camp. Lansford hoped to be assigned to “exotic” duty somewhere like China but ended up in Iceland for 10 months until Pearl Harbor was attacked.

When Louis Taix was a young boy, his parents emigrated from France to New Orleans, where his younger siblings were born. Taix wanted adventure and to see the world while earning a paycheck to help his family, so he joined the US Merchant Marine. He served as the Chief Radio Operator aboard the SS Nicarao, which transported fruit from the Caribbean to the United States.

Harold Ward was born to a 16-year-old single mother on April 21, 1921, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Because his mother was so young, he bounced around from one part of his large family to another. His high school years were particularly difficult, and he worked summers washing dishes for a dollar a day at a restaurant on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Ward joined the US Navy at age 18 as a way to a better life. He knew the military would provide stability, some money in his pocket, hot running water, a bed to lay on every night, and three meals a day.