The end of World War II brought unexpected challenges for American servicemembers in both Europe and the Pacific. Fighting forces turned into forces of occupation, working to maintain a fragile peace while living amongst former enemies.

Absentee ballots gave American citizens in uniform a voice in their nation’s government during World War II.

During World War II, a new program gave young men who refused to wear a uniform other ways to serve their country.

B-17 pilot John Noack describes the bravery of his top turret gunner and flight engineer, Kenneth Fox, who even after being severely wounded during the mission to Schweinfurt on October 14, 1943, refused to abandon his post in the plane’s top turret.

The first Medal of Honor awarded to a Hispanic American in World War II was also the first awarded for actions on the North American continent since 1898.

On October 12, 1945, US Army medic Desmond Doss became the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Mexican American Cleto Rodriguez brazenly attacked an enemy fortress to save his platoon during the Battle of Manila, heroics for which he received the nation’s highest military honor.

There is insufficient attention paid to the long history of the Roma within European culture.

Mexican American US Army medic Corporal Anthony Acevedo suffered unimaginable horrors as a POW of the Germans. He survived Stalag IXB and then the Berga slave labor camp as well as the trauma and stigma of having been a prisoner of war.

Benjamin Carson talks about volunteering for the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion and the brutally realistic training they received in San Diego to prepare for combat in the Pacific.

In the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, 27 Marines and sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for action on Iwo Jima. No other campaign surpassed that number.

Coast Guardsman Charles Walter David Jr. volunteered to rescue sailors from the doomed USAT Dorchester and also saved the lives of two of his own shipmates.