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.

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.

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.

Donald Bryan talks about the P-51D Mustang he flew in combat and how it compared to the German Me 262 jet fighter aircraft.

Private First Class Ferris LeBlanc served his country honorably during World War II. But the credit due to him was denied thanks to the tragic circumstances of his death in the Up Stairs Lounge fire in 1973.

Mexican-born Jose Lopez earned America’s highest military honor for his heroic one- man stand during the Battle of the Bulge.

Pursuing his passion for flight, William Holloman II enlisted in the only unit that would let him fly—the Tuskegee Airmen. He joined as a fighter pilot with the famous “Red Tails” of the 332nd Fighter Group.

Vernon Baker was one of seven African Americans to receive the Medal of Honor for service in World War II, an award delayed decades by bias and discrimination. In both war and peace, Baker served as an inspirational leader for the soldiers that served under his command and for generations to come.

Jack Glass describes his experiences aboard the USS Enterprise (CV-6) during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in August 1942.

It was only in the wake of Executive Order 8802, and a presidential directive issued directly to the Corps, that the Marines began setting up a new segregated training facility for African American recruits at Montford Point, North Carolina. One of the first recruits was Edgar Cole.