Veterans
One War Leads to Another
A new exhibit, “The Vietnam War: 1945-1975,” opens at the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City on Nov. 8 and runs through next May.
Kansas City’s Vietnam Era
Finding Kansas City-area Vietnam veteran John Musgrave for the upcoming PBS documentary “The Vietnam War” was “the most fortuitous thing,” filmmaker Ken Burns said last week while in Kansas City. Musgrave, long known to Kansas Citians as an eloquent and thoughtful commentator and critic on the war, has been referred to as the Shelby Foote of…
Vietnam War Refugees Succeed — and Struggle — in Kansas City
When American troops made a chaotic, embarrassed withdrawal from Vietnam in April 1975, the flood of terrified Vietnamese refugees to Kansas City began. Ty Bui, who had spent seven years in the Vietnamese military, escaped his country in August that year and, after staying in a refugee camp in Arkansas, came to Kansas City in…
A Ledger of Names, Mine Among Them, Tell Our Vietnam Stories
All 30 of the boys listed on the Vietnam-era Selective Service ledger were born in the spring of 1948, during America’s most prolific era of mass procreation, the end of World War II. At 18 years old, the thing first and foremost on our minds was to find a way to commit the same act…
New Farm Will Cultivate a Future for Veterans and American Agriculture
Off a narrow dirt road in the middle of Kansas, retired Army Col. Gary LaGrange, his daughter Shari LaGrange-Aulich and a group of veterans are cultivating a future for service members and American agriculture. Three hundred and twenty acres nestled between Manhattan, Kansas and Fort Riley will be the future site of S.A.V.E. Farm, which stands…
Healing the Invisible Wounds of Combat
It’s the serviceman who beats himself up about being unable to save a dying buddy. Or the truck driver who follows orders to run over children in the road, because they might be placed there to facilitate an ambush of a convoy. While it has been more than half a century since the United States…
Four-Legged Friends Bring Aid, Comfort to Veterans
Brittany lives from day to day with relentless anxiety, depression, nightmares, insomnia and a fear of crowds. She’s a 30-year-old U.S. Army veteran, a combat surgical nurse who did stints in South Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan while in the service from 2005 to 2013. She suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Brittany’s PTSD stems from combat…
Disabled Veteran Battles the VA and Wins
As part of our ongoing Veterans Coming Home project, Special Projects Reporter Mike McGraw and videographer Cole Blaise highlight a disabled veteran who took on the system and won. “I’m a vet, and I want the VA to be as good as it can be,” he says.
The Hero’s Journey
For this beautiful black-and-white look at the Warrior’s Ascent academy, photographer Chase Castor followed veterans and first responders through the course. It’s part of our ongoing Veterans Coming Home project.
Of Faith and Loyalty
The office of Palestinian-born shop owner Munir Yameen is a warm and congenial space, adorned by a black-and-white photo of Yameen as a young man in uniform, a smattering of carefully framed verses from the Quran and the customary photos of children and grandchildren. But the most striking photo on display is of his grandson Tarik standing…