Meet Veterans And Hear Their Stories In ‘Veterans Coming Home’ Series

More than two million veterans have come home so far from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  For returning veterans, reintegrating into society can be a challenge.   How do you find your place, when you’ve changed and the people you love don’t recognize you? When that old life is gone and you have to start a new one from scratch.  In this hour State of the Re:Union explores reintegration and asks the question: how do you come back home from war?

Despite the widespread attention paid to the Navy SEALs since they killed Osama bin Laden, the story of how these clandestine warriors evolved in response to changing threats — from WWII to the War on Terror — and how their extraordinary abilities shaped U.S. and world history, has remained untold. Few people know the unheralded tales of the first frogmen who dared to face almost certain death with little training, scant equipment and untested tactics.

The Peabody Award-winning series explores America’s creative spirit through the language and traditions of the handmade. Beginning with the origins of the Army Arts & Crafts Program and the G.I. Bill, Service documents craft in the military and the power of the handmade to inspire, motivate and heal.

Over the past five years, San Antonio has seen a sharp increase in the military community’s needs for services due to the drawdown of forces.   This number is expected to grow significantly --- between 2014 and 2017, an estimated 40,000 veterans and their families will settle in San Antonio, straining existing resources. Many leave the military with a sense that they are alone--that much of their struggles happen outside the purview of the civilian population.  They feel isolated and disconnected. 

Joseph Robertson was an infantryman in the U.S. Army during World War II, and he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. The stark black and white images in this short haunt the viewer -- just as Robertson is haunted still by his memories of that battle. "Germans in the Woods" is an animated short featuring audio from StoryCorps.

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” -- officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.” In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…" The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.

“Last Days in Vietnam” chronicles the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon. With the clock ticking and the city under fire, American officers on the ground faced a moral dilemma: follow official policy and evacuate U.S. citizens and their dependents only, or ignore orders and save the men, women, and children they had come to value and love in their years in Vietnam. At the risk of their careers and possible court-martial, a handful of individuals took matters into their own hands. Engaging in unsanctioned and often makeshift operations, they waged a desperate effort to evacuate as many South Vietnamese as possible.