On March 6, 1944, Richard Bushong was at the controls of a B-17 Flying Fortress as part of the first daylight bombing raid to reach Berlin during WWII. The air armada that day stretched for 94 miles in the sky and inflicted heavy damage on the Nazis -- but at an alarming cost to the Allied forces as well.

On December 7, 1966, Air Force Captain John W. Carlson was shot down near Bien Hoa and remains listed as Missing in Action. He left behind a wife and two young daughters, Margot and Kim. In 2015, Margot founded the 2 Sides Project, which unites children whose fathers died fighting each other to bring about understanding and lasting healing.

As a teenager in Vietnam, Donald Talbot was involved in a firefight so intense that many of his fellow Marines were killed. He quickly understood that to stay alive he would have to play dead -- and that was just the beginning of his fight for survival.

Russel McClintock served over three decades in the Navy -- in part -- to honor the father whose name he shares. Russel McClintock, Sr., was a B-26 gunner in WWII when his plane was shot down over Italy, leading to his capture and eventual incarceration in the infamous Stalag 17B.

Long after the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953, American service members like Bill Fireside were still fighting on the peninsula -- though their weapon of choice was not a firearm or a mortar but the power of the pen.

John Lee's Air Force basic training testing in 1955 revealed a hidden skill: an aptitude for foreign languages. After a year of intensive courses in Russian, he took those skills -- and a top-secret clearance -- to the border with East Germany to listen in on Soviet pilots flying overhead.

On July 14, 1966, Duane Buttell, Jr., was the "Guy in Back" of an F-4 fighter escorting F-105s to a target over North Vietnam. Suddenly, several enemy MiG-21s appeared. The rest is literal history.

Army Sergeant Jim Davidson arrived in Vietnam in March of 1968 with the intensity of the Tet Offensive still at a fever pitch. Jim stepped into the 101st Airborne as a replacement troop and soon found out why that unit's casualty rate was so high.

From late 1956 through the summer of 1957, Army veteran Joseph Varanauski held the esteemed position of Sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Listen in as Joe reveals what it means to live by the creed "my standard will remain perfection."

Honor Flight Chicago has now flown over 10,600 senior war veterans to Washington, D.C., to celebrate their service and give them the proper Welcome Home they never received. That number is big -- possibly impenetrable -- but each one of those heroes has a story.

David Mann's father was in Vietnam for only a short time when he was killed in a rocket attack months before his namesake son would be born stateside. The younger Mann has spent his life getting to know his dad, recently becoming involved with a group of Gold Star children called Sons and Daughters in Touch.

Norm Bowens and Mike Masello served in Vietnam at different times and at different places. Still, they each brought something home so common to veterans who served in combat: PTSD. Many years later, a chance encounter around a specific chair at a group meeting led the two to become fast friends and brothers.