The vision Tiffany had for her husband eventually became reality. Scotty became the first blind, active-duty military officer and he taught students in ROTC programs.
Captain Scotty Smiley, a Ranger and combat-diver qualified infantryman, was the Army's first active-duty, blind officer and its first blind company commander. On April 6, 2005, he lost use of both eyes when a suicide car bomber blew himself up thirty meters in front of Scotty's Stryker vehicle.
Major Iván Castro (born 1967) is a U.S. Army officer who has continued serving on active duty in the Special Forces despite losing his eyesight. He is one of three blind active duty officers who serves in the U.S. Army and the only blind officer serving in the United States Army Special Forces.
Being blind in one eye will also be just as disqualifying as if you were blind in both eyes. If someone is considered legally blind to a point where no correction allows them to see, this is an immediate disqualification from any branch of the military.
Jean Thurel finally died in 1807, following a short illness. He was 108. After nine full decades as a soldier, he remained a private throughout, never dropping off the regiment's active duty list.
The body of an Indian soldier who went missing in the Himalayas 38 years ago has been found. Chandrashekhar Harbola and 19 colleagues were caught in an avalanche during a patrolling operation in the Siachen glacier along the India-Pakistan border in 1984. Fifteen bodies were recovered later but five remained missing.
Dan Bullock (December 21, 1953 – June 7, 1969) was a United States Marine and the youngest U.S. serviceman killed in action during the Vietnam War, dying at the age of 15. Goldsboro, North Carolina, U.S. Elmwood Cemetery, Goldsboro, Wayne County, North Carolina, U.S.
MARASESTI, Vrancea County, Romania--Maria Zaharia (also known as Măriuca Zaharia; born 1905, Pădureni, Mărășești, Romania - died August 6, 1917, Mărășești, Romania), was a Romanian girl of twelve years, heroically fallen in the battles of Mărășești during the First World War, the only child-hero buried in the Mausoleum ...
Dorchester native Charles Havlat was the last U.S. soldier to be killed in World War II. He was shot by a sniper just minutes before the ceasefire was to take effect. Photo courtesy of the Dorchester Times. Havlat worked as a farmhand for $1 a day before eventually starting a trucking company with his cousin.
World War II Accounting
At the end of the war, there were approximately 79,000 Americans unaccounted for. This number included those buried with honor as unknowns, officially buried at sea, lost at sea, and missing in action.
The National Service (Armed Forces) Act imposed conscription on all males aged between 18 and 41 who had to register for service. Those medically unfit were exempted, as were others in key industries and jobs such as baking, farming, medicine, and engineering.
Navy Veteran Calvin Leon Graham became the youngest World War II soldier at the age of 12, and the youngest recipient of the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
The people listed below are, or were, the last surviving members of notable groups of World War II veterans, as identified by reliable sources. About 70 million people fought in World War II between 1939 and 1945 and, as of 2022, there are still approximately 167,000 living veterans in the United States alone.
1. The first American serviceman killed in World War II was Captain Robert M. Losey from Andrew, Iowa. He was serving as a military attaché and was killed in Norway on April 21, 1940, when German aircraft bombed the Dombås railway station where he and others were awaiting transportation.
Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. More than half of the total number of casualties are accounted for by the dead of the Republic of China and of the Soviet Union.
The number of living Australian Second World War veterans has halved since 2019. According to a study by family search website Ancestry and YouGov, 7800 remain.
SAN ANTONIO — On this Veteran's Day we are honoring the youngest living World War II veteran. Like many Americans, Bob Kelso signed up to fight in World War Two. But - he was only 13 years old. He was sent into battle and wounded - one of the youngest Americans ever to receive the Purple Heart.
St. Jeanne d'Arc led the poll by an overwhelming margin. By the time of her birth in 1412, France had been decimated first by the Black Plague and then by an English invasion during the Hundred Years' War.
Galusha Pennypacker : Brigadier General and Brevet Major General, United States Volunteers, Brigadier General and Brevet Major General, United States Army, America's youngest general.