In the Spring of 1814, the war between the British and the still-young United States looked pretty bleak for the Americans. The War of 1812 had started with a bang for the U.S., with American troops crippling the war efforts of Native tribes in the south and making incursions into British Canada in the north.
But 1814 was a turning point for the British Empire. It had just defeated Napoleon and sent the Emperor to exile on the island of Elba. This victory allowed Britain to move 30,000 veteran soldiers from Europe to North America, where a three-pronged plan threatened to cut the new republic to a shell of its former self.
The British sent three expeditions, each with 10,000 fresh, skilled soldiers, toward three targets: New York City, Baltimore, and New Orleans. If any of them succeeded in capturing their objectives, the Americans would be forced to make disastrous concessions in the Treaty of Ghent, negotiated to end the war.
If New Orleans fell, it would have invalidated the Louisiana Purchase, which was made by Napoleon and recognized by no one else in Europe. This could have meant the cession of the entire territory to Britain or returning it to Spain. If New York fell, the British would have claimed most of Maine, where the crown established the colony of New Ireland.
At Baltimore, if the defenders of the area could not hold, either of the other two concessions might have been forced on the Americans. All three were the top cities in the United States in terms of size and economic importance.
The British combined forces defeated a naval flotilla of American gunboats and succeeded in landing more than 4,000 troops in Virginia. The British marched into Maryland, routing a small contingent of Americans before meeting a much larger force of U.S. Army Soldiers, Marines, and Sailors at the Battle of Bladensburg.
Despite being outnumbered and assaulting a heavily-defended position, the British won at Bladensburg, from which they marched on Washington and put the capital city to the torch. Their next stop was Baltimore, with a land attack coming from North Point and a naval assault of Fort McHenry, which guarded the entrance to the harbor.
The Americans at Fort McHenry knew the British would be coming for them. The commander of the harbor defenses of Baltimore, Maj. George Armistead wanted the British to know who controlled the point defense of Baltimore Harbor before the attack – and who controlled it when the smoke cleared.
Armistead was a seasoned artillery officer. He cut his teeth in the Quasi-War with France and, earlier in the War of 1812, was part of the force that took the fight to the British in Canada. He had helped the Americans capture Fort George in Ontario and personally delivered the fort's captured flags to President James Madison.
That's how he ended up in command of Fort McHenry. Upon taking command of the fort, he determined that something important was missing from the fort's defenses: a garrison flag. Armistead boldly ordered "a flag so large that the British will have no difficulty seeing it from a distance."
He custom ordered one from local flag maker Mary Pickersgill, who had to sew the massive 30x42-foot Stars and Stripes on the floor of a beer brewery, given its size. 
Pickersgill and five associates sewed nonstop for six weeks in preparation for delivery. In August 1813, the flag was delivered to Fort McHenry.
When the battle finally came on Sept. 13, 1814, Armistead and his massive Old Glory were ready. The veteran artillery commander had 1,000 troops under his command, who had spent the past few months reinforcing the bricks and mortars of the fort. He'd even sunk a line of American ships in the harbor to thwart the passage of British warships.
Some 19 British ships shelled Fort McHenry for 25 hours that September with Congreve rockets, cannon shots, and mortars. Since the ships were out of range of Fort McHenry's guns, the fort's defenders hunkered down to wait out the British shelling.
The fort itself, however, was far from bombproof, but Armistead was the only one who knew it. All was almost lost when a British shell hit the magazine, but it failed to explode. Armistead ordered the fort's powder be moved to the rear walls.
Nearly 2,000 shots were fired at the fort. On the morning of Sept. 14, Fort McHenry's defenders hoisted Mrs. Pickersgill's enormous American flag into the sky o
ver the area. With its 15 stripes, each two feet wide (the practice of adding stripes for states wasn't stopped until much later), it weighed 50 pounds and required 11 men to raise.
With this massive flag flying, there was no doubt the Americans still held the fort. The commander of the British combined force, Vice Admiral Sir Arthur Cochrane, left it to the commander of the British land forces to decide whether or not to attack the fort. Back at North Point, the British had won, but at a cost. They took heavy casualties, including their commander, Maj. Gen. Robert Ross.
With the land forces delayed, their commander mortally wounded, and Americans still in control of Fort McHenry, the British withdrew. The British overland invasion of New York had been turned away at Plattsburgh. The attack on New Orleans in 1815 would also fail, keeping the United States whole through the war's end.
Armistead's flag not only had a major impact on the outcome of the Battle of Baltimore but also touched an individual held aboard one of the British ships in the harbor. Lawyer Francis Scott Key was aboard the HMS Tonnant, negotiating the release of his friend who was being held, prisoner. Knowing the British intent and strength, Key was held aboard this ship throughout the bombing of the fort.
On the Tonnant, he penned a poem, "Defence of Fort M'Henry," which was published in American newspapers the next week. When paired with the tune of the popular drinking song "To Anacreon in Heaven," it became the unofficial anthem of the United States until 1931, when it officially became "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Armistead's original flag is today held by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where it is occasionally still available for display.
In the summer of 1864, the Confederate States of America was reeling from a series of defeats that would ultimately lead to its demise. Despite the Union victory at Gettysburg in 1863 that turned the Army of Northern Virginia back and the capture of Vicksburg that gave the Union control of the Mississippi River, the outcome of the Civil War was anything but assured.
After leading the Union Army at the Siege of Vicksburg and his subsequent win at Chattanooga, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General and given overall command of the Union Armies. With the Confederacy now split in two, Grant took over command of the Army of the Potomac while command of the Western Theater fell to Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman.
In the spring of 1864, Grant decided to launch simultaneous offensives all along the Confederate lines in an effort to exhaust the Confederacy's resources and its ability to prolong the war. For Sherman, this meant engaging Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's Army, which protected Atlanta, the south's largest industrial and logistical center.
It was also the largest administrative area for the south, outside of Richmond. While Grant launched his Overland Campaign against the Confederate capital, Sherman headed for Atlanta, where four major railroads connected the Confederacy.
Johnston knew Sherman's relatively massive Army outnumbered him and retreated time and again when Sherman outflanked his defenses. Tired of his retreating, Confederate leaders replaced him with Gen. John Bell Hood, who immediately went on the offensive. At Peach Tree Creek o
n Jul. 20, 1864, the Confederates attacked but found Johnston was right. The assault failed, costing Hood casualties he couldn't afford.
On Jul. 21, Sherman gave Hood one chance to win the battle for Atlanta and perhaps the entire Confederacy. Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson's Army of Tennessee was positioned on the city's outskirts to the east, but his left flank was open while Union cavalry wreaked havoc on the southern railroads.
Hood saw his chance to march a corps of infantry, and Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler's cavalry around the Union Army's left flank attacked Sherman's supply line, similar to a move that led to Stonewall Jackson's victory at Chancellorsville, Virginia, earlier in the war.
Wheeler was to attack McPherson's supplies while Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee's corps attacked his left rear. It required a 15-mile night march to launch a daring dawn attack. However, the night was hotter than expected, and the Confederate soldiers were exhausted from the maneuver. It wasn't until noon the next day that the rebels were ready to deploy.
Meanwhile, McPherson no
ticed his left flank was vulnerable during the night and sent his reserve to defend it. When the rebels launched their “surprise” attack that afternoon, they weren't fighting a baggage train; they were fighting a battle-hardened and fortified infantry.
McPherson left Sherman's headquarters and made his way to watch the fighting when he was shot by Confederate infantry under Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne. With the General dead, the Confederates began turning the left flank of the Union line and start to overrun it.
More luck for the rebels came in nearby Decatur, where Wheeler's cavalry captured the Fayetteville Road and forced the Union to abandon the town. The fleeing Yankees were barely able to save their supply wagons. But while the initial success was heartening, it soon turned into a disaster for the rebels.
Hardee's infantry on Sherman's left flank may have overrun their enemy at first, but they ran right into infantry and artillery fortified from a nearby hilltop. Unable to dislodge them or advance, Hardee is forced back. Without the infantry's support, Wheeler was forced to abandon Decatur. 
The surprise may have failed, but the battle wasn't over. Cheatham's corps attacked the main Union force from the east, centered on nearby Bald Hill. The fighting on Bald Hill was brutal and sometimes hand-to-hand, but Cheatham attacked the Union Army in a series of uncoordinated assaults. The rebels also saw success there, but superior Union artillery and a counter-attack forced them back into the city.
Sherman's Army settled into a siege. After unsuccessfully trying to cut off its supplies for a month using cavalry raids, he cut the railroad lifeline using his entire Army. It forced the Confederates under Hood to abandon Atlanta. The city fell to the Union on Sept. 2, 1864. On Nov. 12, Sherman ordered the city's business district destroyed before departing for his famous “March to the Sea.”
Many civilians will have trouble understanding some facets of military life. The one thing they may never understand is the plethora of ways military personnel can face punishment. Every veteran has a story about either witnessing a bizarre punishment forced upon a troop (or themselves) that seems so outlandish; it's hard to believe - to those who didn't serve, that is.
Troops have been ordered to sweep sunshine off the sidewalks, vacuum the flight line, and pretend to be a ghost; or my personal experience: an Airman trainee was ordered to speak to everyone using sock puppets because he didn't put his dirty socks into a mesh bag.
Not really cruel, but definitely unusual punishment.
Those are just some of the random, uncodified punishment trainees, recruits, and junior enlisted troops have received over the years. There's no book that lists these creative ways to teach junior Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen to penalty for not following the rules. They've just been handed down from one generation to another.
There was one method of punishment that sounds like a military urban legend but was actually used for the entire history of the U.S. Navy until 2019: the bread and water punishment. The punishment is just like it sounds: a sailor is confined to the brig for three days with nothing but bread and water.
Confinement on bread and water was one of the Navy's harshest non-judicial punishments and was actually codified as an option to use on E-3 ranks and below for misdemeanor offenses. Like many naval traditions, it was first adopted from the British Royal Navy, but the British discontinued the practice in 1891.
The United States continued using bread and water confinement because it was a more humane way to quickly punish sailors at sea than flogging, which the U.S. Navy discontinued in 1862.
In the years that followed, confinement on "minimal rations" was allowed for up to 30 days. In 1909, it was reduced to seven days. By 2019, it was just three - but you got as much bread and water as you wanted.
For the junior enlisted who faced this punishment, it might have seemed draconian, but it was supposed to save them from a greater punishment, one that might lead them to a court-martial or discharge, especially if the evidence against them is overwhelming.
One U.S. Navy Captain's overuse of the punishment led to his ship being dubbed "the USS Bread and Water," a Navy review, and the eventual discontinuation of the practice. On January 1, 2019, changes to the Uniformed Code of Military Justice were implemented that did not include bread and water.
By 1962 the world was becoming a very scary place punctuated by continuing confrontations between global communist and democratic powers, alongside growing civil, racial, and political unrest. In Southeast Asia, the Korean War brought an indecisive outcome, and the tide of combat in Vietnam now favored communist forces despite US advisors in place since 1956. Further, in 1961 alone, there was an armed conflict between communist and democratic armies along the Chinese-Burma border, UN peacekeeping forces fighting at Kabalo and Katanga (Operation Rampunch) in the Congo, and the US-backed Bay of Pigs, a failed attempt to overthrow Castro's regime in 
Cuba. In Europe, the Berlin Wall was constructed following decades-long Soviet blockades leading to the activation of more than 150,000 US guardsmen and reservists together with Operation Stair Step, the largest jet deployment in history. Then in October 1962, provoked by ongoing US efforts against Cuba (Operation Mongoose), the world held its breath as nuclear war was wagered during the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Growing complexity on the world stage, in combination with civil rights reformation, made timely and accurate intelligence at the highest levels of government indispensable. So, in 1962 President Kennedy authorized the formation of an elite special-ops unit, liberated from red tape and able to deploy at a moment's notice. A unit that did not need to wait for orders to mobilize and arrived armed with state-of-the-art equipment to carry out their mission. Christened DASPO, Department of the Army Special Photographic Office, the corps was a Special Forces unit of sorts but comprised of combat photographers.
The Pentagon charged Major Arthur A. Jones with designing and organizing a brand-new command to provide state-of-the-art photographs and film to the Joint Chiefs, the Pentagon staff, and the United States Congress. First headquartered at the Army Pictorial Center on the former Paramount Pictures lot in Queens, New York, the staff later moved to the US Army Photographic Agency at the Pentagon. To meet the demand for global coverage, DASPO was comprised of three sections: DASPO CONUS (Continental United States), DASPO Panama, and DASPO Pacific. Photographers were free to operate with nearly unlimited access and took their orders directly from the Army Chief of Staff, General Decker. Decker's very specific demands of DASPO included a full-time Rapid Response Team, highly mobile and unencumbered, with every member issued a top-secret clearance and the best equipment. The officers assigned to the unit coordinated activities while enlisted personnel served on the front lines to provide the photography.
The unit was populated by cherry-picking the best of the best from the staff at the Army Pictorial Center and students from the Army Signal School at Fort Monmouth, while staff began to fill the ranks of command positions with sound specialists, motion picture cameramen, and still photographers. Meanwhile, Jones (now a Lieutenant Colonel) and his staff kept a vigil for draftees with backgrounds that matched the unit's mission. Comprised of lifers and green recruits, enlistees, and draftees, it would seem the only thing DASPO personnel had in common was that they had little in common, as few men followed the same path to the unit. When asked how he was selected for DASPO, retired Hollywood cameraman Stewart Barbee, who served as a DASPO motion picture cameraman from 1969-70, swears, "I still don't know." On the other hand, veteran photographer Peter "Rupy" Ruplenas had seen combat as a Signal Corps photographer in World War II and the Korean War before volunteering to DASPO in 1966.
The three branches of DASPO operated similar to one another, with geographic responsibility the distinguishing difference. Headed by SFC Jack Yamuguchi, DASPO CONUS (Continental United States) was based in the United States, but unlike DASPO Pacific and DASPO Panama, DASPO CONUS was capable of being sent anywhere in the world. In one example, President Johnson sent troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965 to secure the peace after civil unrest broke out. When the Pentagon lost contact with the DASPO Panama detachment, a team from DASPO CONUS was dispatched to cover the rebel invasion. Coming under direct fire, the men were able to disguise themselves and complete the mission, filming the rebel's strength, combat positions, and equipment to earn the Combat Army Commendation Medal. The Panama Detachment, the smallest of the three DASPO entities, totaled eight photographers and was based at Fort Clayton in the Panama Canal Zone, documenting US training inside the Canal Zone, natural disasters, and political developments in Central and South America.
By far and away, the Pacific Detachment of DASPO, nicknamed "Team Charlie," was the most active of the DASPO sections due to its coverage of Vietnam combat operations. Based in Fort Shafter, Hawaii, DASPO Pacific sent rotating teams of photographers into Vietnam for three-month tours of duty, in contrast with conventional combat photography units whose personnel served standard one-year deployments in-country and covered only their unit's activities. Teams usually consisted of a commanding officer, a non-commissioned officer, and between ten to eighteen enlisted sound specialists, motion picture cameramen, and still photographers. Although other military departments and press organizations sent their own photographers into the war zones, DASPO was considered "the Army's elite photographic unit" with unprecedented access to the action.
Team Charlie operated out of a rented three-story gated house in Saigon, only minutes from the Tan Son Nhut Airbase. Dubbed "The Villa," this compound served as both office and barracks from which two and three-person teams would rotate into the field. DASPO photographers followed combat units into every type of terrain in Vietnam; jungles, Highlands, urban settings, swamps, and rice paddies, … capturing the war from a soldier's view and putting themselves at personal risk, suffering the same hardships. Documenting the action at Khe Sanh, Dak To, the La Drang Valley, and countless other operations, photographers would become part of the unit they were covering, enduring what the unit endured, and staying with it until the mission ended or they ran out of film. In one case, Spc. 5 Theodore "Ted" Acheson arrived in Vietnam in February 1968, just days after the Tet Offensive began, and was wounded during a firefight near the city of Hue. Later, during a firefight near La Chu, Acheson filmed a squad of Soldiers destroying a series of enemy bunkers, again exposing himself to hostile fire and shooting one of the only films documenting actions that resulted in a soldier receiving the Medal of Honor, Spc. 4 Robert Patterson. "The film also shows other acts of valor that resulted in two Silver Stars and five Bronze Star medals," Acheson noted.
The primary purpose of DASPO was to inform the Pentagon and the Department of the Army, but their iconic photos and film often accompanied news reports and fed daily television coverage for consumption by the American public, bringing the realities of the Vietnam war into millions of homes. Much of the material they shot was classified at the time and intended either for analysis or use in combat training, but approximately twenty-five percent of their material was made available for publication during and after the war. According to Captain William D. San Hamel, "the Soldiers of DASPO never knew where their products might show up and are still surprised today to suddenly see their work appear. The Army would actually hold auctions where the news media would bid on the photos and footage", he said.
The photographs and film captured by DASPO document the Vietnam War and are now historical artifacts of this period. After the war, DASPO members established the DASPO Archive and a scholarship fund at Texas Tech University. The scholarship funds the preservation of images and audio recordings in the names of Kermit H. Yoho and Charles "Rick" F. Rein, DASPO members who were killed in action in Vietnam. Specialist Yoho was killed on February 10, 1966, when he was hit by an exploding grenade only seven days before returning to Hawaii following his last 90-day assignment in Vietnam. Sargent Rein was shot down in November 1968 by hostile enemy action while flying over the Kontum province.
On March 29, 1973, the last US combat troops left Vietnam following the signing of a peace agreement in Paris and ending over ten years of US intervention. Likewise, the government draft was ended in favor of a volunteer military, and the country began a widespread postwar downsizing. DASPO Pacific was closed in December of 1974, with the remaining personnel and equipment transferred to DASPO CONUS. Eventually, all three DASPO detachments were consolidated and renamed the Army Special Operations Pictorial 
Detachment at Fort Bragg. Today the Army's 55th Combat Camera Company at Fort Meade carries out the mission that began with the formation of DASPO in 1962.
During its thirteen-year history, approximately 325 persons served in roles with DASPO, 200 of them as soldier photographers. Not surprisingly, most continued on to prestigious careers in military and civilian life as photojournalists, advertising executives, Smithsonian and National Geographic photographers, Hollywood special effects cameramen, and news correspondents. The extraordinary images DASPO photographers captured will live as historical artifacts, a permanent and powerful record of the war and global events during an uncertain and highly controversial time, preserved for future generations.
Every veteran has a unique and interesting story to tell. Many of us are plucked out of our lives in the United States and sent to join our chosen branch of service, where we often travel around the country and around the world, engaging our senses in a series of new experiences. Air Force veteran Buck Cole is one of us.
Cole is not only a veteran; he's a retired history teacher, which gives him a unique perspective on what to teach us about the lessons he's learned and - more importantly - how to go about teaching us.
As a veteran who served during the Cold War, he will tell you he was never stationed in a war zone and his only taste of combat came in the form of a bar fight with a sailor in the Philippines. One day, Cole watched a retired Army colonel give a Veterans Day speech to a group of middle schoolers. The colonel spoke in grand "platitudes" about moral conduct, sacrifice, and honor.
A great concept for a Veterans Day speech, Cole thought, but not something that would engage younger generations or their interest in military life and service. Instead of doing something similar, Cole told a story about how he and his barracks bunkmate almost set their building on fire while cooking rice. It wasn't a grand story, but it was an authentic and fun story about military life.
Cole began to think about all the great stories he'd accumulated during his 11 years of service. From leaving his home in Texas and traveling to the Philippines, Europe, and back to the States over the course of his career, he'd garnered many. He set out to retell them in a way that avoided the feel of a Hallmark greeting card.
His stories begin in Waco, Texas, where he grew up in the 1960s and decided to join the U.S. Air Force during the height of the Vietnam War. Younger veterans will relish his descriptions of what it was like to make the transit to basic training at the time.
Air Force veterans will recall their own first experience at Lackland and how some things don't change - like "rainbow flights," "dorm chiefs," and "Dear John" letters. The book is also full of memories from bases long gone, like those of Chanute and Clark Air Force Bases.
Each story is packed with nostalgia, reflections, and lessons learned that anyone with even a cursory interest in history or military service will have trouble putting down. It quickly becomes apparent that so many of us share the same thoughts, whether we joined in the 60s, 80s, or 2000s.
"Blue Boy: Lessons From a Life In Uniform" is his collection of stories and life lessons from Buck Cole's Air Force career. Some 42 years after leaving the service, he published the book in 2022. The journey of writing a book turned out to be a lesson in and of itself, as he struggled to check his facts and choose which stories to tell. His lesson: Don't wait 50 years to write your own story.
But 1814 was a turning point for the British Empire. It had just defeated Napoleon and sent the Emperor to exile on the island of Elba. This victory allowed Britain to move 30,000 veteran soldiers from Europe to North America, where a three-pronged plan threatened to cut the new republic to a shell of its former self. 
The Americans at Fort McHenry knew the British would be coming for them. The commander of the harbor defenses of Baltimore, Maj. George Armistead wanted the British to know who controlled the point defense of Baltimore Harbor before the attack – and who controlled it when the smoke cleared. 
Pickersgill and five associates sewed nonstop for six weeks in preparation for delivery. In August 1813, the flag was delivered to Fort McHenry.
ver the area. With its 15 stripes, each two feet wide (the practice of adding stripes for states wasn't stopped until much later), it weighed 50 pounds and required 11 men to raise. 
After leading the Union Army at the Siege of Vicksburg and his subsequent win at Chattanooga, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General and given overall command of the Union Armies. With the Confederacy now split in two, Grant took over command of the Army of the Potomac while command of the Western Theater fell to Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. 
n Jul. 20, 1864, the Confederates attacked but found Johnston was right. The assault failed, costing Hood casualties he couldn't afford.
ticed his left flank was vulnerable during the night and sent his reserve to defend it. When the rebels launched their “surprise” attack that afternoon, they weren't fighting a baggage train; they were fighting a battle-hardened and fortified infantry. 
Troops have been ordered to sweep sunshine off the sidewalks, vacuum the flight line, and pretend to be a ghost; or my personal experience: an Airman trainee was ordered to speak to everyone using sock puppets because he didn't put his dirty socks into a mesh bag. 
The United States continued using bread and water confinement because it was a more humane way to quickly punish sailors at sea than flogging, which the U.S. Navy discontinued in 1862. 
Cuba. In Europe, the Berlin Wall was constructed following decades-long Soviet blockades leading to the activation of more than 150,000 US guardsmen and reservists together with Operation Stair Step, the largest jet deployment in history. Then in October 1962, provoked by ongoing US efforts against Cuba (Operation Mongoose), the world held its breath as nuclear war was wagered during the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Growing complexity on the world stage, in combination with civil rights reformation, made timely and accurate intelligence at the highest levels of government indispensable. So, in 1962 President Kennedy authorized the formation of an elite special-ops unit, liberated from red tape and able to deploy at a moment's notice. A unit that did not need to wait for orders to mobilize and arrived armed with state-of-the-art equipment to carry out their mission. Christened DASPO, Department of the Army Special Photographic Office, the corps was a Special Forces unit of sorts but comprised of combat photographers.
The unit was populated by cherry-picking the best of the best from the staff at the Army Pictorial Center and students from the Army Signal School at Fort Monmouth, while staff began to fill the ranks of command positions with sound specialists, motion picture cameramen, and still photographers. Meanwhile, Jones (now a Lieutenant Colonel) and his staff kept a vigil for draftees with backgrounds that matched the unit's mission. Comprised of lifers and green recruits, enlistees, and draftees, it would seem the only thing DASPO personnel had in common was that they had little in common, as few men followed the same path to the unit. When asked how he was selected for DASPO, retired Hollywood cameraman Stewart Barbee, who served as a DASPO motion picture cameraman from 1969-70, swears, "I still don't know." On the other hand, veteran photographer Peter "Rupy" Ruplenas had seen combat as a Signal Corps photographer in World War II and the Korean War before volunteering to DASPO in 1966.
Team Charlie operated out of a rented three-story gated house in Saigon, only minutes from the Tan Son Nhut Airbase. Dubbed "The Villa," this compound served as both office and barracks from which two and three-person teams would rotate into the field. DASPO photographers followed combat units into every type of terrain in Vietnam; jungles, Highlands, urban settings, swamps, and rice paddies, … capturing the war from a soldier's view and putting themselves at personal risk, suffering the same hardships. Documenting the action at Khe Sanh, Dak To, the La Drang Valley, and countless other operations, photographers would become part of the unit they were covering, enduring what the unit endured, and staying with it until the mission ended or they ran out of film. In one case, Spc. 5 Theodore "Ted" Acheson arrived in Vietnam in February 1968, just days after the Tet Offensive began, and was wounded during a firefight near the city of Hue. Later, during a firefight near La Chu, Acheson filmed a squad of Soldiers destroying a series of enemy bunkers, again exposing himself to hostile fire and shooting one of the only films documenting actions that resulted in a soldier receiving the Medal of Honor, Spc. 4 Robert Patterson. "The film also shows other acts of valor that resulted in two Silver Stars and five Bronze Star medals," Acheson noted.
The photographs and film captured by DASPO document the Vietnam War and are now historical artifacts of this period. After the war, DASPO members established the DASPO Archive and a scholarship fund at Texas Tech University. The scholarship funds the preservation of images and audio recordings in the names of Kermit H. Yoho and Charles "Rick" F. Rein, DASPO members who were killed in action in Vietnam. Specialist Yoho was killed on February 10, 1966, when he was hit by an exploding grenade only seven days before returning to Hawaii following his last 90-day assignment in Vietnam. Sargent Rein was shot down in November 1968 by hostile enemy action while flying over the Kontum province.
Detachment at Fort Bragg. Today the Army's 55th Combat Camera Company at Fort Meade carries out the mission that began with the formation of DASPO in 1962.
Every veteran has a unique and interesting story to tell. Many of us are plucked out of our lives in the United States and sent to join our chosen branch of service, where we often travel around the country and around the world, engaging our senses in a series of new experiences. Air Force veteran Buck Cole is one of us. 
His stories begin in Waco, Texas, where he grew up in the 1960s and decided to join the U.S. Air Force during the height of the Vietnam War. Younger veterans will relish his descriptions of what it was like to make the transit to basic training at the time.