When Americans woke up Sunday morning on December 7, 1941, they were stunned to learn Japanese naval aircraft had attacked Pearl Harbor. What they would soon find out that was only the beginning. Pearl Harbor was just one part of the Japanese plan for the day. Within hours, Japanese naval and ground forces attacked and invaded Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Singapore, Honk Kong, Thailand and Burma.
Ten hours after the devastating surprise attack that crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes launched the first in a deadly series of attacks on the Philippine Islands, bombing and strafing military airfields and bases in and around Manila. Caught in the air raids were ninety-nine army and navy women nurses. Immediately they rushed to their respective hospitals and began assisting with the endless flow of military and civilian casualties. It is almost certain that none ever dreamed they would be thrust into a deadly shooting war.
Unknown to them and others was two Japanese convoys were steaming toward Luzon with thousands of combat forces to defeat Philippine 
forces and their American counterparts.
Japanese forces landed first on the southern tip of Luzon on December 11, far away from Manila to become an immediate concern. Eleven days later on December 22, over 43,000 Japanese troops of General Homma's 14th Army landed at Luzon's Lingayen Gulf with artillery and 100 tanks, catching the already badly war-damaged Manila in a deadly crossfire.
By Christmas, with Japanese ground forces on the outskirts of Manila, American medical personnel were ordered to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula. The Army nurses, together with Navy nurse, Ann A. Bernatitus, under the command of Capt. Maude Davison escaped within hours before Manila fell.
The navy nurses, under the command of Lt. Laura M. Cobb, stayed behind in Manila to support the patients there. She and her 11 navy nurses were soon captured and interned by the Japanese in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp on the campus of the University of Santo Tomas.
In Bataan, two field hospitals had been set up in the steamy jungle wetlands, complete with swamps, bugs, snakes, rats and mosquitoes feasting on patients and nurses, adding Malaria to an ever-growing list of problems. Within hours of arriving, casualties began pouring in. Early patients were placed in hospital beds but as more and more casualties arrived daily, others were stacked on triple-tiered bamboo bunks in overcrowded wards in open-air tents.
Soon the Japanese discovered the hospitals and started heavy aerial bombardments. Nurses dodged bombshell fragments while ministering to their patients. When explosions came close to the wards, some nurses would protect their patients from falling shrapnel by spreading their arms over them.
For four months the women worked their shifts in temperatures that reached 104 degrees. Every sort of Medicine including painkillers were running out. Rations were twice cut in half. Yet ridden with disease, starvation and in constant danger for their lives, these "Angels of Bataan" as they became known, worked from daybreak until dark giving aid to 5,000 wounded men and assisting 
surgeons perform operations.
With the constant bombing by Japanese planes and supplies running out completely, the nurses were ordered to retreat to Corregidor. They were also ordered to leave behind their patients. The women became angry and confused: Their job was to care for their patients, not abandon them. According to diaries and later interviews, they felt like traitors leaving behind "the boys" in their beds in the middle of a jungle wasteland. None ever got over the eyes of their patients as they left to board boats for transport to the tiny island of Corregidor. Each lived to regret it in her own way.
Two days later, on April 9, 1942, the weary, emaciated American soldiers on Bataan surrender to the Japanese. That same day, approximately 60,000-80,000 Filipino and American military prisoners of war began an 
80 mile march to a POW prison at Camp O'Donnell where physical abuse, denied food and water and wholesale murder were widespread it what became known as the Bataan Death March. Some 2,500-10,000 Filipino and 100-650
American prisoners of war died before they could reach their destination.
Conditions and treatment were so bad at Camp O'Donnell, around 20,000 Filipinos and 1,600 Americans died. It was liberated by the US Army and Philippine Commonwealth Army January 30, 1945. Some of the Japanese responsible for the atrocities on the march and in the prison were hanged for war crimes.
When the nurse arrived on the six square mile island of Corregidor, 
they were thrust into the dank underground maze of tunnels dug deep into the bowels of the island. They joined the medical staff already working in the underground hospital and wards in the cavernous Malinta Tunnel.
On April 29, a small group of Army nurses were evacuated, with other passengers, aboard a navy PBY Catalina. On May 3, the sole Navy nurse, Ann Bernatitus, a few more Army nurses, and a small group of civilians were evacuated aboard the submarine USS Spearfish (SS-190).
Three days later, on May 6, 1942, Corregidor surrendered.
At noon a bugler played "taps" as two American officers lowered the Stars and Stripes from the flagpole outside the entrance to Malinta Tunnel. In its place, a single white sheet of surrender was raised. A small piece of the flag was cut off by one officer as a memento and then set the rest of the Red, White and Blue on fire.
Underground the women ripped a large square of cloth from a rough muslin bed sheet and wrote at the top, "Members of the Army Nurse Corps and Civilian Women who were in Malinta Tunnel when Corregidor fell." Underneath in three columns, the 69 women signed their names.
On July 2, 1942, the nurses were transported to the Santo Tomas Internment Camp. Capt. Davison, 57 years old and with 20 years of service experience, took command of the nurses and instructed her fellow nurse captives to put on their working uniforms and create an infirmary. The Angels of Bataan had arrived.
Over the course of two years, the nurses ministered to captive soldiers and American civilians. To maintain morale, Davison created a structure within the ranks, requiring nurses to work at least four-hour shifts each day. She wisely understood that keeping her nurses busy caring for others would 
give them purpose and less time thinking about their own miseries.
In May 1943, the navy nurses, still under the command of Lt. Cobb, were transferred to a new internment camp at Los Banos, where they established an infirmary and continued working as a nursing unit and became known as "the sacred eleven."
Photo was taken of the navy nurses shortly after they were liberated in February 1945.
In January 1944, control of the Santo Tomas Internment Camp changed from Japanese civil authorities to the Imperial Japanese Army, with whom it remained until the camp was liberated. 
Access to outside food sources was curtailed, the diet of the internees was reduced to 960 calories per person per day by November 1944, and further reduced to 700 calories per person per day by January 1945.
The nurses lost, on average, 30% of their body weight during internment, and subsequently experienced a degree of service-connected disability "virtually the same as the male ex-POW's of the Pacific Theater." Maude Davison's bodyweight dropped from 156 lbs. to 80 lbs.
News of the captured military nurses spread throughout the U.S. While their status as POWs was known, details of their living conditions were sketchy. Using the plight of the nurses as a battle cry on the home front, 
federal authorities distributed posters urging American citizens to "Work! To set 'em free!"
Lt. Juanita Redmond, one of the few nurses to escape during the last few days before Corregidor surrendered, published a memoir of her experiences on Bataan in 1943 that concluded with a dramatic reminder that her colleagues were still prisoners. Her best-selling book, "I Served on Bataan," was also the basis for the motion picture, "So Proudly We Hail." In the theaters where the movie was shown, recruitment booths staffed with Red Cross volunteers were set up in the lobbies.
True to his promise that he would return to liberate the Filipino people, General Douglas MacArthur's forces retook the Philippine Islands from the Japanese. The internees at Santo Tomas, including the nurses, were liberated on February 3, 1945, by a "flying column" of the 1st Cavalry. The navy nurses were subsequently liberated in the Raid at Los Banos.
While thousands of men had died during the course of the Philippines Campaign, all 77 nurses made it out alive. 
Through four years of deprivation, cruelty and constant death, they valiantly served to save others. None of the Army or Navy nurses are thought to survive today. Many died fairly young. Others had 
chronic gastrointestinal and dental problems, as well as emotional and post-traumatic stress symptoms.
The men whose lives were touched by the Angels of Bataan and Corregidor erected a bronze plaque in their honor on April 9, 1980. It is at the Mount Samat shrine on the Bataan Peninsula. It reads:
TO THE ANGELS-- In honor of the valiant American military women who gave so much of themselves in the early days of World War II. They provided care and comfort to the gallant defenders of Bataan and Corregidor. 
They lived on a starvation diet, shared the bombing, strafing, sniping, sickness and disease while working endless hours of heartbreaking duty. These nurses always had a smile, a tender touch and a kind word for their patients. They truly earned the name--THE ANGELS OF BATAAN AND CORREGIDOR.
a huge explosion shattered the silence, killing dozens of Iraq's.
When it became apparent that Al-Qaeda terrorists had used women with the minds of children to carry out their suicide bombings, Iraqis were horrified and angry. The American commanders were equally upset, taking immediate action by preparing an attack on 
the Al-Qaeda cell responsible. A few days later, on February 4, 2008, a raid was executed on the terrorists' compound.
Both also came from families with a tradition of service. Hardy's grandfather served with John F. Kennedy on PT-109 during WWII. Koch's dad had a career in the U.S. Air Force and later, he and his wife became civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nate Hardy was born December 28, 1978 in Cape Cod. He grew up in Washington and Pennsylvania and his family settled in New Hampshire in 1988. It was in high school where Nate, a star soccer and lacrosse player, made the decision to join the Navy and become a SEAL immediately after graduation. Nate joined the Navy in 1997, following in the footsteps of his two grandfathers, both Navy veterans. After graduating from BUD/s in May of 1998 with class 221, he was subsequently assigned to SEAL Team 8 out of Virginia Beach where he served from 1998 until attending U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group's (DEVGRUs) Green Team selection course in 2007.
During visits to his grandparents' farm near Jersey Shore, he practiced rappelling by descending the silo. Family outings might include skydiving and snowmobiling.
After graduating from SEAL training, Mike served in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
At the time of his death, Nate was survived by his wife Mindy and his seven month old son Parker, his parents and brother. It was his fourth deployment in Iraq, according to his father, Stephen Hardy, a University of New Hampshire professor of kinesiology. 
His mother, Donna Hardy, is an administrative assistant in UNH's psychology department.
Mike and his sister were born on an Air Force base in Omaha, Nebraska, and Matthew was born on 
another base in New Mexico.
Mike and Nate are buried side-by-side each other at Arlington National Cemetery.
Reagan was sent to Con Thien, Vietnam, in the summer of 1967, and he served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a corporal in the 3rd battalion, 4th Marine Regiment from 1966 to 1969. "I wondered, what am I doing here? There's some pretty scary stuff happening," said Reagan.
That desire to become an artist drove him to the Burnley School for Professional Art in Seattle when he was 27 years old. "I didn't realize how hard it was going to be, but the harder it got, the harder I worked, and I knew this was what I wanted to be," said Reagan.
After 25 years of portraits, Reagan got a call from a local TV news station in Seattle to do a story, and the station said to him, "You know what Mike? We realized that over the 25 years you've been doing this work for charities, you've raised over $10 million," said Reagan.
Reagan was very moved by Johnson's wife, and he knew this portrait wasn't going to be his last one after that, and that's how the Fallen Heroes Project was born in 2004. "The year before I did this project I was paid $75,000 by the Mariners to do a painting, but this project took over my life, and I figure I needed to do this. I said to my wife, 'You know this is going to change our life, but it was OK because she knew what this meant to me," said Reagan.
"I have a soft spot in my heart for Mike Reagan", says TWS Chief Administrator Diane Short. "I was working with Mike on our monthly newsletter "Voices" in which he tells his story, when my dad passed away."
This project and these wonderful families that allow me 
to do this work for them have allowed that hole to be filled in my soul again," said Reagan. "I made a commitment to the Marine Corps, and they taught me what commitment was all about and the Fallen Heroes Project is a lifetime commitment."
In late 1944, in the wake of the allied forces' successful D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, it seemed as if the Second World War was all but over. Rumors spread that soldiers would be home by Christmas. So certain this would be the case, troops were not issued sufficient winter gear. But the offensive that
had liberated most of France and Belgium slowed down upon reaching the German border. Americans dug into a pocket of eastern Belgium and Luxembourg with much of it in the densely forested Ardennes region.
Seeking to split the Allied armies, the Germans struck along a seventy-five-mile stretch of the front characterized by dense woods and few roads, held by four inexperienced and battle-worn American divisions stationed there for rest and resupply.
cutting communications lines, and spreading rumors. Those caught were executed as spies by a firing squad.
A crucial German shortage of fuel and the gallantry of American troops fighting and dying in the frozen forests of the Ardennes proved fatal to Hitler's ambition to snatch, if not victory, at least a draw with the Allies in the west. Lieutenant General George S. Patton's remarkable feat of turning the Third Army ninety degrees from Lorraine to relieve the besieged town of Bastogne, held by the 101st Airborne Division, was the key to stopping the German counteroffensive.
Bastogne gets the most visitor attention, because of the drama of the rescue.
A popular tourist destination is the Mardasson Memorial located near Bastogne. This monument, in the form of a five-pointed American star, was designed to honor the memory of the 76,890 American soldiers killed, wounded or missing in the Battle of the Bulge. Among recent visitors, there was an American military family stationed in Germany.
We chose to drive from our house to Bastogne, Belgium, home to the Battle of Bastogne.
The five points of the stars listed every 
American state represented by the troops that fought alongside the Belgians.
to the memorial, rain or shine, and he sits on that bench. I asked him if his family fought in the war, and he said yes. Then, I then asked him why he came every day. What the old man said moved me. 
He took a slow, deep breath, and quietly said, 'Because I must.'"
Bosnia ignited the firestorm that ended up costing millions of lives, but it was the culmination of much deeper root causes that had been part of the European fabric for hundreds of years.
Then Japan entered the war. Later, Italy and the United States would enter on the side of the allies.
As the world entered the 20th century, an arms race had begun. By 1914, Germany had the greatest increase in military buildup. Great Britain and Germany both greatly increased their navies in this time period. 
In Germany and Russia particularly, the military establishment began to have a greater influence on public policy. This increase in militarism helped push the countries involved to war.
The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand and Sophie in Sarajevo, Bosnia by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip set off a rapid chain of events, fueled by centuries of alliances, imperialism, militarism and nationalism. 
The assassination was in protest to Austria-Hungary having control of this region. Serbia wanted to take over Bosnia and Herzegovina. This assassination led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. When Russia began to mobilize due to its alliance with Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia. Thus began the expansion of the war to include all those involved in the mutual defense alliances.
What makes "The Patient was Vietcong" different than the standard Vietnam War narrative of books and movies and all those memoirs? Because it is about a healer whose remarkable and uncommon and humbling experiences in a strange land with widely different cultures leads to a self-discovery that is both enlightening and satisfying.
Liking the idea that he would go over as a healer not a warrior whose military mission it was to take care of civilians, he volunteered. After he arrived, he faithfully keep a diary, which became the basis for his book years later.
Rhade Montagnard, the indigenous peoples of Vietnam's Central Highlands.
About the Author
He also spent six months in England studying neurology at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Maida Vale, and psychiatry where a new concept, social and community psychiatry, was being explored and applied. He received his M.D. in 1964. He entered the U.S. Army in 1965.