Feb. 21, 2005:
Mr. Ron McReynolds, Saukville resident, was a Navy SEAL during the Vietnam War, serving two combat tours. He shared the inspirational story of how his strong faith got him through the tortuous training and battle.

March 21, 2005:
Mr. Gerd Lindemann, now living in western Michigan, was a German Army major serving under Field Marshall Erwin Rommel in the Afrika Korps during WW2. After participating in the legendary North African battles of Tobruk, El Alemein, and Kasserine Pass, he and the remaining German forces were captured and sent to POW camps in the U.S. for the rest of the war.

Dec. 6, 2004:
Cletus Brown of Green Bay was joined impromptu by two other U.S. Army survivors to tell of the infamous Korean War battle of the Chosin Reservoir, where a surprise counter-offensive by several hundred thousand Chinese troops overwhelmed American soldiers and Marines, proving to be the turning point of the war.

Nov. 4, 2004:
Owen Williams of Mukwonago served aboard the USS Barb, with Commander Eugene Fluckey, recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, in the Pacific theater of WW2. The USS Barb sank the most enemy tonnage of any American submarine in the pacific.

Oct. 7, 2004:
Charles Russell of West Bend, served with the U.S. Army's highly decorated 45th Infantry Division during WW2 and the final push across the Rhine River into the heart of Germany.

Sept. 9, 2004:
Retired Army Colonel Bill Sefton, Grand Rapids, MI, was a young lieutenant with the 101st Airborne Division, seeing heavy combat in WW2, beginning with the parachute assault behind German lines the night before D-Day, another parachute assault in Holland, and then during the "Battle of the Bulge" where the 10lst made its heroic stand at Bastogne.

June 2, 2004:
Retired Army Colonel Milo Flaten, formerly of Milwaukee, was just a 19-year old private in the 29th Infantry Division when his fate was to be the first man off the first boat in the first wave at Omaha Beach on D-Day. By the end of the day, he would be the only survivor from that landing craft and would earn the Silver Star for valor.

May 5, 2004:
Mr. Bob Seitz, a Milwaukee native, was shot down over Czechoslovakia in 1944 while piloting a crippled B-17. Lt. Seitz and his crew were able to bail out, but all were captured and managed to survive with severe injuries, despite months of deprivation and long forced marches. They would be liberated by Gen Patton and his troops.

April 1, 2004
Mr. A.J. Ugent, a veteran of the 14th Tank Battalion, 9th Armored Division, gave us a first hand account of the battle for and crossing of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River, the "Bridge at Remagen", that led to the penetration of U.S. forces into the heart of Germany in March, 1945.

Mar. 4, 2004
Our second biggest crowd ever heard of the heroic Ploesti oil refinery raid of August 1, 1943 as told by retired Army Air Corps Major, Bob Sternfels, of Laguna Beach California, pilot of the famous B-24 "The Sandman", and Mr. Leroy Paulin of Grafton, who shared his rememberances of Lt. Roy Harms, Grafton, WI, who was killed in that raid. Five Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded to pilots for that mission, the most Medals of Honor for any one day of WWII.

Feb. 5, 2003
Charlie Imbruglia, who was the guest speaker at our very first program, shared his story as a survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor while he was aboard the battleship Maryland.

Jan. 8, 2004
The unprovoked attack on the U.S. Navy intelligence ship Liberty during the 1967 "Six Day Arab/Israeli War" was the topic, as presented by a BBC video and interviews with surviving crewman Mr. John Hrankowski of Rochester, NY, and Grafton Village Trustee, Mr. Jim Grant.

Nov. 3, 2003
Mr. Ted Spriggs, Fullerton, CA, was a combat medic with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in the A Shau Valley, which included the battles of "Bloody Ridge" and "Hamburger Hill."

Oct. 6, 2003
Army 1st Sgt (retired) Al Lynch, from Gurnee, IL, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroic action in the Vietnam War for fighting off an overwhelming North Vietnamese attack on his position while he rescued and protected wounded comrades.

Sept. 2, 2003
U.S. Army Colonel (Retired) Don Ebner spoke of his combat experiences as a young Marine enlisted man in the Korean War. He later commanded the Army Nike Missile Site in Waukesha during the Cold War.

June 2, 2003
Retired Army Colonel Tom Makal, of Mequon, WI, is a WWII veteran of the Italy campaign and later was instrumental in reshaping the U.S. 32nd Infantry Division ("The Red Arrow Division")

May. 5, 2003
Retired Navy Commander Mike Callahan of Cedarburg told of his service during World War II in the Pacific and later during the Korean War, where he was involved in many major battles.

Apr. 7, 2003
One of America's most decorated soldiers from the Vietnam War, LTC Harold Fritz, recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, told us of his many combat experiences. This Lake Geneva, WI, native now lives and works in Springfield, IL, with the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Mar. 3, 2003
"America's Secret War" with retired USAF LTC John Duffy of Cedarburg who flew 136 combat helicopter missions in Laos in support of secret CIA and Air Force activities during the Vietnam War.

Feb. 5, 2003
Mr. Nathan Irwin of Mequon was a commando in the Naval Combat Demolition Unit (which evolved into the present day Navy SEALS), who, a few hours before H-Hour on D-Day, helped clear Utah Beach of German obstacles and mines.

Jan. 6, 2003
OCMHC co-founder Ken Grigas presented "The Malmady Massacre Story" through his knowledge of the Battle of the Bulge, followed by a portion of the video interview we conducted last summer of massacre survivor, Sgt. Henry "Roy" Zack.

Dec. 2, 2002
Mr. Glenn Dohrmann of Cedarburg, recounted for us again some of his experiences in the Korean War as an infantry officer with the Army's 1st Cavalry Division including being wounded 3 times within minutes during a fierce close combat assault with the Chinese Army on "Old Baldy".

Oct. 30, 2002:
Bob Sanders of Port Washington, a World War II Marine, told of his experiences at Tarawa, the Pacific atoll fortress where 5,000 U.S. Marines stormed the beach against an equal number of well-fortified Japanese troops, where nearly 6,000 men - mostly Japanese - were killed in just three days.

Oct. 2, 2002:
Retired Air Force Major James Bruno of Brookfield, WI, WWII B-17 pilot and survivor of 50 combat missions, told many of the war stories recounted in his book "Beyond Fighter Escort." Joining Mr. Bruno was Mr. Variel Wapples of Fort Atkinson, a B-17 crewsman who bailed out and was captured by the Germans, spending the rest of the war in Stalag 17.

Sept 4, 2002:
We opened our 3rd season with Mr. Gene Juergens of Grafton, a WWII veteran of the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division. Mr. Juergens fought in all the Division's battles from Sicily to Italy, from Normandy to Holland, from the Battle of the Bulge through to V-E Day, earning the Bronze Star for Valor.

June 3, 2002:
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Fred Olivi, a native of Chicago's South Side, was the co-pilot of the B-29, nicknamed "Bockscar", which dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, "the bomb that ended World War II". We had a record crowd of nearly 200 people in attendance.

May 6, 2002:
Eau Claire historian Betty Cowley, presented highlights from her fascinating new book, "Stalag Wisconsin", the definitive resource on WWII prisoner-of-war camps in the Badger State. Former German soldiers Dr. Harry Hetz from Kenilworth, IL, and Kurt Pechmann, from Madison, WI, added to Ms. Cowley's presentation with thier personal stories of life in several of Wisconsin's POW camps.

April 3, 2002:
Cedarburg resident and former U.S. Army Captain Ray Ronchetti, was with the 9th Cavalry of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and Fifth Special Forces Group, 1966-67. As pilot of a four-man "Huey" gun ship, he earned 26 Air Medals (650 hours of combat flying), bringing fire on enemy positions in support of the Air Cav troopers, later deep insertion missions with Green Berets behind enemy lines.

March 4, 2002:
The WWII campaign in the Alsace region of France coincided with the more infamous "Battle of the Bulge", but was as fierce as any in the War. One of our guest speakers, "Hub" Ranger, of the 79th infantry division, was among tens of thousands of U.S. infantry and armored division soldiers engaged in this battle. Our other guest speaker, Norman Neitzke, joined Easy Company, 506th regiment, of the 101st airborne division in January, 1945. This highly decorated small unit was popularized in Steven Ambrose's book "Band of Brothers", which was made into the recent HBO mini-series by the same name.

February 4, 2002:
United States Marines, Clayton Chipman and Rollo Eberhardt, who fought the Japanese on the tiny, infamous volcanic island of Iwo Jima, February-March, 1945, gave first-hand testimony to the battle where, in six weeks, the Marines lost nearly 7,000 men killed and 20,000 wounded. Almost all of the 21,000 Japanese defenders died. It was here, atop Mt. Suribachi overlooking the island that the most famous photograph of the 20th century was taken, the raising of the American Flag.

January 7, 2002:
Rev. Ernest Norquist of Milwaukee, and Mr. Harold Jerschefske, a lifelong Ozaukee County resident, were U.S. Army soldiers who fought bravely until the fall of the Philippines to the Japanese, and who then survived the Bataan Death March and nearly three and a half years of brutal treatment as POWs.

December 4, 2001:
Mike Kuryla, USN, now of Poplar Grove, IL, and Mel Jacob, USMC, of Madison, WI, survived "the worst disaster at sea in the history of the U.S. Navy"--the Japanese torpedo attack on the USS Indianapolis and the next five days in the sea, while hundreds of men around them died from their wounds, dehydration, suicide, and sharks, in the final days of WWII.

Nov. 5, 2001: Retired USAF Major General John L. Borling of suburban Chicago was Head of Operations for the Strategic Air Command during the Gulf War, and held other major command positions following his release after six-and-a-half years as a POW of the North Vietnamese. He now heads up SOS America, a growing organization that advocates compulsory military or civilian service for all of America's young men and women.

June 4, 2001:
Mr. Ray Kubly, lifelong Watertown resident, was bombardier on a B-17 shot down on a mission over Germany. For the next five months he managed to avoid capture before making it back to friendly forces in Holland. He eventually retired as a Lt. Colonel and served on the Watertown School Board.

May 7, 2001:
Mr. Glenn Dohrmann, enlisted in the Army shortly after V-J Day in 1945, was later commissioned through Infantry OCS then wounded three times over a ten-minute period during the hill fighting in the Korean War as a platoon leader with the 1st Cavalry Division. Glenn is a long time Cedarburg resident, retired from the insurance industry.

April 2, 2001:
Mr. Frank Dick came to us from Adrian, Michigan, where is Chairman of the Board and CEO of Gleaner Life Insurance Co. As a young Army private six months after high school, he found himself in the midst of the Battle of the Bulge with the 80th Infantry Division. He later became Superintendent of Schools in Toledo, Ohio.

March 5, 2001:
Mr. Bill Wells of suburban Los Angeles, is a Korean War veteran with the 3rd Infantry Division, and is past president of the Custer Battlefield Historical Association and publisher of The Advocate, a quarterly newsletter dedicated to educating the public and preserving the heritage of General Custer and his men. Bill is an authority on the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

Feb. 5, 2001:
Mr. Carl Strom, of suburban Grand Rapids, Michigan, was a lieutenant with the Army's 36th Infantry Division in Italy and France and saw action in the long and brutal Monte Cassino battle, and was on the disastrous assault across the Rapido River. The recipient of three Purple Hearts, Carl is now retired from the travel industry.

Jan. 8, 2001:
Mr. Bob Armbruster, lifelong Cedarburg resident, was a navigator on a B-24 Liberator bomber in the final months of WWII, with several missions over Germany. Owner of Armbruster Jewelers in downtown Cedarburg, Bob is a familiar figure in veterans affairs.

Dec. 4, 2000:
Mr. Charlie Imbruglia, a survivor of "The Day of Infamy" attack on Pearl Harbor. Now serving as chaplain of the Peter Wollner Post of the Cedarburg American Legion, Charlie was a crewman on the battleship Oklahoma and saw many of his shipmates killed in the surprise Japanese attack.