AT3 Edward D. Krajniak enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1961 as a seventeen-year-old high school graduate. After training as an Aviator Technologist in North Carolina, he was stationed on Annette Island in Alaska. On July 3, 1964, in response to reports of a fishing boat that had hit the Nunez Rocks and was sinking, AT3 Krajniak and his crew set out to find them. A second search-and-rescue crew was also sent, and managed to save two crew members of the boat. On the return trip, however, the weather turned and with rain squalls and overcast skies, and AT3 Krajniak’s plane, the Albatross, did not make it back—its wreckage discovered the next day near the Dall Head on Gravina Island. AT3 Krajniak was twenty years old at the time of his death. It was not war, but service that took his life.

CPT William J. Powers, the son of a WWI Veteran, enlisted in Oct. 1941 at the age of twenty-one and within two years became an officer. He was sent to Germany, where he kept a secret journal tracking where he was every day. He was an artillery specialist and rode in the rear of a plane taking photos to document where the enemy had weapons. His plane was strafed, and he suffered injuries for which he was awarded a Purple Heart. Four days after suffering these injuries, he was back at work. On the last day of his journal, written in tiny letters, are the words war ends. After the war he joined the reserves and served in Korea. In 1956, with trouble brewing in Souteast Asia, he refused a promotion to Major and retired, just shy of the fifteen years needed for a pension.

CPT William FX Kane entered the ROTC program at Niagara University, and was commissioned in the US Army after his graduation In 1966. He served as a military intelligence officer in Vietnam until he was severely wounded in the line of duty. His journey towards recovery from his wounds was long and hard, but it didn’t deter him from becoming a husband, a father of four, and continuing to serve in a variety of ways. He received a Bronze Star and a Soldier’s Medal, among other commendations. After discharge he served in the reserves until 1975. He was an FBI agent for ten years, became a Deacon in the Catholic Church, and later worked for the spiritual well-being of prison inmates as the Director of Prison Ministry for the Archdiocese of Boston. During this time, he learned Spanish so he could better communicate with Spanish speaking inmates. In 2000, Kane traveled to the Dominican Republic, where he eventually founded the Holy Family Parish Mission. To this day, the mission provides medical help to the Dominican town of Cevicos.

1st Lt Dr. Robert Jay Lifton was commissioned in 1951 as an Air Force Psychiatrist and First Lieutenant. He served in Japan and Korea and his landmark studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence span more than a half-century. His book Home from the War has been described as the defining work on the impact that the Vietnam war has had in this world. Earlier works include Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima and The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. He is a recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award, the Holocaust Memorial Award, and numerous other national and international awards, as well as many honorary degrees. His newest book, Surviving Our Catastrophes: Resilience and Renewal from Hiroshima to the Covid-19 Pandemic, was published in 2023.

George Stephen Kovach Sr. enlisted in the US Navy in 1942 when he turned eighteen, a month after graduating from high school in Nyack, NY. He was stationed out of Providence, RI. His unit patrolled the East Coast of the US. The war ended before he was deployed overseas, a deployment he fully anticipated. He married and fathered nine children, raising them in his hometown of Stony Point, NY.

LCpl Thomas J. Vallely was awarded the Silver Star for his “heroic and timely actions and sincere concern for the welfare of his comrades … in the face of overwhelming odds” in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.” He served as a MA State Representative before founding and directing Harvard’s Kennedy School Vietnam Program for thirty-five years. He has created the Fullbright University in Ho Chi Minh City, a free public university, and is currently a Senior Advisor for Vietnam at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute. After his service in the Marine Crops, his life’s work has been to bring “fundamental change” to the relationship between the US and Vietnam.

LTJG William B. Marshall, USNR, was commanding officer of the Patrol Craft 1134, tasked with capturing and securing the beachhead at Leyte in the Central Philippines, “one of the most hazardous operations of the war against the Japanese.” Like many of his generation, he rarely spoke of his war experience, but a photo caption from an official US Navy photograph identifies him as a graduate of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania law school and “the father of a ten-month old daughter he has never seen.” He had been recruited out of law school by the prestigious Manhattan law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he returned after his war service and spent his entire career. 

SGT Stephen Dabney Stockton was set to attend Stanford University to study chemistry on a full scholarship when he was drafted in 1966. He was one of the Army recruits invited into the Marines and was then sent to Officer Candidate School. He turned down a commission in hopes of  becoming a pilot, but was assigned to train as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Specialist. He served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969, disabling explosives discovered or triggered by soldiers in the field. He returned to the US and taught for the Marines, serving additional time in the reserves, finally leaving the service after six years. His goal, to work with cattle on his family’s ranch in the hills of Kern County, CA, were derailed by an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury suffered in Vietnam. Using the GI Bill he completed a college degree at UC Davis, went on to graduate from law school, and eventually founded a successful bio-solid recycling company. He died of cancer in 2022, leaving a son, a stepson, four grandchildren, and many stories his widow Cheryl hopes to document.

SPC George S. Kovach grew up in Stony Point, NY. While attending Boston College part-time in 1969, he was drafted into the US Army. He was deployed to Vietnam on August 3, 1969, and was recognized for his service there with awards that include a Combat Infantry Badge, the Vietnam Service Medal, three Bronze Service Stars, a Purple Heart, the Air Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, and a Bronze Star for Valor. Following his discharge in February 1971, he returned to Boston College and earned a BA in English. He married and settled in New England where his three sons were born and raised. After a career in business, he returned to his true love, literature, earning an MA and then an MFA at UMass Boston. In 2009 he founded CONSEQUENCE Magazine. He died of pancreatic cancer on April 12, 2020.

In the hills of Kern County, CA, on the Horseshoe Ranch land, lies theEngle Stockton Family Cemetery. The family patriarch, Dave Engle (1826-1894) ran away from home in Ohio at age thirteen. He worked on a steamboat on the Mississippi, fought in the Mexican-American War, and raised horses, cattle, and ten children. His daughter Frances married R.L. Stockton, joining the families now interred in this cemetery. It is the resting place of many veterans, including those who knew intimately the consequences of war. They include:

• Irving Isaac Stockton, Private, US Marine Corps in WWI
• Joseph Beatty Engle, Sergeant, US Air Force in WWII
• Lee Edison Engle, Private First Class US Army WWI&II
• Louis Charles Homfeld, Major US Air Force WWII and KOREA
• James Welch Logan Jr., Commander US Navy WWII,  and KOREA
• Jesse De Witt Stockton, 1st Lieutenant US Army WWI; Coast Artillery Infantry
• John Irwin Stockton, US Army Air Corp WWII
• Ralph Trent Stockton, Technician 5th Grade, US Army Cavalry, WWII
• Robert Marion Stockton, Private First Class, US Army, 153rd Infantry Regiment, WWII
• Ward Middleton Stockton, Private First Class, US Army 50th Engineer Combat Regiment, WWII
• Warren William Stockton, Captain, US Army Air Corp, WWII
• Charles Francis Moore, US Navy Radioman, USS Taconic
• Peter Derby Stockton, US Air Force from 1948-52
• Stephen Dabney Stockton, US Marine Corps, 1966-72 Vietnam 68-69