By Jonathan Alexander
A church gathering, a pink dress and a comment to a friend 60 years ago set in motion the story of Beatrice Dimas. The party provided the scene, her dress caught young Alfred Dimas' eye, and his words said it all: she would be his.
By Christopher Trout
Alfred Dimas has spent his life in pursuit of adventure. This pursuit took him across the United States to find work wherever he could during the Depression, and in 1942 it took him into the U.S. Army as a volunteer.
But no matter where Dimas went or what he did, he says he always worked to keep his family alive.
By Erin Dean
Everything is "beautiful" to Ralph Chavarria, an 88-year-old World War II veteran of the Pacific Theater, who is, to this day, a well-known musician in the Phoenix, Ariz., area.
Chavarria survived a tough childhood full of discrimination and segregation and was drafted at the age of 27, by which point he was already a husband and a father. But he describes nearly everything in his life as beautiful.
"It was very interesting and beautiful, but it's war and it's dangerous, ok," he said about his missions as a firefighter in the Air Force.
By Katie Gibson
For William Henry Todd, enlisting in the National Guard and serving during World War II transformed him from a child to a man.
"The Army was a school for me. It taught me many things," Todd said. "When I joined the National Guard, I didn't have anything ... to call my own.
"For the first time in my life, I was standing on my own two feet.”