Portrait of a Veteran

At 18, Union soldier Dorence Atwater was imprisoned at Andersonville, where 50 prisoners died daily. Assigned to record the deaths, he secretly copied the register. He smuggled it out, risked court-martial, and worked with Clara Barton to identify 13,000 graves. His courage saved thousands of families from never knowing what happened to their sons.

Dorence Atwater was 18 years old when he was captured by Confederate forces.

He was a Union soldier—young, idealistic, fighting for what he believed was right. Like thousands of other Union prisoners, he was sent to Confederate prison camps.
First to Belle Isle in Richmond, Virginia. Then, in early 1864, to a place that would become synonymous with Civil War horror: Andersonville.
Camp Sumter—better known as Andersonville—was a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia. It was designed to hold 10,000 men. At its peak, it held over 32,000.
The conditions were hellish. No shelter. Contaminated water. Insufficient food. Disease was rampant. Men died of dysentery, scurvy, gangrene, starvation.
Approximately 50 prisoners died every day.
Dorence Atwater, sick himself, was hospitalized at the camp. His captors noticed something: he had excellent handwriting, neat and legible—the result of his pre-war work as a clerk.
They gave him a job: maintaining the death register. Recording the name, rank, regiment, and date of death of every Union prisoner who died at Andersonville.
It was grim work. Day after day, Atwater wrote down names. Fifty names a day. Sometimes more. Thousands of names over the months he served in this capacity.
But Atwater recognized something crucial: this list mattered.
These weren't just names. They were sons, brothers, fathers, husbands. Families back home had no idea what happened to them. The Confederacy wasn't systematically reporting Union deaths. Many of these men would simply disappear—listed as missing, with families never knowing their fate.
So Atwater made a decision that could have gotten him executed: he secretly created a duplicate copy of the death register.
Every name he recorded in the official register, he also copied onto his own hidden list. He kept this list concealed, knowing that if discovered, he'd likely be killed.
By the time the war ended in 1865, Atwater had recorded approximately 13,000 deaths.
When Andersonville was evacuated and Atwater was liberated, he smuggled his secret list out with him.
He returned to Union territory with something invaluable: the only complete, accurate record of who had died at Andersonville.
The U.S. Army wanted the list. But Atwater refused to hand it over.
He'd seen how military bureaucracy worked. He feared the Army would suppress the list, or lose it, or that it would disappear into some file cabinet where families would never see it.
Instead, he took the list to Clara Barton.
Clara Barton was already famous as a nurse who'd worked tirelessly during the war. After the war ended, she established an office to help families locate missing soldiers—the Missing Soldiers Office.
When Atwater showed her his list, she immediately understood its significance.
In 1865, Barton and Atwater traveled to Andersonville together. Using his list, they identified and marked the graves of nearly 13,000 Union soldiers who had died there.
They erected headboards with names, creating the first national cemetery on the site where so many had died.
It was heroic work. Families who'd spent years wondering what happened to their loved ones finally got answers.
But the U.S. Army was furious with Atwater.
They claimed he had "stolen" government property—the death register he'd copied. In March 1866, they court-martialed him.
The charges were absurd. Atwater had risked his life to preserve information the government had failed to protect. He'd worked with Clara Barton to honor the dead and give families closure.
But the Army convicted him anyway, sentencing him to 18 months of hard labor.
There was public outcry. Clara Barton defended him vigorously, calling him a hero. Newspapers took up his cause.
After serving just two months, Atwater was released.
And then he published the list.
In February 1866, the New York Tribune published Atwater's complete Andersonville death register. Every name. Every date.
Families across the North could finally learn what had happened to their missing sons.
Clara Barton wrote the introduction, praising Atwater's "forethought, courage, and perseverance." She called his work a gift—a sad gift, but one offered in the spirit of kindness and truth.
Dorence Atwater was 21 years old. He'd survived Andersonville. He'd been court-martialed for doing the right thing. And he'd given thousands of families the closure they desperately needed.
But his story doesn't end there.
With Clara Barton's support, Atwater was appointed U.S. Consul to the Seychelles Islands, and later to Tahiti.
In Tahiti, he thrived. He became a successful businessman. He married a Tahitian woman named Moetia Salmon from a prominent local family. He became deeply integrated into Tahitian society.
He befriended Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous author, who visited Tahiti. Stevenson admired Atwater's resilience and adventurous spirit—the young man who'd survived hell and built a new life in paradise.
Atwater lived in Tahiti for over 40 years. He was respected, successful, and happy—a remarkable contrast to the horrors of his youth.
When he died in February 1910 at age 65, he was buried in Tahiti's royal cemetery in Arue—a significant honor reflecting the esteem in which he was held.
His funeral was attended by Tahitian royalty and dignitaries. For a young Union soldier from Connecticut who'd survived Andersonville, it was an extraordinary ending to an extraordinary life.
Dorence Atwater's legacy is profound.
His secret list saved families from the torture of never knowing. The 13,000 names he preserved represent 13,000 families who got answers, who could grieve properly, who could honor their dead.
His courage in defying the Army—risking court-martial to ensure the truth was published—demonstrated remarkable moral conviction.
And his later life showed that survival isn't just about enduring trauma—it's about building something meaningful afterward.
At 18, Dorence Atwater was a prisoner in hell, recording the deaths of 50 men a day.
At 21, he was a convicted criminal for refusing to let those deaths be forgotten.
By 65, he was an honored member of Tahitian society, a successful businessman, a man who'd lived fully despite—or perhaps because of—what he'd endured.
His story reminds us that even in the darkest circumstances, individual courage matters.
One 18-year-old soldier, risking ex*****on to copy names in secret, ultimately gave closure to thousands of families.
That's not just heroism. That's the power of one person refusing to let the truth be buried.

61 years later...and this veteran thought he was only getting a Purple Heart!

Vietnam veteran awarded five service medals 61 years after final tour More than 60 years after his final tour in Vietnam, Cliff Gottlob received a medal he has long been waiting for. The 86-year-old Army veteran was pinned the Purple Heart on Nov. 8 during a ceremony at American Legion Post 18 in Arkansas City, Kan. But more medals were uncovered that he was long dese...

The picture was labeled “No Man Left Behind”.

It’s of two young Marines helping a wounded Marine from a building known as the “Hell House” from the Battle of Fallujah.

The wounded Marine is 1stSgt Brad Kasal, now retired SgtMaj, holding his service pistol in one hand, and his K-Bar in the other.

His actions that day earned him a Navy Cross for valor.

That image was turned into a statue by the father of a young Marine who was killed in Iraq earlier, LCpl Chance Phelps.

There was an HBO movie made about his return stateside starring Kevin Bacon and Tom Wopat, who played LCpl Phelps' father called, "Taking Chance."

In March 1945, 22-year-old Ensign Jane Louise “Candy” Kendeigh, a Navy flight nurse from Ohio, made history as the first U.S. Navy nurse to land on an active Pacific battlefield during World War II.

Born on March 30, 1922, in Henrietta Township, Jane graduated from nursing school in Cleveland before joining the Navy’s School of Air Evacuation in 1944. The grueling training prepared her for high-altitude medical care, crash survival, and even hand-to-hand combat. Assigned to the Naval Air Transport Service’s medical evacuation squadron in Guam, Jane boarded a C-47 on March 6, 1945, heading to Iwo Jima amid a fierce battle. As her plane circled the island, dodging enemy mortar fire, she prepared to tend to the wounded. Upon landing, she stepped onto the volcanic ash, greeted by the whistles of astonished Marines, and worked tirelessly to stabilize and evacuate 2,393 wounded servicemen over 15 days.

After a brief return to the US for a war bond drive, Jane requested to go back to the Pacific, landing on Okinawa on April 7, 1945, just days after the invasion, where she again braved combat to save lives. Her courage helped evacuate 1,176,048 military patients during the war, with only 46 deaths en route. Jane’s quiet heroism, marked by “wan smiles” and nods of gratitude from her patients, left a lasting legacy. This hero passed away on July 19, 1987, in San Diego.

"I came ashore with just an M-1 rifle. As the fellas you were trained with got wiped away, you'd fill in with another weapon. They'd call you forward with mortars or machine guns. I fired the bazooka, the .30-caliber machine gun, the .50-caliber machine gun -- and the flamethrower. We had a Ka-Bar knife that we carried in our leggings. I used it to open C-ration cans and to do stuff I didn't want printed in the newspaper.

There was a cave where the Japanese had us stopped. It had to be some kind of office for Japanese troops. There was a huge rock in front of it. They had a Nambu machine gun -- the fastest-firing weapon the Japanese had -- in front of the cave. I got the machine gunner with the flamethrower. He was one guy who wasn't going to go back and tell any stories.

Then I laid the flamethrower on top of the rock and put a burst in the cave. The flamethrower dried up all the oxygen and wiped you completely out. It took your skin off down to the bone. Nothing was left. No matter who was in there or how many, they were gone.

I didn't hear much screaming. Everyone who was inside the cave was fried.

One guy got brave. He was ahead of the flame, just behind the rock, and he took off after I shot the burst. He ran by me, heading for an old shell crater with water in it. As he went by me, I let him have a spurt. He was screaming for a little bit. I made sure he was dead." - U.S. Marine Stanley A. Parks (Holding a captured Japanese bugle) Lima Co., 3rd BN, 5th Marines, Peleliu, Sept 15, 1944.

"...his helicopter violently crashed, he was blown up, shot and stabbed by a bayonet but somehow kept fighting!"

US Army Medal of Honor Recipient Specialist Fourth Class Gary G. Wetzel.
Gary Wetzel risked his life and sacrificed his limb in the name of saving as many men as he could. Despite suffering extensive wounds that might’ve taken out most men he survived and when duty called, he answered.

On January 8, 1968, Wetzel was a Private First Class serving as a door gunner in the 173rd Assault Helicopter Company. On that day, near Ap D**g An Province, Wetzel’s helicopter, hit by a rocket-propelled gr***de and crashed violently into the ground.

Two of the helicopters crew were killed outright by enemy fire. While going to the aid of his aircraft commander, Wetzel was blown into a rice paddy by a homemade gr***de that shredded his entire upper left arm and caused severe wounds to his right arm, chest, and left leg.
Without hesitation, and despite profuse bleeding, he staggered back to his gun well, tucked his mangled arm into his waistband, and took the enemy under fire.

Wetzel’s machine gun was the only weapon placing effective fire on the enemy, and although severely wounded, Wetzel remained at his position until he had taken out the automatic weapons emplacement that had been inflicting heavy casualties on the US troops and preventing them from moving against the enemy.

Passing in and out of consciousness, Wetzel sustained a stab wound to his right thigh from a bayonet. He disregarded his own wounds and returned to aid his crew chief who was attempting to drag the wounded aircraft commander to safety. He continued to grab other wounded and pull them across the rice paddy, all the while losing consciousness and blood.
After Wetzel and the other survivors were rescued the next morning, he spent a week on the critical list. His arm was amputated in a field hospital, but he had to undergo another surgery because of infection. After five months in hospitals, Wetzel began to learn how to live a productive civilian life with a prosthetic arm.

When asked what the Medal of Honor meant to him, Wetzel replied,
“When I was in the hospital, where the doctors took out more than four hundred stitches, some of the guys I pulled out who were recovering from their wounds found out I was there. They would walk up to my bed and ask, ‘Are you Gary Wetzel?’ And I’d say, ‘Yeah,’ and they would pull out pictures of their wives, kids, or girlfriends and say, ‘Hey, man, because of you, this is what I’ve got to go back to.” Wetzel would reply, “I’m not Superman. I was just a guy doing his job.”

Jack Moran, age 97, stands in front of a German bunker his division destroyed during WWII on the Siegfried Line. Jack served with the 87th Infantry Division, 347th Regiment during the assault into Germany 1945. This was the first time he returned to this location in seventy-eight years.

When SgtMaj Sarah Thorton, USMC, retired on 31 July 1974 she had more time in service than any other woman. In this picture she was the personnel officer at 29 Palms. Sarah was a life member of WMA.

Happy 101st birthday to Lieutenant Commander Lou Conter, one of the two remaining survivors who were on board USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He became a PBY Catalina pilot during the war and was shot down twice. Following the outbreak of the Korean War, he flew 29 combat missions in an AD Skyraider. He later established the Navy's first Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program.

Captain Leo Schweiter, a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, poses for the camera with his M1A1 Carbine in June of 1944, after the Battle of Carentan in Normandy, France.

After 6 days of fierce fighting, the men of the 101st paved the way for the US Army to capture the town of Carentan, but at a high price. On the evening of the second day of fighting, German bombers struck the paratroopers of the 101st, killing and wounding many of the men. The 502nd PIR’s third battalion, led by Lt. Colonel Robert Cole, suffered so many casualties that they later called the contested ground Purple Heart Lane.

After repelling the Germans and taking the town for good, the 101st would remain in Carentan on occupation duty until the end of June, before moving back to England in early July to prepare for the next offensive: Operation Market Garden.