Mass.) Morse Institute Library (Natick

In 1965, Richard Diaz was not doing well in high school, so he decided to join the Navy. First trained to handle codes, he soon transferred to the "black shoe" Navy; he served on board the USS Northampton and the USS Eaton as a fire control technician. Diaz took part in several operations in Vietnam, from bombing targets in North Vietnam to searching junks and sampans for weapons.

Arnold Bopp joined some friends and enlisted into the Army in 1954. He served for 20 years in the Army's Security Agency as a teletype operator and teletype interceptor. He served twice in Alaska, as well as Berlin, Fort Devens and Vietnam.

While growing up in Revere, Arthur Palladino wanted to fly planes. He would serve in the Army Air Force as a bombardier and armaments officer. After 21 missions, his plane was shot down; he would be captured by the Germans and sent to Luft Stalag I on the Baltic Sea, where he remained for nine months.

James Nicholl Jr. joined the Navy in 1944 to honor his father and history teacher. He would serve on several vessels, including an armed cargo vessel and mine sweeper, in Scotland, Russia and the North Atlantic. Nicholl would also serve during the Korean War.

David Gaulin entered the U.S. Army in 1954 as a way to stay out of jail. He trained as a tank driver, and was stationed in Furth in West Germany. When he was sent to the border at Czechoslovakia, he helped several civilians fleeing the Soviets. While he was heading back to the United States, Gaulin witnessed the sinking of the Andrea Doria.

Shortly after the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, "Izzy" Arbeiter, his family and other Polish Jews were rounded up. The young Arbeiter would spend most of the war in several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, as a slave laborer for the German war effort. His parents and younger brother were sent to a concentration camp and exterminated. He was part of a "death march" through the Black Forest in southern Germany in April 1945 when he was liberated...

"A Puritan from England, John ELiot emigrated to America in 1631. Settled in Roxbury in present day Massachusetts, he preached to the native people of Southern New England and formed several praying towns for his native converts. Natick was the first. John Eliot's missionary work was a success and more expansion could be expected, but disaster struck.

Frank Rines joined the U.S. Maritime Service in 1941 just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. His next four years were spent in service on board Liberty ships as chief radio officer. He talks about his experiences crossing the Atlantic while under attack from German submarines, visits to Puerto Rico and India, and being at Normandy's Utah beach three days after the invasion.