Transcript for the Piece Audio version of This I Believe - Veterans Day Feature

HOST: Our series, This I Believe, was inspired by a radio program of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow in the 1950s. That series - like our revival today - asked Americans from all walks of life to examine the beliefs that shaped their lives. For Veteran's Day, we asked Dan Gediman, the executive producer of NPR's This I Believe, to sift through the essays of today and 50 years ago and share a few of the beliefs of those who have been to war.

GEDIMAN: By the middle of the 20th century, it was hard to find a family in the United States that didn't include a veteran. More than 20 million Americans had served in the two World Wars. A few households even had surviving soldiers from the Spanish-American War and the Civil War. And as Edward R. Murrow launched his new program, This I Believe, in 1951, the U.S. was again at war

MURROW: This is Korea. This is the front.... And on the ridges over there, the enemy positions can be clearly seen.....

GEDIMAN: In between his television and radio reports about the Korean War and other news of the day, Murrow and his producers invited a diverse group Americans to appear on his new daily radio feature.

ANNOUNCER: And now, This I Believe. Here is Edward R. Murrow.

MURROW: What are the personal convictions of a soldier.....

GEDIMAN: The original This I Believe included a number of veterans discussing the beliefs their wartime experiences inspired. Listeners heard from survivors of trench warfare and the Bataan Death March, from high-ranking commanders to frontline infantrymen.

ABRAMSON: On December 27, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, I was shot by a German sniper.

GEDIMAN: Arthur Abramson was a young doctor from the Bronx. His wounds left him a paraplegic, but he went on to have a successful career in medical rehabilitation.

ABRAMSON: At that time, it was a catastrophic event. Afterwards, to begin the long journey of recovery was even more difficult because I had lost some of the flexibility and formativeness of youth. Life has been different since that sniper shot me. I believe I am a better man now... Suffering has been good for me. My acceptance of my own pain and physical injury enhanced my desire to do. It completely submerged my bitterness, killed any sense of personal revenge. I know now that I could talk to the man who shot me and feel no rancor.

GEDIMAN: These intimate views of war's death and destruction affected the veterans in different ways. Some soldiers found that war widened their perspectives from the personal to a greater view of humanity. Here is the hopeful belief of James Young, who served on General Pershing's staff in France during the first World War.

YOUNG: I honestly believe that the good in almost all sane, normal men outweighs by far the evil, and that mankind is slowly but surely growing better. I believe we are moving toward a far, far better world than we have ever known in the past, a world in which warfare is unknown, a world in which it will be regarded as unthinkable ....

GEDIMAN: And others left the service with a far different view of the world, including sportswriter Roger Angell, who spent four years in the Air Force in World War II.

ANGELL: Ever since I can remember, my world has been... a place of war and a fear of war. A world where the most incredible event of all has been our horrified realization of our own weakness, our lack of civilization, our ignorance, and the inhuman violence which we human beings are capable of. If this world is not a jungle, it is often as dark as one, and as frightening.

GEDIMAN: This struggle to make sense of the violence of battle is reflected in essays we've received for NPR's revival of This I Believe. And Army nurse who served in Vietnam wrote of her belief that war is a diease that must be conquered. A veteran of the Bosnian conflict who now teaches at West Point wrote to say, quote, "there is no glory in war, only suffering; and no victors, only the living."

GARRELS/NPR: (gunfire) In the past two weeks, they've moved through Fallujah almost entirely on foot, into the heart of the resistance (explosion)....

GEDIMAN: Our contemporary version of This I Believe launched on NPR in 2005, about two years into the Iraq War. We've heard from soldiers still in the war zone, family members waiting at home, and men and women who have returned from combat.

WHITEHEAD: From the moment that I left Iraq... and unloaded my weapons at the Kuwaiti border, I have struggled to communicate what I learned there....

GEDIMAN: Colonel Michael Whitehead is now retired after 30 years in the Army and Army Reserves.

WHITEHEAD: I believe in the Iraqi people. I did not believe in them when I arrived in Iraq but I believed in them when I left.... I cannot forget the Iraqi woman who came forward despite great personal danger to lead the women's rights center that we created in Karbala.... I think of this woman often, and I do not even know her name. When I think of the sacrifices that I made, and the sacrifices that my family made, I believe that they were made for this woman.

GEDIMAN: Jeff Carnes was also touched by the Iraqi people. During his tour as a translator with the 101st Airborne Division, Carnes met Muhammad -- a man who had been tortured and imprisoned for six years by the Hussein regime. The night Carnes visited with Muhammad, the only thing the Iraqi man wanted to do was share his story.

CARNES: During this long conversation, Muhammad showed me the scars from his ankles to his wrists. He bared his soul, scarred by years of the anguish of losing everything he had... The next morning, Muhammad and I parted ways. I never saw him again after I waved goodbye. After all, as a soldier you're trained to look forward, not back. That night in late March 2003, Muhammad... taught me that the human soul can endure and flourish under even the most trying circumstances.

GEDIMAN: There is perhaps no time that belief is more emphatically tested, and acted upon, than in war. And the essays in the This I Believe archives, both from today and from the 1950s series, offer first-hand accounts of more than a century of combat.... To hear more essays from veterans, please visit the website thisibelieve.org. While you're there, please consider submitting your own statement of belief. For This I Believe, I'm Dan Gediman.

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