These Stories of Valor are part of an ongoing oral history program of the Honor Project to ensure the experiences of our combat wounded and those who gave their all in the service of America are remembered for generations to come.
Mike Ali was born in 1948 in the Lower East Side of New York City. As a young child, his family moved to the Kingsbridge area of the Bronx, a “giant melting pot... with a very ethnically diverse community.” Growing up in the Marble Hill housing project with two thousand other neighborhood children was “a lot of fun. We were kids
Read MoreMarcus V. Arroyo was born on August 5, 1950 in the South Bronx of New York. His father was a sailor in the Merchant Marines, who sailed during World War II in the Atlantic, delivering desperately needed supplies through dangerous, submarine-infested waters to England. One of his father’s ships was blown up and he was
Read MoreThere are seventy-nine living recipients of the Medal of Honor, bestowed by the President in the name of the Congress for acts of bravery above and beyond the call of duty. Paul William Bucha is one of them. “Medals of Honor,” he explains, “are not given for running up and down hills and charging bunkers. Ninety-nine percent of the
Read MoreRoberto Delgado was born June 14, 1948, in Puerto Rico. His grandmother’s side of the family was descended from the Arawak-speaking Taino peoples indigenous to the Caribbean Islands, while his grandfather was of Spanish descent, from the Canary Islands. During the 1950’s, his family moved to Brooklyn, New York searching for greater
Read MoreJerry Donnellan is a true native New York hero. He was born on December 28th, 1946 in Nyack, New York to Irish-American parents. He is the youngest of five children, all of whom attended Albertus Magnus High School in Rockland County. He went on to go to Rockland Community College and then transferred to Texas A&M soon after
Read More“War is like nothing you will ever experience.” With these somber words U.S. Army veteran Richard Drago recalls his service in Vietnam during two tours of duty in 1969 and 1970. Nothing in his childhood growing up a city kid in Brooklyn prepared him for the grim reality of war. Born June 3, 1949, Richard lived with his family in a brownstone
Read MoreAlmost fifty years after fighting a war against an often unseen enemy in the jungles of Vietnam, Howard Goldin has returned to Vietnam to fight another battle. He and his fellow Rotarian members raise money to build schools in developing countries for orphaned children. They have built three schools in Vietnam, one in Jamaica, and one in
Read MoreAnthony Lassiter was born in February 1947 in Beacon, New York. He attended his local high school, where he was the quarterback for his football team, and a member of the varsity wrestling and baseball team, playing 2nd and 3rd base. He graduated high school in 1966.
Read MoreRichard Lay was born on February 27, 1949 in working-class Yorkville on the East Side of Manhattan, where his family’s apartment was on the fifth floor of a walk-up building. His father, a bus driver, served in the United States Army during World War II. His older brother was drafted into the Army and served in Vietnam from 1966 - 1967.
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