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Michael Trost

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One thing about the Army, the friendly ribbing is a constant, even in the hospital. Michael Trost was around for a lot of that as he was going through a year of surgery and recovery. Then the physical therapy to get him back on his feet. When he found and contacted the trauma nurse who'd helped him in Afghanistan, it proved to be mutually beneficial (5:55)

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Now he understands how those Vietnam veterans must of felt. When the Afghanistan withdrawal unfolded the way it did, Michael Trost felt a new kinship with them. Still, he was proud of his team and he knew they made the best of a bad situation. (2:15)

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The men of the 489th Civil affairs Battalion were having a good deployment in Afghanistan despite mistrust of their Afghan allies and intermittent funding for their projects. That all changed one day when they took an official from USAID with them to assess local schools. Out of nowhere, machine gun fire erupted and a scramble for life began. Michael Trost, Robert Rose and Colin Walsh combine to tell the story of this surprise attack. (Caution: strong language.) (29:52)

Michael Vernello

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He had opened his own hair salon and was doing well, but Michael Vernello was drafted into the Army where he was assigned to the field artillery. The whole unit went to Florida for swim training and they thought they were boarding trucks back to camp. Instead, they were taken to a dock. (3:41)

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Michael Vernello made it to shore at Omaha Beach, but then he had to wait forty days for his weapon, a large artillery piece to arrive. Deep water and bad weather kept it off shore. Once they got going through France, they moved only forward. (3:16)

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Michael Vernello recalls how it was so cold at the Battle of the Bulge, the ground was frozen and they couldn't dig in. At the end of the war, he met his Russian counterparts in a heavy artillery unit and was very surprised. With four Bronze Stars and many battles behind him, he was one of the first to go home. (2:48)

Mike Barno

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His father was a career Army officer from West Point. Mike Barno did not have the desire to attend the Academy, but he was attracted to the military and went to the Citadel. There he became focused on academics and a pre-med path. (4:30)

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Mike Barno was leaving a class at the Citadel when he noticed students had gathered around the television in the student center. They told him a plane had just hit a building in New York. As they watched, a second plane hit and from that point forward, everything changed. (2:21)

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Taking advantage of an Army scholarship, Mike Barno attended dental school and became a member of the Army Dental Corps. He went to a residency at Fort Benning, where, in addition to fixing teeth, he want to Airborne School. Then he was attached to the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, which was slated for a tour in Afghanistan. (7:00)

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The unit prepped for a year in Hawaii for deployment to Afghanistan. Dentist Mike Barno's job was to get the men in good dental health before they shipped out. The route to the war zone was a strange one that included the North Pole and Germany. (6:01)