Please note: The following biographical information was written at the time of the event in 2004 and has not been updated.

Hon. Sam M. Gibbons (McLean, VA)

A former U.S. Representative, Gibbons began his military service in June 1941 as an infantry officer. As part of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, he led paratroopers in the pre-dawn invasion of Normandy on D-Day in 1944. He took part in the invasion of Holland, the Battle of the Bulge, the defense of Bastogne, and actions in Central Europe. In 1945 he left the armed services with the rank of Major. Elected to the Florida State House of Representatives in 1953, Gibbons served there until 1958, and from 1959 to 1963 he served in the Florida State Senate. In 1962 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives where he served until 1997, becoming Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in 1993. He served as a member of the Veterans History Project Five Star Council of advisors until his death in 2012.

Beverly Lindsey (Washington, D.C.)

Lindsey served as the Director of the Veterans History Project at the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress. She was involved with the Project for three years as consultant on development, communications and outreach issues before assuming her current position. She has worked in the past with arts and humanities programs at the local, state and national level, as well as served on the Advisory Council of the National Endowment for Humanities.

Gary Rhay (Eugene, OR)

A recognized military historian, Rhay enlisted in the U.S. Army and fought in Vietnam in 1971-72. Following his tour, he returned to college and ROTC training, entered the Army’s Officer Training School and served as an officer for 12 years. He taught history at West Point, at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and in1996 became in-house historian at Marathon Music and Video, a documentary film company in Eugene, OR, with a veterans’ oral history program that pre-dates the Library of Congress project. Rhay insures the accuracy of Marathon’s scripts and footage used in military documentaries, and conducts interviews with veterans. The archive holds approximately 700 to 750 videotaped interviews, and is an official partner of the Veterans History Project.

Please note: The following biographical information was written at the time of the event in 2004 and has not been updated.

Marion Reh Gurfein(Arlington, VA)

A native of New York, NY, Gurfein accompanied her husband, Joe, around the world during his 26 years of military service. When they could not be together during World War II and the Korean War, she created and sent him a mock newspaper of family and community news, The Goofein Journal, hand lettered and illustrated on card stock. When her husband retired from the military in the 1960’s, Gurfein settled in Arlington, VA, and began her career in copy writing. At the time of her retirement in 1991, she was Deputy Director of Marketing, NTIS, U.S. Department of Commerce. In retirement, she continued to paint and teach watercolor classes. She was interviewed for the Veterans History Project in 2002, and donated several issues of the Journal as well as her husband’s wartime memoirs.

Elizabeth Olson (Falls Church, VA)

Olson served during World War II in the Midwest as a Field Representative in the American Red Cross Home Service which provided lines of communication and other means of support and assistance to military personnel and their families at home.

Venus Ramey (Eubank, KY)

Ramey was a member of a Kentucky family active in public service when she chose to work for the war effort in Washington, D.C. While there, she entered and won the competition for Miss Washington and went on to become Miss America 1944. While fulfilling her pageant duties, she sold war bonds across the country and during her tenure actively worked with Congress to obtain suffrage for Washington, D.C. Her picture adorned a B-17 fighter plane that made 68 sorties over Germany without losing a man. After the war Ramey returned to her Kentucky tobacco farm, married and raised a family. Active in civic affairs, she successfully worked for the preservation of a neighborhood district in Cincinnati called Over-the-Rhine, now listed on the U.S. Registry of Historic Places.

Helen (Billie) Sudyk (Huntsburg, OH)

Sudyk was engaged to husband, John, when he was shipped overseas. She wrote a letter to him every night, and sometimes more than one a day. She did defense work in the Case Brass plant from 1943 to 1945, where they made brass shell casings and, later in the war, steel mortar shells. She has vivid memories of D-Day, which, unknown to her, her husband was part of at Omaha Beach. When the war ended, Sudyk’s husband returned and they were married. She left her job in the defense plant to stay home and raise their family. She now does volunteer work and, with her husband, speaks to various local groups about their war experiences.

Fayard Nicholas (Toluca Lake, CA)

Nicholas grew up in Philadelphia, the son of musicians, and grew up watching the greatest Vaudeville acts as his family toured the country. He was completely fascinated by them and, together with his younger brother, Harold, imitated their acrobatics and clowning for the children in his neighborhood. The Nicholas Brothers fame grew steadily in Philadelphia, and they were discovered there by the manager of the New York Vaudeville Showcase, The Lafayette, and went from there onto the famous Cotton Club in New York in 1932. During this period, they made their first motion picture and their career skyrocketed. They debuted on Broadway in 1936, and in the 1940’s the nightclub and concert circuit took over their career and there were long tours of South America, Africa, and Europe. Nicholas served in the military during World War II in Mississippi and in Arizona, where he was assigned to a special services unit and performed for GIs. The Nicholas Brothers appeared with Bob Hope and his USO troupe in 1951 and were part of Hope’s Christmas Tour to Vietnam, Thailand and Guam in 1965. Nicholas continues to performs and make personal appearances.

Fredrick Wallace (Alpharetta, GA)

Wallace served in the Air Force during the Korean War. In 1970, after 20 years in the military, he retired at the rank of Major. Moving to Los Angeles, he worked for the Veterans Administration and counseled veterans returning from the Vietnam War. During those years, the VA began the Veterans on Campus program, which Wallace believes was one of the most effective VA programs. In 1995, he retired to Georgia where he volunteers for AARP and through its Partners program, contributes his time and energy to the Veterans History Project.

Please note: The following biographical information was written at the time of the event in 2004 and has not been updated.

Bob Powell (Atlanta, GA)

Bob Powell entered the Army Air Corps in 1942, and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and Pilot Officer at Luke Field, Ariz., in 1943. With the 352nd Fighter Group, he flew 87 combat missions over Europe and flew for 16 hours on three combat missions on D-Day. Returning to the U.S. in December 1944, he married his high school sweetheart and was assigned to the Flight Test Division at Wright-Patterson AFC. He separated from the service in 1945, finished college and became a newspaper reporter and feature writer. Today he is a military historian who, in the early 1980s, began to locate 352nd veterans in order to write a history of his Group. Powell successfully located over 1,000 of his former comrades still living and found families of another 700. He is the co-author of the history of the 352nd, "The Bluenosed Bastards of Bodney," and lectures on WWII to schools and civic and business organizations.

Tracy Sugarman (Westport, CT)

Tracy Sugarman is a well-known painter and illustrator whose work has been exhibited widely and has appeared in major magazines and books and on television. As a young Navy ensign, he landed on Utah Beach on D-Day, not only as a sailor but as an illustrator. He chronicled every aspect of the war in watercolors and sketches and more than 400 letters to his wife, June. Fifty years later, she astonished him by showing him his long-lost pictures and words.

Fayard Nicholas (Toluca Lake, CA)

Nicholas grew up in Philadelphia, the son of musicians, and grew up watching the greatest Vaudeville acts as his family toured the country. He was completely fascinated by them and, together with his younger brother, Harold, imitated their acrobatics and clowning for the children in his neighborhood. The Nicholas Brothers fame grew steadily in Philadelphia, and they were discovered there by the manager of the New York Vaudeville Showcase, The Lafayette, and went from there onto the famous Cotton Club in New York in 1932. During this period, they made their first motion picture and their career skyrocketed. They debuted on Broadway in 1936, and in the 1940’s the nightclub and concert circuit took over their career and there were long tours of South America, Africa, and Europe. Nicholas served in the military during World War II in Mississippi and in Arizona, where he was assigned to a special services unit and performed for GIs. The Nicholas Brothers appeared with Bob Hope and his USO troupe in 1951 and were part of Hope’s Christmas Tour to Vietnam, Thailand and Guam in 1965. Nicholas continues to performs and make personal appearances.

Tom Swope (Mentor, OH)

A freelance writer and radio disk jockey at WBKC in Painesville, OH, Swope has been a Veterans History Project volunteer for three years. Beginning in 1996, he ran periodic, on-air World War II specials to commemorate significant dates, and for the past three years has run a weekly radio show, Legacies: Stories from the Second World War, in which he interviews veterans and plays music of the era. In 2002 the show garnered for him the Cleveland Press Club Award and the March of Dimes A.I.R. (Achievement in Radio) Award as the best weekly show in northern Ohio.

Cdr. Everett Alvarez, Jr., USN (Ret.) (Rockville, MD)

Born in Salinas, CA, Alvarez joined the Navy in 1960 and was the first American aviator shot down over North Vietnam where he was held as a prisoner of war for eight-and-a-half years. Following his release in 1973, he served n program management at the Naval Air Systems command until his retirement in 1980. Subsequently, he served as deputy director of the Peace Corps, deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration, and vice president for government services with the Hospital Corporation of America. He is president and founder of Conwal, Inc, a government contracting firm, and he currently serves as chair of the VA CARES Commission. He is co-author of two books, Chained Eagle and Code of Conduct, and is a member of the Veterans History Project Five Star Council of advisors.

Please note: The following biographical information was written at the time of the event in 2004 and has not been updated.

Bob Powell (Atlanta, GA)

Bob Powell entered the Army Air Corps in 1942, and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and Pilot Officer at Luke Field, Ariz., in 1943. With the 352nd Fighter Group, he flew 87 combat missions over Europe and flew for 16 hours on three combat missions on D-Day. Returning to the U.S. in December 1944, he married his high school sweetheart and was assigned to the Flight Test Division at Wright-Patterson AFC. He separated from the service in 1945, finished college and became a newspaper reporter and feature writer. Today he is a military historian who, in the early 1980s, began to locate 352nd veterans in order to write a history of his Group. Powell successfully located over 1,000 of his former comrades still living and found families of another 700. He is the co-author of the history of the 352nd, "The Bluenosed Bastards of Bodney," and lectures on WWII to schools and civic and business organizations.

Tracy Sugarman (Westport, CT)

Tracy Sugarman is a well-known painter and illustrator whose work has been exhibited widely and has appeared in major magazines and books and on television. As a young Navy ensign, he landed on Utah Beach on D-Day, not only as a sailor but as an illustrator. He chronicled every aspect of the war in watercolors and sketches and more than 400 letters to his wife, June. Fifty years later, she astonished him by showing him his long-lost pictures and words.

Brig. Gen. Alvin D. Ungerleider, USA (Ret.) (Burke, VA)

Born in West New York, NJ, Ungerleider was drafted in 1942, and later attended Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning, GA. He was transferred to England in 1944 as a 2nd Lt. in the 29th Division and landed on Omaha Beach in an LCI on D-Day. Wounded two weeks later, was evacuated to England, re-joined the division six weeks later, was wounded again but remained in combat. Later, he commanded a tank unit in the Korean War and commanded a large unit in Vietnam. While Commander of the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Aberdeen, MD, he retired after 36 years of military service to pursue a career in publishing and served for 10 years as a senior editor of military almanacs.

Ellen McCulloch-Lovell (Marlboro, VT)

A leader in the arts, education and public policy, Lovell was named the first director of the Veterans History Project in 2001, and served concurrently as head of the Center for Arts and Culture. In January 2004, she left the Project to become President of Marlboro College in Vermont. Lovell directed the Vermont Council of the Arts from 1975-1983, before moving to Washington, DC, to become the chief of staff for Senator Patrick Leahy. Seven years in the Clinton administration followed, and Lovell served as the executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, deputy chief of staff to the First Lady and ultimately deputy assistant to the President and advisor to the First Lady on the Millennium Project.

Bob Babcock (Atlanta, GA)

Babcock is president of Americans Remembered, Inc, an official partner of the Veterans History Project. An Infantry veteran of the Vietnam War, he is author of the book War Stories - Utah Beach to Pleiku. He is past president and historian of the National 4th Infantry Division Association and president of the 22nd Infantry Regiment Society. A retired IBM executive, Babcock is focused on preserving the history of veterans and home front workers from World War II through today's War on Terror.

Please note: The following biographical information was written at the time of the event in 2004 and has not been updated.

Sam Billison (Window Rock, AZ)

A native of Kinlichee, Ariz., Sam Billison enlisted in the Marines in 1943 and was sent to signal school at Camp Pendelton immediately after boot camp. He was taught not only combat techniques, but trained to become a Navajo Code Talker. He participated in the Battle of Iwo Jima, and with other Code Talkers transmitted more than 800 error-free messages during 26 days of fighting. Following the war, Billison continued his education and served as a school principal for many years. He was elected to the Navajo Tribal Council, is the founder and president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association, and currently serves as an education consultant.

Keith Little (Navajo, NM)

Born in Tonalea, Ariz., Keith Little enlisted in the Marines in 1943 when he was 17. He was assigned to communications school at Camp Pendleton, Calif., to be trained as a radio operator and to qualify as a Navajo Code Talker. Assigned to the 4th Marine Division in December 1943, Little was sent overseas to Roi-Namur the following month, and subsequently to Saipan, Tinian , and Iwo Jima, were he served for the duration of the battle to take the island. He was in a convalescent camp in Maui, Hawaii, in August 1945 when he learned that the Japanese had surrendered, ending the war. He returned to his home in the Southwest to continue his education and start a family. Little is a retired logging manager, and his active in numerous organizations in his community.

Sam Smith (San Fidel, NM)

Sam Smith was too young to enlist in the Armed Forces when he learned of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor while living in Arizona, but began then to formulate a plan to become a Marine. At age 16 the following year, he joined the Marines and was assigned to an artillery unit following basic training. When his commander determined that he was Navajo, he was transferred to the 4th Marine Division and sent to Camp Pendleton, California, for general communications training and specialized training to become a Code Talker. He was sent to the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Tinian and other Pacific islands, interrupted by training periods in Hawaii when he taught the code to others. He spent 31 days on Iwo Jima as the Marines fought to take the island from the Japanese. Since the war, he has held numerous positions of leadership in his community in New Mexico.

Gary Rhay (Eugene, OR)

A recognized military historian, Rhay enlisted in the U.S. Army and fought in Vietnam in 1971-72. Following his tour, he returned to college and ROTC training, entered the Army’s Officer Training School and served as an officer for 12 years. He taught history at West Point, at the U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, and in 1996 became in-house historian at Marathon Music and Video, a documentary film company in Eugene, OR, with a veterans’ oral history program that pre-dates the Library of Congress project. Rhay insures the accuracy of Marathon’s scripts and footage used in military documentaries, and conducts interviews with veterans. The archive holds approximately 700 to 750 videotaped interviews, and is an official partner of the Veterans History Project.

Please note: The following biographical information was written at the time of the event in 2004 and has not been updated.

Riki (Ruth) Belew (Laguna Woods, CA)

Riki (Ruth) Belew's first assignments with the American Red Cross were in clubs for the troops in North Africa: near Algiers, in Oran, and at the Casablanca Officers' Club. Crossing the Mediterranean in the nose of a B-17 bomber during a terrific storm, she began service at a series of Red Cross clubs in Italy. She remembers being stationed near a Staging Area on the outskirts of Naples and dancing with hundreds of men a night.

Helen Thompson Colony (Cincinnati, OH)

Helen Thompson Colony served as American Red Cross Recreation Club Director in India and Burma. She ran clubs primarily for Army Air Force pilots, many of whom were flying the dangerous route "over the Hump" (the Himalayas) into and out of China. "We lost thousands of men flying the Hump," she has said, "and Red Cross worked very hard to help keep their spirits up." Later she became one of the Red Cross workers escorting war brides to this country and training them on route about American customs and procedures.

Mary P. Sullivan O'Driscoll (Cincinnati, OH)

Mary P. Sullivan O'Driscoll served as one of the famous American Red Cross Clubmobilers during World War II. Her first assignment was distributing coffee and doughnuts on the docks of Greenock, Scotland. Later, she joined a team running a Clubmobile that served the 8th Army Air Force in East Anglia, England. She has written about the coldest winter on record in England, December 1944, when "we were working 17 hours a day serving coffee and doughnuts to the ground crews of six airfields plus the pilots and their crews who could not fly missions to Germany due to the bad weather." After D-Day, her unit moved to France to provide Clubmobile services to the troops on the European continent.

Diane Nester Kresh (Washington, D.C.)

Director for Public Service Collections which oversees the American Folklife Center and the Veterans History Project, Kresh has been employed by the Library of Congress for 30 years. In 1998, she began presenting programs at the Library to local school children, now called Library Live, which presents primary source materials from the LC collections to students and teachers in interactive program that explores history and culture through music, dance, and theater. Kresh has also been a leader in offering library reference and information services on the Web. She was the founder of the Collaborative Digital Reference Service, (now QuestionPoint, a service co-developed by LC and OCLC), a project to build a global, Web based, reference service among libraries and research institutions. She is a frequent speaker at professional meetings and conferences and the author of several articles on internet reference services.

Brien R. Williams (Washington, D.C.)

Williams is the Historian for the American Red Cross, and many of his articles appear in the history section of the Virtual Museum on the public Web site, redcross.org. He is also responsible for the development and implementation of the national Red Cross Oral History Program, a partner of the Veterans History Project and, to date, has conducted nearly 40 videotaped interviews with individuals who have had exceptional Red Cross experiences. These interviews become part of the corporation’s historical archives, available for research and incorporation in audio and visual presentations. Prior to joining the Red Cross in 1998, Williams was an independent video producer, writer, and director with specialties in video history and media in education.

Please note: The following biographical information was written at the time of the event in 2004 and has not been updated.

Robert Bloxsom (White Stone, VA)

Robert Bloxsom's experience in the U.S. Merchant Marine began after he graduated from the Pennsylvania School Ship in 1941. During the war, his assignments took him to South Africa, England, and the Persian Gulf at the time when ships faced air raids and torpedo attacks. During these years, he advanced to the rank of Third Mate. at age 24, Bloxsom became Captain of the Liberty ship, Lillian Nordica, sailing his ship into Antwerp two weeks after it had been taken from the Germans. He left the Merchant Marine in 1948, and two years later joined the U.S. Coast Guard. He retired from the Coast Guard in 1974, following his last command on the Dallas. He has written an account of his life at sea during the war, "The Sailor," and continues to tell great sea stories.

Joseph J. Brenner (Columbia, MD)

Born and raised in New York City, Joseph J. Brenner married Norma, his wife of 54 years, in 1937. In 1943, he entered the U.S. Army, serving in Europe with the 740th Field Artillery Battalion, 12th Corps, 3rd Army, and was deeply involved in the Battle of the Bulge. He left the service at the end of 1945, returning home on Christmas Eve to be greeted by his, wife and two-year-old daughter who he had last seen when she was three months old. Brenner worked in freight transportation until 1974, and moved to Washington, D.C., and worked in the federal government until 1986. When he learned of the Veterans History Project, he donated the letters that he and his wife wrote to each other daily during the war, a total of 1,261 letters, 80 letters in the month of July 1944 alone. In recent years, Brenner has turned to acting and has appeared in several plays and television.

Joseph De Luca, Jr. (Wooster, OH)

In 1943, at age 18, Joseph De Luca Jr. entered Company C, 411th Regiment, 103rd Infantry Division. During his two-year European assignment, he saw combat in Belgium, Germany, Austria and Italy. With the army of occupation, he served as an MP in the Seventh Army in Heidelburg, Germany, and as part of the honor guard for General George S. Patton Jr. of the Third Army. In 1992, he joined other veterans at combat sites and military cemeteries in the Trail of the 103rd. Now retired and a member of the American Legion, De Luca does military duty at the National Cemetery in Redmond, Ohio, and serves on the firing squad for military funerals. A first-generation American, De Luca says it was an honor to serve his country as a way of saying thanks for the good life his family found in this country when they emigrated from Italy.

John Sudyk (Huntsburg, OH)

John Sudyk at age 20 was a gun mechanic in the U.S. First Army, 5th Corps, 187th Field Artillery. He landed at Omaha Beach in the D-Day offensive to support the 29th Infantry Division after a beachhead had been established. From there they fought in all major engagements, from Omaha Beach to Czechoslovakia and spearheaded with General George S. Patton Jr.'s column. The unit took part in the liberation of Paris, but quickly moved on, chasing the German army into the Battle of the Bulge. He was in Czechoslovakia at the end of the war in 1945. He continued technical training and worked in manufacturing until his retirement. John and his wife, Helen (Billie), do volunteer work in their community and have spoken about their war experience at schools, churches, and civic gatherings.

George Zavadil (Towson, MD)

From his home in Smithtown, Long Island, N.Y., George Zavadil enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1942 and was assigned to the USCG Yard in Curtis Bay, MD, as Yeoman 2nd Class. Soon after, he entered the newly created Supply Officer School for training, graduating as Warrant Officer. He served on two pre-commissioning details on Liberty ships, the USS Eridanus (AK92), with supplies and replacement duties, and on the USS Orlando (PF99), convoy duty and anti-submarine warfare. He was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade during his 25 months at sea, serving in the Pacific on the Eridanus and the mid-Atlantic on the Orlando. Following the war, he was assigned to the Aleutian Islands on weather patrol, and left the service in 1946. He settled in Baltimore, attended law school, and made his career in tax law and financial planning.

Tom Swope (Mentor, OH)

A freelance writer and radio disk jockey at WBKC in Painesville, OH, Swope has been a Veterans History Project volunteer for three years. Beginning in 1996, he ran periodic, on-air World War II specials to commemorate significant dates, and for the past three years has run a weekly radio show, Legacies: Stories from the Second World War, in which he interviews veterans and plays music of the era. In 2002 the show garnered for him the Cleveland Press Club Award and the March of Dimes A.I.R. (Achievement in Radio) Award as the best weekly show in northern Ohio.