Photo: Military supplies on Guam awaiting sorting and shipment, 1944. Photo from souvenir booklet in the Garretson family archives. We like to play a mental game we call “Where was I when . . .” Last week the game took us back to August of 1945 when our fathers were...

Yesterday—August 7—marked one of those significant events in American history that slip by without notice: no celebrations, no fireworks, no memorials. Let’s at least give it a shout out: Here’s the context: World War II—After Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), the...

When we were kids, we thought George Washington’s simple statement, “I cannot tell a lie” was the founding mantra for our nation’s leaders. Our leaders did not—and would not—tell lies. For us, that myth was shattered in May 1960—my senior year of high school—when the...