Speaker Biographies

Colonel Harvey “Barney” Barnum

Colonel Harvey “Barney” Barnum was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps in 1962.  As a Marine officer for over 27 years, Barnum served multiple tours as an artilleryman with the 3rd and 2nd Marine Divisions, including two tours in Vietnam. Barnum earned the Medal of Honor on December 18, 1965 in Vietnam. His other decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal, Navy Commendation Medal, Navy Achievement Medal with Combat V, and Presidential Unit Citation.

Lou Brissie

Lou Brissie signed with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1941 at age 17. He volunteered for military service in 1942 and served with the 88th Division in Italy. On December 7, 1944, he was hit by artillery fire, shattering his left shinbone in more than 30 pieces, breaking his left ankle and right foot. He convinced doctors not to amputate his leg. The surgeon who saved Brissie’s leg was awarded a Surgeon General’s Special Commendation for his work. Brissie returned home with an intense desire to return to Major League Baseball. Twenty three operations, three years, and countless hours of rehabilitation later, he made his debut with Philadelphia Athletics. He spent 7 years pitching in the major leagues.

Schooled in Melbourne, Australia, by the veterans who had just returned from combat in Guadalcanal, Company K confronted snipers, ambushes along narrow jungle trails, abandoned corpses of hara-kiri victims, and howling banzai attacks as they island-hopped from one bloody battle to the next. During his two years of service, Burgin rose from a green private to a seasoned sergeant, and earned a Bronze Star for his valor at Okinawa. He is featured in the HBO series The Pacific.

Lt. Colonel Jerry Coleman

Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Coleman joined the Marine Corps on October 23, 1942. He flew 57 combat missions in the Pacific during World War II. In January 1946, he was put on the inactive reserve list and resumed his baseball career, playing second base for the Yankees. During the Korean War, Coleman was called to active duty and flew another 63 combat missions. In August 1953, he returned to second base for the Yankees. He joined the Marine Corps Reserve, where he did promotional work for the Marines until he retired in 1964. He is the only major league player to see combat in two wars. Coleman was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, 13 Air Medals and three Navy Citations.

Lieutenant Colonel Lynn “Buck” Compton

Lieutenant Colonel Lynn “Buck” Compton was born in Los Angeles in 1921. While studying at UCLA, he participated in ROTC for four years. Then left his studies to attend Officers Candidate School at Ft. Benning, Georgia, where he was commissioned a second lieutenant in May 1943. Compton joined Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (“The Band of Brothers”) in England in December 1943. He participated in all of 101st Airborne Division’s major campaigns in the European Theatre of Operations. He received the Silver Star, Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. He remained in the active reserves from 1946 to 1966.

Bob Feller

Bob Feller was a star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Feller immediately enlisted in the United States Navy, where he was assigned to command a 24-man gunnery squad on the battleship Alabama. After a year of service in the North Atlantic, Feller and the Alabama were sent to the Pacific, where he participated in eight invasions including Iwo Jima. Feller was discharged in August 1945, after almost four years of service. He returned to baseball and resumed a career that led to his induction into the MLB Hall of Fame.

Edward “Babe” Heffron

Edward “Babe” Heffron was born in 1923. He joined Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division while the division was resting in England after the Normandy Invasion. He participated in Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge. Heffron served as a consultant for the HBO production Band of Brothers.

Captain Thomas J. Hudner, Jr.

Captain Thomas J. Hudner, Jr. graduated from the Naval Academy in 1946. After attending flight school, he was designated a Naval Aviator in August of 1949. On December 4, 1950, while serving with VF-32 during the Korean War, he crash-landed his own plane near the Chosin Reservoir in an effort to rescue Ensign Jesse L. Brown, another pilot whose plane had been shot down. For his heroism on that occasion, then-Lt. (Junior Grade) Hudner was awarded the Medal of Honor―the first Navy Medal of Honor to be awarded during the Korean War.

Colonel Jack Jacobs

Colonel Jack Jacobs, who entered military service through Rutgers ROTC, earned the Medal of Honor for exceptional heroism on the battlefields of Vietnam. He also holds three Bronze Stars and two Silver Stars. Jacobs was an adviser to a Vietnamese infantry battalion when it came under a devastating fire that disabled the commander. Although bleeding from severe head wounds, then-First Lieutenant Jacobs took command, withdrew the unit to safety, and returned again and again under intense fire to rescue the wounded and perform life-saving first aid. He saved the lives of a U.S. adviser and 13 allied soldiers. Jacobs served on the faculty of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the National War College in Washington, D.C. After retirement, he founded and was chief operating officer of Auto Finance Group. As a managing director of Bankers Trust Co., he led Global Investment Management to $2.2 billion in assets and later co-founded a similar business for Lehman Brothers. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a director of the Medal of Honor Foundation. He is also a military analyst for NBC/MSNBC.

Ben Kuroki

Ben Kuroki was born in Hershey, Nebraska, the son of a farmer. Kuroki was one of the few Nisei admitted to the Army Air Corps. He earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses and was acclaimed as the first Nisei war hero after flying 30 missions in Europe as a tailgunner and top turret gunner aboard a B-24 named “The Red Ass.” The government sent him on a tour to Heart Mountain and two other camps in an effort to promote recruitment and help curb the growing draft resistance. He was later subpoenaed as a witness in the conspiracy trial of the Fair Play Committee leaders. Kuroki asked for duty in the Pacific and after being initially refused, became the only Nisei to serve in active combat with the Air Corps in the Pacific Theater, flying 28 more missions over Japan. After the war he spoke to audiences nationwide and was the subject of a 1946 biography, BOY FROM NEBRASKA.” He went into journalism, becoming the first Japanese American editor of a general newspaper in Nebraska. He later edited newspapers in suburban Michigan and Southern California. He retired with his wife Shige to Southern California.

Colonel Susan Luz

Colonel Susan Luz, 57, is the highest ranking soldier in the 399th Combat Support Hospital, an Army Reserve unit based out of Massachusetts. In 2007 she won the Bronze Star for meritorious service while in Iraq. Trained as a nurse, she has lived a life devoted to public service and has worked in inner-city schools, jails, and adolescent psychiatric wards. A former Peace Corps volunteer to Brazil, she holds a nursing degree from the University of Rhode Island and a master’s degree in public health from Boston University. No stranger to military circles, Susan’s father is a World War II veteran who served under General Patton. Susan’s father-in-law is the late George Luz Sr., who was portrayed by actor Rick Gomez in the Band of Brothers HBO miniseries based on Stephen Ambrose’s bestselling book by the same name. Susan lives with her husband, George Luz Jr., in Rhode Island.

Marco Martinez

Sergeant Marco Martinez, USMC, once a gang member, became the first Hispanic American in the War on Terror to receive the Navy Cross, the second-highest award a U.S. Marine can receive, second only to the Medal of Honor. His combat heroics have been described in the pages of the San Diego Union-Tribune, USA Today, National Review, and the Navy Times, among other publications. Only 26 years old, Martinez now attends college in Southern California while working full-time in nuclear security.

Donald Mates

Donald Mates served in the 3rd Marine Division and fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima, landing on February 24, 1945. After midnight on February 27, Mates’ eight-man patrol came under heavy assault from Japanese forces. During fierce hand-to-hand combat, Mates watched as his friend and fellow Marine, Jimmy Trimble, was killed in front of his eyes. Mates was severely wounded and underwent repeated operations for shrapnel removal for over 30 years. In recent years, he has helped the World War II Veterans Committee begin the “James Trimble III Scholarship” in honor of his fallen friend. Mates was also the recipient of the Pentagon’s 2009 Military Hero Award.

Brigadier General Steve Ritchie

Brigadier General R. Steve Ritchie is the only Air Force “ace” pilot of the air war in Vietnam. A veteran of more than 800 combat hours in the F-4 Phantom during 339 missions over Southeast Asia, Ritchie is the only American pilot to down five MiG-21s, the most sophisticated fighters in the North Vietnamese fleet. By the time he left active duty in 1974, Ritchie had been awarded the Air Force Cross, four Silver Stars, 10 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 25 Air Medals. He would rise to the rank of brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve and served in the Reagan administration.

Major General John K. Singlaub

Major General John K. Singlaub parachuted into France as a member of the OSS during WWII. After WWII, he served with the OSS in China. He served as commander of the 2nd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. Singlaub worked in the Pentagon from 1963-65. He served as the commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group during the Vietnam War until he was transferred to Germany. Singlaub was promoted to Major General in 1972. Among his medals are the Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster and the Silver Star.

Lt. Col. Kate Van Auken

Lieutenant Colonel Kate Van Auken was commissioned in the US Army in 1989. Throughout her 20 plus years she has held a variety of leadership positions including military police platoon leader, detachment commander, and numerous staff assignments: Battalion S-1, S-2, S-4, Brigade S-5 civil-military operations, NATO and other multi-national force level operations. She has served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and is currently forward deployed as the Current Accounting & Special Projects Officer for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office in the Pentagon, Washington DC, resolving cases for our nation’s missing service-members and civilians isolated during the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf War. Her awards and decorations include the Combat Action Badge and three Bronze Star medals, one for valor for actions taken while she and LTC Lauralee Flannery’s convoy was attacked by ten daisy-chained improvised explosive devices, the largest IED attack in Iraq at that time.

Shelby Westbrook

Shelby Westbrook was s a self-sufficient young man with an inner-strength born out of early tragedy. His parents died when Shelby was just 12 years old. He moved from his small town home to live with his brother in Toledo, OH, where he attended an integrated high school, free of the sting of racial prejudice. After Pearl Harbor, he was keen to sign up for the nation’s first all-black air corps. It was only when he entered the U.S. military that Shelby’s eyes are opened to racial injustice. Shelby decided to be the best pilot in the entire war –convinced that his actions will be the most eloquent testament to his right to equal treatment. He became one of the Tuskegee Airmen, a First Lieutenant in the 99th Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group, 15th Air Force.

James A. White

James A. White joined the Marine Corps in 1943 and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima as part of the Third Marine Division from February 24th to March 26th, 1945. He joined Donald Mates and Jimmy Trimble in their eight-man patrol on the fateful night of February 27. After Trimble was killed and Mates severely wounded, White ran to Mates’ aid and almost single-handedly beat back the Japanese attack. His experience of hand-to-hand combat on the island was featured in an article by Leatherneck Magazine and he is the subject of a book about the Battle of Iwo Jima. He married in 1950 and has eight children.

Jeremiah Workman

Sergeant Jeremiah Workman was born on August 26, 1983 in Marion, OH. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2000, and in 2004, was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines where he served in Weapons Company as a team leader and later squad leader. In September 2004, he deployed to Iraq and participated in Operation Phantom Fury―the second Battle of Fallujah. His actions in leading the rescue of Marines trapped in a house by enemy fire led to his being awarded the Navy Cross―second only to the Medal of Honor. He would go on to become a Drill Instructor and is currently assigned to Training and Education Center Company, Headquarters and Service Battalion, MCB, Quantico, VA.