Martha Raye was a comic actress and standards singer who performed in
movies, and later on television. She was honored in 1969 with an Academy
Award as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient for her volunteer
efforts and services entertaining the troops during World War II, the Korean
War, and the Vietnam War. Raye’s life as a singer and comedy performer
began very early in her childhood. She is the only woman buried in the
SF (Special Forces) cemetery at Ft. Bragg. She was an honorary Colonel
in the Marines and an honorary Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army.

Martha Raye with a group of soldiers at LZ Center, 40 miles southwest of DaNang
in 1968

  

                          Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry     
                           (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991)

Gene Roddenberry was a television screenwriter, producer , best known for
creating the science fiction series Star Trek. He was born in El Paso Texas
and grew up in Los Angeles, California. Roddenberry flew 89 combat missions
in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War ll, and flew as a commercial airline
pilot after the war. He later followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the Los  
Angeles Police Department and soon began to focus on writing scripts for TV. 

As a freelance writer, Roddenberry wrote scripts for the syndicated TV series
Highway Patrol from 1955 to 1959, Have Gun, Will Travel on CBS from 1957 to
1963 and others, before creating and producing his own TV series on NBC, The Lieutenant from 1963 to 1964. It was in 1964 that Roddenberry created Star Trek, 
premiering in 1966, it ran for three seasons before cancellation.

Gene Roddenberry was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and the
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. His creation of Star Trek 
has spanned over four decades, produced six television series, 715 episodes 
and eleven films. A twelfth film is currently in development and is scheduled 
to be release in 2012.

Pictured is 1st lieutenant Roddenberry (2nd from left) and crew in front
of their Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress in 1943.

Gene Roddenberry (third from right) and original Star Trek cast members are  
seen with NASA’s real-live Enterprise in 1976. 

David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero,
frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is often referred to as the “King
of the Wild Frontier”. He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of
Representatives,  served in the Texas Revolution, and died in the Battle
of the Alamo.

The famous kiss in New York’s Times Square celebrating the surrender of Japan.

On Friday, 15 August 1945 Japan surrendered and the surrender documents were
finally signed during a formal ceremony aboard the deck of the American battleship
U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay (below) on the morning of 2 September 1945, officially ending the war.

Gen. MacArthur (at microphone) looks on as Japanese Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu signs the surrender document.

Gen. MacArthur signing the terms of surrender 

The Guadalcanal Campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by Allied forces, was a military campaign fought between August 7, 1942 and February 9, 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theater of World War II. It was the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.

Original 1943 poster for the movie that was based on the best selling
novel of the same name.