Growing up, I was surrounded by military heroes. Herein are the stories they told of the rocky roads traveled in the cause of freedom.

While I grew up amongst military heroes, I was too young to know it. Now that I am older and the heroes of my childhood are gone, their stories endure. Although it is too late to ask them questions, it is not too late to learn from their lives. Aptly stated by Reverend Kitty Lehman in her eulogy of Harper Van Ness, US Naval Academy (Class of 1943) at Arlington National Cemetery in 2007: "They preached sermons with their lives."

Michael Van Ness was born into a military family. Raised in Washington, DC and educated at the Landon School for Boys, Yale College, and the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He then joined the Navy, served aboard USS Sylvania out of Norfolk, Virginia, and was on staff at Bethesda Naval Hospital for eight years before founding a successful gastroenterology practice in Canton, Ohio. He has co-authored two medical texts, numerous medical articles, and a biography entitled General in Command: The Life of Major General John B. Anderson from Iowa Farm to Command of the Largest Combat Corps in World War II.