Featured Stories

Dr. Andrew Schally was born in Poland, and through early struggles under German occupation during World War II, started a journey as a medical researcher that would take him to VA and groundbreaking research on hormones. In this feature by VA History intern Parker Beverly, follow along Dr. Schally's career as his medical research was recognized in 1977 with the Nobel Prize.

How did Veterans from the Civil War celebrate their country's Independence Day in 1875? In a feature that appeared last year on the VA Insider digital platform, a unique perspective is gained in a late 19th Century July 4th celebration.

In 1945, as World War II was ending, the U.S. cruiser USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine, igniting a quest for survival for the hundreds of sailors stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Today, only a few of those survivors remain, and National Cemetery Administration Historian Richard Hulver memorializes some of those Veterans, who are buried at national cemeteries across the world.

Florence Standish was a nurse who worked on the historic Asheville VA Medical Center campus in the early 20th Century when the Army maintained the hospital. A photo found by a local VA employee began a journey that helped identify this pioneering nurse.

Doris Miller joined the Navy in 1939, on the eve of World War II, as a mess attendant. He was assigned to a battleship at Pearl Harbor, and on Dec. 7, 1941, performed acts of gallantry that earned him the Navy Cross.

During the American Revolution, General George Washington created the first military award for Continental Army Soldiers - the Badge of Military Merit - later reinstated in 1932 as the Purple Heart. Since then, more than 1.8 million Purple Hearts were awarded to wounded service members. The award has a special relationship to the VA as it is tied to many different benefits within the system.

The same law that established the Veterans Bureau in 1921 authorized the new agency to open up to 140 offices at the sub-district level. The purpose of these field offices was, in the words of the bureau’s founding director Charles R. Forbes, to “bring all of the activities of the Veterans' Bureau closer to the men they serve.” The Winston-Salem Regional Office celebrated 100 Years in 2021.

President Warren G. Harding made a commitment to streamline and improve benefit services for the millions of World War I Veterans in the U.S. In August of 1921, he signed the bill creating the Veterans Bureau, the first independent federal agency to manage all facets of Veterans care. The legacy of the Veterans Bureau lives on in the modern VA, which continues its forerunner’s tradition of service to Veterans and their dependents.

The National VA History Center is progressing in the early stages at the Dayton VA Medical Center campus - but artifact collection to fill its rooms has successfully been underway. Less than a year after celebrating the Center's establishment, VAs History and Archive team transferred the first artifact into its collection - a 19th Century Bible from the campus chapel.

On July 21, 1930, President Hoover signed Executive Order 5398 and the Veterans Administration, more commonly called VA, was created. It would replace the Veterans Bureau and changed how the federal government managed the growing Veteran benefit system.

The American Civil War began in April 1861 and within a month, enslaved African Americans, like those from Loutre Island, seeking shelter behind Union lines shifted the war’s objectives - improving emancipation policies. NCA intern Jacob Klinger dives into the experience of Soldier John Pitzer, who served in this dynamic time period and is memorialized at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis.

When The Best Years of Our Lives premiered in November 1946, the nation was in transition. World War II was over but the process of demobilizing and discharging 16 million service members was still ongoing. The movie depicted the challenges Veterans faced reintegrating into civilian society and it was so powerful that VA leader General Omar Bradley had the movie shown to employees at the central office.