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Monday, August 6 marks the first anniversary of the Afghan crash of a U.S. military CH-47 Chinook helicopter that killed 30 Americans, including 17 Navy SEALS. It was the worst single loss-of-life day for the U.S. in the war in Afghanistan. It was also the worst in the history of Naval Special Warfare.

Just six weeks before the crash, I spent several days meeting with members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team SIX, talking to them about the loss of one of their teammates, Adam Brown, who had been killed in action during an especially complex raid on a compound in Afghanistan.

During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.

The Korean War 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 was a war between the Republic of Korea (supported primarily by the United States of America, with contributions from allied nations under the aegis of the United Nations) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (supported by the People's Republic of China, with military and material aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The Korean War was primarily the result of the political division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II.

The U.S. Army was founded on 14 June 1775, when the Continental Congress authorized enlistment of riflemen to serve the United Colonies," for one year.

The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy torpedo boats, on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War. The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two Marines, and one civilian), wounded 170 crew members, and severely damaged the ship. At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nmi (29.3 mi; 47.2 km) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.

The Normandy landings, codenamed Operation Neptune, were the landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy, in Operation Overlord, during World War II. The landings commenced on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (D-Day), beginning at 6:30 am British Double Summer Time (GMT+2). In planning, D-Day was the term used for the day of actual landing, which was dependent on final approval.

The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II.  Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy decisively defeated an Imperial Japanese Navy  attack against Midway  Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet

USS Stark, a Perry class guided missile frigate, was under the command of Captain Glenn R. Brindel and was part of the Middle East Task Force.  She was sailing off the Saudi Arabian coast near the Iran–Iraq War exclusion boundary, the area of sea off Iran and Iraq. The Iraqis attacked with a French built Dassault Mirage F1 armed with 1,500 pound Exocet missiles.  It took off from the airbase of Shaibah at 20:00 and headed south into the Persian Gulf also along the coast.

The Battle of Hamburger Hill was a battle of the Vietnam War that was fought by the United States and South Vietnam against North Vietnamese forces from May 10–20, 1969. Although the heavily fortified Hill 937 was of little strategic value, U.S. command ordered its capture by a frontal assault, only to abandon it soon thereafter. The debacle caused an outrage both in the American military and public. The battle was primarily an infantry engagement, with the U.S. Airborne troops moving up the highly sloped hill against well entrenched troops.

Victory in Europe Day — known as V-E Day or VE Day — commemorates 8 May 1945 (in Commonwealth countries; 7 May 1945), the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The formal surrender of the occupying German forces in the Channel Islands was not until 9 May 1945. On 30 April Hitler committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin, and so the surrender of Germany was authorized by his replacement, President of Germany Karl Dönitz.