NPR StoryCorps

On his second tour of duty in Vietnam, Master Sgt. Roy P. Benavidez embarked on a daring rescue. The mission that he spearheaded saved the lives of eight fellow soldiers — but also left Benavidez himself riddled and bleeding, shot 37 times.

StoryCorps' OutLoud initiative records stories from the LGBTQ community.

As of this Friday, same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states — thanks to a historic Supreme Court decision.

In the 1970s, this week's ruling on marriage equality was unimaginable. But many gay couples, knowing marriage was impossible, still wanted legal protection for their unions.

Iconic civil rights activist Bayard Rustin and his partner, Walter Naegle, were one such couple. The two men fell in love and were together for many years.

Denise McNair was 11 years old when she was killed in the bombing.

Courtesy of the 4 Little Girls Memorial Fund

Fifty-one

Mario Loiseau works two jobs, including long hours as a parking lot attendant, to help pay for his 9-year-old daughter Mabou's tutoring. Mabou is a science and language prodigy and is already studying college-level algebra.

"So Daddy, how did you feel when I was born?" she asked her father during a recent visit to StoryCorps in New York City.

Eleven years ago, Sean Fitzpatrick was a high school junior in Spokane, Wash. He had developed paranoid schizophrenia and was hearing voices — though he didn't tell anyone.

One morning, Fitzpatrick went to school with a gun and a plan: To barricade himself in a classroom, pretend he had hostages, and force police to kill him.

His plan didn't work, though at the end of the standoff he was shot in the face and still has difficulty speaking.

StoryCorps' OutLoud initiative records stories from the LGBTQ community.

Michelle Kreifels knows she's different from her siblings. The 51-year-old is the fifth of seven children, and was born with an intellectual disability.

"You're different, too," Michelle tells her younger brother Patrick, 48, during their StoryCorps interview in Omaha, Neb. Patrick and their sister Marlene are Michelle's legal guardians.

"And how am I different?" Patrick asks.

"Gay," Michelle says.

Len Berk loves lox, the salt-cured salmon that goes so well with bagels. The 85-year-old New Yorker is a veteran salmon slicer at Zabar's, the gourmet food shop in Manhattan.

But it wasn't always that way. For nearly four decades, Berk was an accountant.

"I never loved it, but accounting provided a decent living," he said to his friend Joshua Gubitz, during a recent visit to StoryCorps. "And it was very important for me to take care of my children. So after I retired I looked for something to do next."

Jose Guadalupe Enrique Sanchez was a gardener for more than 50 years.

"He had, very dark skin, you could tell he spent his whole life out in the sun," Jose's grandson, Santiago Arredondo said to his wife, Aimee, during a recent visit to StoryCorps.

"His hands were those of someone who worked since the age of 6, but he was the cleanest gardener you would ever see, always wore button down shirts from JCPenney's," 32-year-old Arredondo said.

"And, as a kid, on top of me being overweight, I also stuttered," he continued.

Leslie Hurd, 39, is a Hospital Corpsman in the U.S. Navy. For nine years, she's also served as a Casualty Assistance Calls Officer, or CACO. When active-duty members of the U.S. Navy die, CACOs like Hurd are responsible for breaking the news to their families — and supporting them during their time of grief and loss.

Sgt. Maj. Lisa Torello was 5 years old when her dad, Sgt. 1st Class Carl Torello, was killed in Vietnam.

"My dad was due to retire; he was two months short of 20 years," 55-year-old Lisa said during a visit to StoryCorps. "So, he knew it was his last tour and he was gonna go home for good."

Lisa was joined by Tony Cistaro, a State Department employee at the time, who was the only survivor from the attack that killed the elder Torello. The two had just met the day before.

Before Ferguson, Baltimore, Tamir Rice or Eric Garner, there was 13-year-old Nicholas Heyward Jr.

In 1994, he was playing in the stairwell of the Gowanus Housing Project, where he lived in Brooklyn, when a police officer shot and killed him.

"He was an amazing kid and I don't just say that because he was my son," Nicholas Heyward Sr. says during a recent visit to StoryCorps.

Kay Wang — an admittedly stubborn woman — chatted with her son and granddaughter at StoryCorps a few weeks before she passed away from liver cancer. (This piece initially aired on July 18, 2008, on Morning Edition).

Both of Barbara Hendricks' children were born with cystic fibrosis — a genetic disorder that causes thick mucus to clog the lungs. Her daughter, Tiffany, died of the disease 13 years ago, when she was 15.

"Having CF is like being in a boat with a hole in it," says Brent Hendricks, Barbara's 22-year-old son. "You can keep bailing the water out, and you're fine, but the second you stop, the boat's gonna sink. And, gotta make sure I don't sink."

For Brent, watching his sister die was like watching his own funeral.

During the 1970s the Louisiana neighborhood Pastor David Ned lived in was a rough one.

"I had a little dog, a little white German Shepherd, and I was living in an apartment," he said to Darius Clark Monroe during a visit to StoryCorps last fall. The two men met while Monroe was working on a documentary, Evolution of a Criminal, about a robbery he committed in his teens. Ned was a customer in the bank during the robbery.

StoryCorps' Military Voices Initiative records stories from members of the U.S. military who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Before Marine Cpl. Zach Skiles left for Iraq in 2003, he shared a quiet moment with his father, Scott Skiles.

On the morning of April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast — equal to 4,000 pounds of TNT — killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

The federal office building also housed a day care center. The explosives-laden truck was parked directly beneath it. Of the 21 children there that morning, only six survived.

Sissy Goodwin teaches power plant technology at Casper College in Wyoming. The 68-year-old Vietnam veteran dresses in women's clothing, wears bows in his hair, likes his skirts exactly 17 inches short, and prefers his toolboxes in pink.

Sissy is also straight. And he wasn't born with that name. His given name is Larry, but one day after a woman on the street called him sissy in a derogatory way, he chose to fully adopt the name. He says he was initially upset, but felt that by taking on the name he was taking ownership of her insulting comment.

StoryCorps' OutLoud initiative records stories from the LGBTQ community.

Deidra Robinson and her father, William Watford III, were extremely close — until she told him she was gay.

They came to StoryCorps in Homewood, a suburb of Birmingham, Ala., to talk about that moment.

Their story may sound familiar to many families.

"I looked at you and I said, 'Do you want to hear it?' " Robinson tells her father. "Do you remember what you told me?"

"No," Watford answers.

"You were like, 'No, I don't want to hear it,' " she recalls.

Earlier this year, Morning Edition aired a piece about two families who came together after a car accident. That story of forgiveness led to another StoryCorps interview after a listener named Jeff Wilson heard that conversation and was reminded of something that happened to him in high school back in 1984.

Fourth-grader Aiden Sykes had a few questions for his dad, Albert.

"Do you remember what was going through your head when you first saw me?" he asked during a recent visit to StoryCorps in Jackson, Miss.

"I remember when the doctor pulled you out, the first thing I thought was that he was being too rough with you," Albert, 31, told his son. "And he actually held you like a little Sprite bottle, and he was like, 'Here's your baby.'

Twenty-five years ago at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, two men posing as police officers tricked Rick Abath — the night watchman — into letting them in.

"At the time of the robbery I had just dropped out of Berklee College of Music. I was playing in a band, and working night shift at the museum," Abath said during a recent visit to StoryCorps with his wife, Diana. "I was just this hippie guy who wasn't hurting anything, wasn't on anybody's radar and the next day I was on everybody's radar for the largest art heist in history."

StoryCorps' Military Voices Initiative records stories from members of the U.S. military who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lance Cpl. Erik Galvan, 19, was walking ahead of his squad looking for improvised explosive devices. It was 2011, and he was three months into his deployment to Afghanistan.

The group approached an ominous wooded area; Galvan felt uneasy. His squad leader, Sgt. Daniel Wheeler, was several feet behind him.

Ten years ago Kevin Berthia lived in the San Francisco Bay area. He had an infant daughter who had been born premature, and the medical costs for her care climbed to nearly $250,000. He couldn't see a way out of debt.

Berthia fell into a deep depression and went to the Golden Gate Bridge.

"Before March 11, 2005, I never even went to the bridge," the 32-year-old said during a recent visit to StoryCorps. "I didn't even know how to get there. I had to ask for directions."

California Highway Patrol Officer Kevin Briggs was there that day, too.