NPR StoryCorps

Donna Engeman enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1981. About two years later, she left after she got pregnant with her first-born, a son called Patrick. She left having achieved the rank of specialist and having found the love of her life, her husband, Army Chief Warrant Officer John W. Engeman.

In addition to Patrick, they had a daughter, Nicole McKenna.

Some people may only remember Vice Adm. James Stockdale as independent presidential candidate Ross Perot's running mate in 1992. His opening statement of a disastrous performance during the vice presidential debate — "Who am I? Why am I here?" — made him a punchline on late night TV.

But Stockdale's legacy far surpasses any failed political endeavors. In 1965, his plane was shot down over North Vietnam and he was taken as a prisoner of war at Hoa Lo. He would be a POW for nearly eight years.

In the late 1940s, in the small, coal-mining township of Bethel, Pa., Marie Sayenga was raising two children — one named Bill — on a secretary's salary.

Francisco Preciado came to California from Mexico as a young child. By the early 1980s, he was raising a young family of his own in the U.S. and working as a groundskeeper at Stanford.

On a recent visit to StoryCorps, his son, Frankie, recalls, "Since I was around 9 or 10, I would come sometimes with you to help you on campus."

"I told you that one day, you were going to go here to Stanford," answers Francisco.

A years and a half ago, Patricia Mishler was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. The condition, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, attacks the cells that control muscle function — and it is considered terminal.

"Most doctors will tell you three to 10 years, but nobody really knows," Mishler, 73, tells her two daughters, Suzanne and Janette, in a StoryCorps conversation for Mother's Day.

With that diagnosis comes a sense of impending loss, she says — not simply the prospect of death, but the loss of many abilities once taken for granted.

Sharon Long found her calling later in life. Back in the 1980s, she was a single mom trying to support her two kids, holding down several jobs at once — none of which she liked much.

"I worked at the Dairy Queen, and I cleaned a dentist's office, and I was a secretary," Long recalls, on a recent visit with StoryCorps. "I hated every morning I got up."

But, as she tells her colleague Steve Sutter, everything changed for her at age 40. When she she took her daughter to register for college, a financial aid officer persuaded Long to enroll herself.

Vito de la Cruz practices law in Washington state, but his roots actually rest in Texas, where he grew up in a family of migrant farm workers. When de la Cruz was 5, he began working the fields himself in the 1960s.

"The family, we used to migrate. We traveled the migrant farmworkers' circuit," he tells his wife, Maria Sefchick-Del Paso, on a recent visit with StoryCorps. "It was equal parts hardship and poverty."

On-air challenge: Ignore the vowels in each word given. The consonants in each word are the same consonants in the same order as in the name of a well-known American city. Name the cities.

For example: DOLLIES ---> DALLAS.

At first glance, a posting for the job of bridgetender might not be the most attractive you've ever seen. For 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the person at the controls of the Ortega River Bridge in Jacksonville, Fla., must sit in a tiny booth, opening and closing the bridge so boats can pass.

Sounds like an awful job, right?

Some accidents have deadly consequences. And sometimes it's the thing you didn't do — didn't say, didn't see — that leaves you with the most guilt.

For 25 years, retired Army Col. David Taylor has carried feelings of guilt over the death of one of the soldiers in a maneuver he was leading.

In 1991, during one of the final battles of the Gulf War, Army Spc. Andy Alaniz was killed by friendly fire in Iraq. A U.S. tank unit fired rounds at the group of vehicles Alaniz was in, mistaking them for the enemy. He was one of 35 Americans killed by friendly fire in the war.

Some accidents have deadly consequences. And sometimes it's the thing you didn't do — didn't say, didn't see — that leaves you with the most guilt.

For 25 years, retired Army Col. David Taylor has carried feelings of guilt over the death of one of the soldiers in a maneuver he was leading.

In 1991, during one of the final battles of the Gulf War, Army Spc. Andy Alaniz was killed by friendly fire in Iraq. A U.S. tank unit fired rounds at the group of vehicles Alaniz was in, mistaking them for the enemy. He was one of 35 Americans killed by friendly fire in the war.

After a long, desolate winter devoid of bats and balls and more than a few questionable called strikes, big-league baseball is finally once more upon us. And while the action on the diamond is the main attraction, it's by no means the only competition that rages in ballparks across the country.

For a glimpse of another battle entirely, just look to the stands. There, in the aisles, you'll find vendors roaming the stadium selling refreshments, vying with one another to end each game as the day's top seller.

After a long, desolate winter devoid of bats and balls and more than a few questionable called strikes, big-league baseball is finally once more upon us. And while the action on the diamond is the main attraction, it's by no means the only competition that rages in ballparks across the country.

For a glimpse of another battle entirely, just look to the stands. There, in the aisles, you'll find vendors roaming the stadium selling refreshments, vying with one another to end each game as the day's top seller.

Meet Yetta Bronstein, candidate for president.

At least, she was a presidential candidate — kind of. In the 1960s, a pair of professional pranksters, husband and wife Alan and Jeanne Abel, orchestrated an election-year hoax with Bronstein, a politician as much as she was a fiction.

"Yetta Bronstein lives in the Bronx. She has a boy named Marvin. He plays the drums, badly," recalls Jeanne. "And one day she decides to run for president!"

Earlier this year, when her father was in the final stages of lung and liver cancer, Eva Vega-Olds spoke to him for the final time. Leonardo Vega, 73, had been in hospice care at his home in New Jersey, so weak that he could barely muster the strength to answer his daughter's questions.

But still, Eva asked them — and took the opportunity to tell her father what he meant to her. And she recorded the conversation for StoryCorps, using her smartphone.

For three generations, Tanya James' family has worked the coal mines of West Virginia. James is no different. She began working in the mines in 1979, when only about 1 in 100 coal miners were women — and she didn't begin under the happiest of circumstances.

Her father died when she was 17, leaving her mother to take care of the family. Out of necessity, Tanya's mother took a mining class, and Tanya would go down with her every day — so the instructor invited Tanya to join the class.

Six months later, Tanya was working in the mines as well.

His is not just a gentle voice; for many people, it's a very familiar one, too. For 25 years, Francois Clemmons played a role on the beloved children's program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Clemmons joined the cast of the show in 1968, becoming the first African-American to have a recurring role on a kids TV series.

And, as it happens, it was Clemmons' voice that Fred Rogers noticed, too, when he heard Clemmons singing in church.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Time now for StoryCorps. Today, a conversation from their Out Loud initiative, collecting the history of LGBT life. Dick Titus and Zeek Taylor have been a couple for more than 40 years. In 1975, they settled in Fayetteville, Ark. Dick, who was an electrician, quickly realized that to get work, he had to say in the closet. At StoryCorps, they talked about how they kept their relationship hidden.

When the military opens front-line combat roles to women soldiers — across all branches — in April, it will mark the culmination of a years-long process, which was often subject both to consternation and controversy. It will also mark a historic first for a female service members, many of whom enlisted decades ago in a very different kind of military.

Among those women is Capt. Margie Finlay, who first enlisted in 1973.

Just days away from the Oscars, Hollywood continues to face down questions over its lack of diversity — particularly among the nominees for its top prize. The controversy has helped prompt a viral hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite, and has led the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to pledge to diversify in years to come.

Joshua Myers, 29, has Down syndrome. These days, he considers it a gift — but he didn't always.

"At first," he says, "I thought it was a curse."

In fact, the condition proved so overwhelming for Myers that, once, he even walked out into the middle of a busy intersection, hoping that a car would hit him and end his life. But a stranger stopped for him. She brought him into her car to talk things through.

Myers hasn't seen her since.

Last spring, Benny Smith began having epileptic seizures. In his fifth-grade English class, he fell out of his chair and found he couldn't move. It soon got so bad for the 11-year-old, in fact, that his falls even led to several concussions.

And when he'd wake up, he'd feel terrible, too — "a bit like a hangover," Benny tells his mother, Christine Ristaino, on a recent visit to StoryCorps.

Just don't ask him what a hangover feels like.

"You told it to me!" he tells her.

Editor's Note: Some may find the graphic material in this post disturbing.

"I remember taking the gun out," says Sean Smith. "My sister was off to the side of the room."

Smith, now 36, was just 10 years old at the time. He had arrived home after school with his 8-year-old sister, Erin. Their parents weren't home yet, so they'd gone searching for hidden video games in their father's dresser drawer.

That's when Sean Smith found a .38 revolver.

Andy Goodling met his boyfriend, Bryan, at college in Pennsylvania. Six years ago, they started dating — but for years, they kept their relationship hidden.

"Bryan was my best friend, but we were both very much in the closet," Goodling tells his father, Scott, on a recent visit with StoryCorps. "You know, we knew who we were. We just didn't want to actually say it."