20 Key Facts About Veterans That’ll Make You Emotional

Daniel Freeman was a U.S. Civil War veteran and the first person to claim land under the Homestead Act. Later in life, he brought up and won a landmark separation of church and state case against a teacher who was evangelizing to her students with permission from the school board.

The United States Postal Service is the single largest employer of veterans (22% of the postal workforce) and nearly a third of the veterans it employs are disabled.

When Dakota Meyer was contacted to arrange a time to inform him that his case for the Medal of Honor had been approved, the caller was told that Meyer was working at his construction job and they were asked to call again during his lunch break. Later when a White House staffer contacted Meyer again to arrange the ceremony, Meyer asked if he could have a beer with the President Obama. He received an invitation to the White House for the afternoon before the ceremony.

Filip Konowal, a Canadian World War 1 veteran, and Victoria Cross recipient, upon discovering that a bootlegger had viciously beaten a friend of his, disarmed the man and stabbed him to death. Konowal later told police: "I've killed fifty-two of them, that makes the fifty-third."

Adrian Carton de Wiart was a veteran of 4 wars. He was shot in the stomach, groin, head, hand, ankle, hip, and leg. He once chewed off a few of his own fingers, survived two plane crashes, and lost an eye all during the wars he fought.

The inventor of Coca-Cola, John Stith Pemberton was a Civil War veteran who became addicted to morphine due to pain from a saber wound to the chest. Seeking alternatives to his morphine use, he developed the original formula for Coca-Cola with the use of the coca plant for pain relief.

American pilot Thomas Fitzpatrick was a World War 2 and Korean War veteran who once stole a plane and landed it at 3 am in front of a bar in New York City while being intoxicated. About two years later, he did it again because a bar patron didn't believe him (again being intoxicated).

An Australian war veteran named Don Ritchie stopped over 160 people from killing themselves at a popular suicide spot by talking to them and offering them tea or breakfast at his home nearby.

In 1947, the Kiwanis Club of Ahoskie in North Carolina held a drawing for a New Cadillac. When a Black Navy Veteran won, they announced there had been a mistake, refunded the winner the $1 price of his ticket, and drew again for a white winner.

Dewey Beard was the last Native American veteran of the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn. In 1892, his family was killed by the US Army at the Wounded Knee Massacre, and he was shot. In 1942, the Department of War confiscated his land to form a firing range. He died in poverty in 1955.