War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome to another special bonus topical episode of Key Battles of American History.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And this is yet another in my series of episodes that have been commissioned by my patrons on patreon.com, or stated another way, members of the elite unit called Early's Raiders.

This is from Colonel Daniel Fisher. And Daniel requested that I do a somewhat in-depth narration of John F. Kennedy's

experiences in World War II. So that's what we're going to talk about today. But before we do,

I just want to remind you again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, and I know some of you

have heard this many times, so I apologize for the repetition. But just in case you have it, if you are interested in commissioning an episode of this

podcast on a topic of your choosing, you can do so by going to patreon.com and searching for

key battles of American history.

And if you sign up to support me at the major level or above, you can commission an episode

on a topic of your choosing, as long as it has to do with American military history.

Okay, so enough for the commercial. Let's move on and talk about John F. Kennedy in World War II.

And I need to say before I get rolling one more thing. And this episode,

most of it at least, appeared in an earlier series I did on U.S. presidents in World War II.

But I have added a lot more information. I've expanded the episode to go into more detail

about Kennedy's experience. Now, I want to start by saying that John F. Kennedy's father, Joseph

...