A very noble mission is to be done on 5th of June, 2022 thanks to the partnership of Cunard with The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation. Another tribute to the heroes of World War II will happen onboard the Cunard vessel Queen Mary 2 with the presence of several esteemed veterans from the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars, enjoying a powerful enrichment program on board on that Transatlantic Crossing. The departing of the 7-day cruise will be from New York, heading to Southampton, England. 

These heroes have stories, enough to fill a cruise ship theater, each and every day at sea for a Question and Answer Session, interactive moments of the guests spent with the veterans, where they can hear about the "Battle of the Atlantic," the DDAY landings in Normandy, to the last living survivor of Pearl Harbor. 

"We are honored to continue our relationship with The Greatest Generations Foundation and to pay tribute to these esteemed veterans and their wartime service. Ever since we first introduced this very special program in 2017, guests have been riveted by their very moving and personal narratives, resulting in standing ovations every day," said Jamie Paiko, vice president, Sales, Cunard North America.  "We are both humbled and thrilled to welcome back some returning WWII veterans to our flagship, and to meet some veterans new to the Cunard experience."

The veterans scheduled to be on board will include:

-STEVE MELNIKOFF, 102 years old veteran, who survived the horrors of Omaha Beach, when he served in 1st Battalion, 175th Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division. He earned four Bronze Star Medals and two Purple Hearts for his service.

-MICKEY GANITCH, 102 years old veteran, who served as a Senior Chief Quartermaster in the United States Navy and witnessed Pearl Harbor and went on the fight in 17 battles throughout the Pacific.

-HAROLD ANGLE, 98 years old veteran, who served in the 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, and who marched down the Champs-Elysées on August 29, 1944, in the Liberation of Paris.

-JAMES BLANE, 98 years old veteran, Corporal of the 4th Marine Division of the United States Marine Corps and served in the battles of Kwajalein (Roi-Namur), Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima.

-HAROLD RADISH, 97 years old veteran, served with the U.S. Army and was assigned to the 90th Infantry Division, as a combat intelligence observer. He was imprisoned and served the rest of the war as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany.

-IRVING LOCKER, 97years old veteran, with rich memories for the brutally cold winter of 1944-45 when he was a 19-year-old staff sergeant with the 116th AAA Gun Battalion of the 1st Army's 7th Corps. They fired 90mm anti-aircraft, anti-tank guns at the Germans in Hitler's last desperate effort to avert inevitable defeat in the European Theater of WWII. 

-ROBERT FISHER, 88 years old veteran, is a 1955 Naval Academy graduate and career Marine Corps officer who retired in 1982. At that time, he also studied four guerrilla wars in Southeast Asia and obtained the Malaya Jungle School Syllabus at Johore Bahru and went on to train 20,000 Marines, Navy Seals, Sea-Bees, and Army Special Forces Teams for Vietnam.

-RICHARD PRINCE, 76, was assigned to Delta Company, 1st Battalion 5th Marines and assaulted the Dong Ba Tower in Hue. Pictures of his bravery were featured in Time Magazine and on the cover of Stars & Stripes Magazine during the war. He was severely wounded in the neck and medevac'd out of Vietnam to the United States during this action.

-JESSE "BUD" ALLEY, 80, served two years active duty; a complete twelve-month tour in Vietnam with the First Cavalry Division (Airmobile)-August 1965-August 1966. His award-winning book The Ghosts of the Green Grass documents his experience in the Vietnam War.

-KEVIN BREWINGTON, 38, served with the U.S. Army and was two months into his Afghanistan deployment as an infantryman with the 125th Special Brigade Combat Team when he stepped on a landmine. He woke up four days later in a hospital in Germany. BREWINGTON lost both his legs and part of his right arm in the blast and has spent seven years recovering and rebuilding his life.

Other topics that will take place on the discussion sessions are: Pearl Harbor, 1941, The Invasion of Normandy, 1944, The Battle of the Bulge, 1944, The Battle for Iwo Jima, 1944, Vietnam War, Afghanistan.