Apm: The Story

Charlie Haughey shot almost 2000 photographs of his fellow soldiers in Vietnam, but left the photo negatives untouched in a box for 45 years. Recently, a friend encouraged him to digitize the images and Charlie says he didn't sleep for days after revisiting the faces from his past.Plus, at 91 years old, Henry Stone is still at work as a record producer. He remembers producing one of Ray Charles' earliest recordings, and hand-selling early R&B albums in barbershops.

A southern girl moves to New York City to become a chef and swears she’ll never look back. But now Vivian Howard is home in rural North Carolina, making southern staples fancy at her restaurant Chef and Farmer.

Combat photographer Louie Palu tells the story behind his portrait of a wounded Afghan soldier aboard a U.S. Army Medevac helicopter. The photo is being recognized by the Smithsonia's National Portrait Gallery. Also in this show: Danny Lewin was on the first plane to hit the World Trade Center in 2001. He’s often called the “first victim” of those attacks.  What many people don’t know is that Lewin developed the web technology that allowed millions of people to quickly access the same websites at the same time, as many did on September 11.

Helicopter pilot Carina Roselli faced enemy fire in Iraq. Recently, she returned as an environmental worker. Also in this show: In 1948, 28 Mexican citizens being flown by the U.S. to their native country perished in a plane crash in California. Woody Guthrie protested their anonymity and decades later historian Tim Hernandez set out to find their names.

Helping kids inside Syrian refugee camps. Also in this show: Searching for the Little Prince’s baobab tree in Nigeria; performing the un-performable “Vexations” composition; and creating a new font for the old problem of dyslexia.

She uses just the one name, but don’t be fooled by that brevity. Dessa, a rapper from Minneapolis, has earned a following with her song-writing skills and her work with the hip hop collective Doomtree. Also in this show: In 1973, the American war against communism in Laos ended, leaving their Hmong allies behind; and in a room across from Carnegie Hall, the exuberant young piano phenom Lang Lang demonstrates how he approaches a Brahms Intermezzo.

Western writer Terry Tempest Williams spent 25 years sorting out the message her mother gave her when she left her three shelves of blank journals.

James Holzrichter became a reluctant whistleblower after finding evidence of misconduct by his employer, Northrop Grumman. He became a pariah in his field, and eventually found himself unemployed, homeless, and unable to protect his family. Also in this show, we honor a former guest, Lindy Linenberger, who survived the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. Lindy died this past summer at the age of 88.

In today's show, we hear from a student who, with her classmates, successfully raised the minimum wage in San Jose, California; a golf league for Detroit detectives; a novelist who is teaching Chicago Police Officers to write fiction; and a 2004 conversation between Dick Gordon and the late Seamus Heaney. 

Jennifer Thompson was a college student when she was raped. During the attack Jennifer tried to memorize what the man looked like so she could identify him later. Jennifer wrongly identified Ronald Cotton, and he served 11 years before he was exonerated.Also, Lamonte Armstrong was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his elderly next door neighbor. He was exonerated last summer and is still trying to negotiate life in a world he was removed from for years.

Jason Puracal was working in Nicaragua when he was wrongfully convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering, and organized crime.  He was sentenced to 22 years in one of the worst prisons in the country.  His sister Janis led the charge for his release. Also, Greg Hampikian, a forensic expert who has devoted himself to using DNA technology to free the innocent.

This is one episode in our four-part series "After Innocence: Exoneration in America." Guests include Scott Hornoff, a Rhode Island police officer convicted of murder in 1996. Since his exoneration he has been unable to find work in this country so he has become a private security consultant in Afghanistan. Also: Julie Baumer, convicted of child abuse for what later was determined to be “shaken baby syndrome”. She was exonerated. And the man at the Innocence Project who receives thousands of letters from prisoners hoping to be freed.

This special edition of The Story revisits key moments from that seminal day 50 years ago, and the repercussions it had for people who were there: a minister, a photographer, a ranger, and a student turned activist remember it as one of the greatest moments of their lives. Also in this show: Artist Toni Scott has studied the narratives of American slaves and built life-size castings of people in her work Bloodlines.

As friends and collegues were kidnapped and killed, Kelly McEvers continued to report for NPR in the Middle East during the Arab uprisings. She has made a documentary about a year there, and speaks with guest host Sean Cole.

Cindy Storer, one of the CIA analysts who tracked Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda before Sept. 11, talks about the reported chatter of terrorist attacks at U.S. embassies and the  world of intelligence gathering.  Also in this show: as a young black Haitian-American, Constantin Severe had enough run-ins with the police to be wary of them. But when he grew up to become a public defender, he learned to trust officers.

When Lynn Hill retired from operating Predator drones for the U.S. Air Force, she closed that chapter of her life – until she started writing poetry about having one foot in the war and one foot at home. Also in this show: a Vietnam veteran turned Franciscan friar talks about war and the long journey of finding a place to work and feel at ease.

Susie Ray, a painter in London, recently opened a gallery where she displays her original copies – copies she’s made of Monet, Degas and others that are so close to the original, they’ve fooled art auction firms. Also in this show: performance artist Sara Juli handed out her life savings to an audience. They could give the cash back or walk out with it; Kate McGuire was driving home one day when she looked away from the road to her GPS unit. She didn’t see she was driving toward a parked car and a man standing beside it; and 30 years after the assassination of Benigno Aquino, one of the most prominent opponents of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Aquino's brother-in-law tells the story of what happened the day he was killed.

On a good surfers’ beach, usually everyone is in the water. But at 38th Parallel Beach –  near the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea – surfers sometimes see parades with tanks, soldiers and guns. Also in this show: contributor Scott Carrier goes to Hawaii to learn how to surf and test his theory that the music he associates with surfing is the true surf music; and when Matt Brooks and his wife Pam bought an 80-year-old wooden yacht named Dorade, people thought it was crazy they wanted to race it in weeks-long oceanic races. That was until it started winning.

Andrew Marantz, who traveled to India to work at a call center, details the reaction he got when he showed up, the accent workers are encouraged to use, and the classes offered to work there. Also in this show: When illustrator James Gulliver Hancock moved to New York City in 2009, he started to get familiar with the city by illustrating its buildings. He has compiled his sketches in the book, “All the Buildings in New York.”

After he and his girlfriend were swarmed by fire ants one day, writer Justin Nobel set off to figure out how they got to the U.S. and why they’re spreading farther north each year. Also in this show: In a patch of eastern Ecuador's Amazon rain forest, a researcher has been looking for treehopper insects that communicate using sound; and we have another nice piece from the Memory Palace, this one on what inspired one man to invent the telegraph.