HISTORY is a rich, ever-changing fabric woven by stories and experiences that move us, inspire us, and ultimately change us forever.

This year's Eyewitness to History entries were no exception. Hundreds of readers sent interviews on everything from fighting in wars and pinching pennies during the Great Depression to "necking" at drive-in movies and mourning race car driver Dale Earnhardt.

With their candid descriptions, the three winning entries offer unique perspectives on history. In them, a Vietnam veteran recalls the conflicted emotions of a soldier, a Marine describes life on the front line in Iraq, and a woman puts her family's gigantic claim to fame--a flea circus--on center stage.

Vietnam War

Jeremy Johnson

Taft Youth Center

Pikeville, Tenn.

In the 1960s and '70s, the United States sent millions of men to fight in the Vietnam War (1964-1973). Many Americans did not support the war. They disagreed with its causes and said it killed too many people--more than a million died in the war, including 58,000 U.S. soldiers. North and South Vietnam signed a peace treaty in 1973, but the communist North conquered the South in 1975. Jeremy Johnson's teacher, Michael Phillips, fought in Vietnam as an Array sergeant. Jeremy talked to Phillips about what it was like to look death in the face.

It was the fall of 1969, and 18-year-old Michael Phillips was fresh out of high school. Michael didn't know his life was about to take a huge turn. He was one of thousands of young men drafted to go to war in Vietnam.

Q: Do you believe you fought for the right reasons?

A: At the time [I did] because I was told I was going to be a hero, and then later on I began to disagree. I mean, after you see what is going on ... For instance, we would be dropped off in the jungle, and we'd come up on a local village; then we'd get a radio transmission saying that the enemy (Viet Cong) was known to be in the village. So we'd have to pull out the machine guns and exterminate whole villages. I couldn't justify in my mind what was going on.

Q: What types of weapons did you use?

A: The basic issue M-16, which you had to clean a lot because if you were lazy and didn't clean [it], it had a tendency to jam when you needed it the most, so a lazy man was a dead man. Then I had a sidearm weapon, which was a 9mm. And we also had ... a 50-caliber, high-powered machine gun that was mounted on a vehicle.

Q: What went through your mind during combat?