Warriors In Their Own Words | First Person War Stories

The Honor Project has been recording veterans' stories since 1991, and this podcast — a collaboration with Evergreen Podcasts — puts those archival recordings front and center. The concept is powerful: wrap contextual narration around actual audio of veterans describing their experiences, from World War I through modern conflicts. The WWII episodes are especially compelling, featuring soldiers recounting D-Day landings, Pacific island assaults, and European campaigns in their own voices, sometimes decades after the events. The production team adds music and narration that frames each story without overwhelming it — think Band of Brothers in audio form. With 257 episodes and a weekly release schedule, the archive is substantial. The show carries an explicit rating because these are unsanitized accounts of combat, and the veterans do not hold back. That rawness is actually the show's greatest strength. You hear the tremor in an old man's voice as he describes losing friends on a beach, and no amount of polished narration can replicate that. The 4.7-star rating from 637 reviews on Apple Podcasts speaks to how deeply this format resonates with listeners. Not every episode focuses on WWII — coverage spans from WWI to Afghanistan — but the D-Day and Normandy episodes are among the most affecting in the entire catalog. This is oral history at its best, preserved and presented with real care.