Roy Wilkins and Keith Melick

Retired 1st Sgt. Keith Melick and retired Army Special Forces Command Sgt. Maj. Roy Wilkins were on a mission in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan in 2004 when their caravan was hit by an IED.

Roy was seriously injured in the blast, but was pulled from his Humvee and survived.

Ten years later, at a VA Medical Center in North Carolina, Roy was swapping military stories with another Army veteran, Keith Melick, when the pair realized they had already met. Keith was the medic who’d pulled Roy from the wreckage.

At StoryCorps, Roy and Keith sat down to talk about their memories of both encounters.

Where are they now?

The chance reunion—that took place in 2014—marked the beginning of a deep and lasting friendship; Roy and Keith have spoken on the phone every week since then.

Photo: Retired Army Special Forces Command Sgt. Maj. Roy Wilkins (left) and retired 1st Sgt. Keith Melick (right) at their StoryCorps interview in Lansing, KS. Photo by Natalia Fidelholtz for StoryCorps.

Originally aired November 29, 2014, on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

Gwen Richards

Gwen Richards remembers her mother, Helen, who had Alzheimer’s.

Marty Smith and Paul Wilson

Marty Smith and her father, Paul Wilson, 93, discuss the first time he set eyes on her mother, Wilma. She was an elevator operator in the building where he was working, and he had just been drafted and was about to spend the next three years in the service. They married three days after he returned, and remained together and in love for the next 63 years before her death.

Originally aired December 24, 2009, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Trudy Henry and Jan Scoggins

Trudy Henry tells her daughter Jan Scoggins about unexpected visitors her family received one evening when she was a growing up. A man and a woman drove up to their home looking for help from her mother, and while they seemed harmless at the time, after seeing a newspaper article days later, her family realize the pair were the notorious criminals Bonnie and Clyde.

Originally aired May 25, 2007, on NPR’s Morning Edition.