Of all your duty stations you were assigned to from your Military Service, which one(s) do you have fondest memories of and why?:
Honestly, everything I recall about the Norfolk is that she and the men aboard her were unique and outstanding. I’m not saying they were without fault. Both the ship and my shipmates had their faults, but I found it easy to overlook them.
Of all your duty stations you were assigned to from your Military Service, which one(s) do you have fondest memories of and why?:
I arrived at Fort Myer, VA, in May of 1967, newly assigned to the 1st Battalion 3rd Infantry and fresh out of AIT. I still remember my first impressions of Fort Myer as I drove into the post from Arlington Boulevard since it was part of Arlington National Cemetery. The very first funeral I witnessed was a Full Honor Funeral for a General who had passed away. The ceremony was breathtaking, including the Caison, The Riderless Horse, marching platoon, the Casket Team, and the bugler. Little did I know at the time that every funeral in Arlington National Cemetery is graded by an officer of the Battalion. Those grades are all reviewed and reported to the Captain and 1st Sargent of each company responsible for providing the funeral team. After a bit of time, it began to sink in just how reverent the cemetery is and how important the services provided by all of the Military Funeral Teams are to the families of fallen soldiers—watching the grief they had as their precious loved one was put to rest. That became abundantly clear on Memorial Day when The Old Guard placed a flag on every grave in the cemetery. Yes, every single grave, just as is still done today. It stays with me always as I reflect upon my days in The Old Guard because placing those flags was not fun.
Of all your duty stations you were assigned to from your Military Service, which one(s) do you have fondest memories of and why?:
While I am truly mesmerized by history, this historic and absolute 1-of-a-kind piece is easily my most prized possession from my phenomenal 20-year (and 11 days) Air Force career. In July 1944, on his 28th combat mission, a bombing run over Vienna, Austria, Paul W. Airey was forced to bail out of his flak-damaged aircraft over Hungary. He was captured by the German military and was taken to Stalag Luft IV, a prisoner of war (POW) camp near the Baltic Sea for Allied airmen. In February 1945, Airey and 6,000 fellow POWs were forced to march 400 miles to another camp near Berlin as the Soviet Red Army got closer. He was liberated in May 1945 by British forces.
After the attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the Union developed an overall strategy to defeat the Confederates. Later dubbed "the Anaconda Plan," it required the Union to capture control of the Mississippi River, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two while blockading Southern ports to cripple the South's economy and prevent it from acquiring supplies. This plan was derided at first because the blockade wasn't considered aggressive enough by Union generals, but it turned out to be extremely effective. The rebels felt the Union blockade long before they felt the retribution of the Union Army – and almost immediately began finding ways to beat the blockade. On March 8, 1862, a new kind of ship would be put to the test for the first time, hoping to punch a hole in the Union Navy. The Battle Was the First Engagement of Ironclad Warships One of the keys to Union seapower during the Civil War was the development of ironclad warships. The development of heavier naval guns and...
The long-lost Medal of Honor belonging to the "Lion of Little Round Top" has been found. It awarded to then-Colonel (and later Maj. Gen.) Joshua Chamberlain, for his "distinguished gallantry" in leading the 20th Maine volunteers on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, came by mail to the Pejepscot Historical Society in Maine in July from a donor who wished to remain anonymous. The Location of Joshua Chamberlain's Original Medal of Honor Historians from the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the U.S. Army have since verified the authenticity of the Medal. "Though it seems almost too good to be true, we are confident that we are now in possession of Joshua Chamberlain's original Medal of Honor," said Pejepscot Historical Society Director Jennifer Blanchard. "All of the experts we've consulted believe it to be authentic, and we are tremendously honored to return the medal to Chamberlain's home" in Brunswick, Maine, which is now a museum open to the public,...
The sky was red above Gloucester, MA, when fishermen on the swordboat Andrea Gail set out from their harbor with ominous flashes of lightning far away to the northwest that late autumn of 1991. At the 1 hour and 21-minute mark in the movie "The Perfect Storm," the first distress call to USCGC Tamaroa (portrayed by CGC Vigorous) is transmitted from USAF Pave Hawk "Jolly 110" assigned to the NYANG 106th Rescue Wing. Sailing from her homeport at Newcastle, NH, Tamaroa had been coordinating air and sea operations looking for vessels caught in three violent Atlantic storms converging south of Nova Scotia when it was diverted. On a fourth HC-130 refueling sortie, 30 attempts to meet the drogue failed due to extreme turbulence of up to 100 knots; the Jolly 110 went dry and was forced to ditch. The Satori yacht passengers had been brought safely into a USCG rescue helicopter by then; at no time were they set aboard the Tamaroa. After five hours adrift in the tempest, seas sometimes reaching...
It was 1965, and my wife and I were living and working in Atlanta, Georgia, when I received my ‘Greetings’ letter from Uncle Sam. I was working full-time and carrying a full semester load in college. Since I was working full-time, I was not eligible for a student deferment, and my rating was 1A.
As a symbol of patriotism and public support during a time when anti-Vietnam war sentiments were growing, the Minnesota Twins baseball team and Marine Corps recruiters in the Minneapolis - St. Paul area came up with the idea of the team sponsoring a recruit platoon to be named the 'Twins Platoon." A letter sent out to area Marine recruits informed them they would be sworn in on TV at pregame ceremonies the night of June 28, 1967. Among those receiving the letter was the author, Christy Sauro Jr. On the designated night, over one hundred young men and four young women stood in the open field in a casually fashioned "civilian" formation and were sworn in. By the end of the sixth inning, the new recruits were hustled out to waiting buses, sped away to the World Chamberlain Field Airport, boarded an American Flyers chartered flight, lifted off the Minneapolis runway and flew into the blackened night for San Diego. Before dawn the next day, the recruits of the Twins Platoon were standing...
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, it started very poorly for the Union Army. Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor surrendered to the Confederates on April 13. Skirmishes and fights had broken out all over the country, but the major battles like those at Bull Run and Leesburg saw significant Union defeats. The Confederate Invasion of Kentucky Throughout 1861, Virginia was pushing the Federal forces out, Missouri's pro-Confederate State Guard was on the warpath, and the Confederate invasion of Kentucky effectively ended the state's neutrality. In doing so, it provided the Union Army there, led by Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had the opportunity to turn its fortune around. The Union cause needed a big win, and Grant delivered it at the February 1862 Battle of Fort Henry, Kentucky. Grant Delivered Union Victory at the Battle of Fort Henry, Kentucky The Union's strategy for defeating the Confederate Army required it to gain control of the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy in...
I had always wanted to join the military. I was raised on WWII movies, built military models, listened to stories from my uncles and just loved the thought of it. As a child I had thought I would join the Army and I would be a Tanker. I had a pair of army fatigue coveralls that I wore all the time. My Mother said I would only take them off to be washed. Over my teenage years, my uncle Don (EM1 WWII SeaBee) told me about his service in the Navy. That, his love of our country and it’s veterans along with his Civic Pride is what confirmed my choice in military service and steered me from the Army to the Navy.
Paratrooper Gary Linderer deployed to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne and often went out into the jungle with a six-man Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol. During one patrol, he claimed to have encountered a creature with "deep set eyes on a prominent brow… five feet tall, with long muscular arms, walking upright with broad shoulders and a heavy torso." Linderer had no idea what he saw, but he wasn't the first American to report seeing an ape-like creature while out on patrol, and he definitely wasn't the last. Some Army platoons reported coming under attack from the apes and even fighting them in hand-to-hand combat. There are no known species of apes native to Vietnam, but that didn't stop reports of large, ape-like creatures dwelling in the country's jungles during the entire Vietnam War. US Troops Thought that They Saw Bigfoot in Vietnam Bigfoot didn't get drafted or come over to Vietnam as a figure of the American imagination, either. The Vietnamese, Cambodians and even Laos had...
Within weeks of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Imperial Army pushed American and Filipino troops out of Manila. They were forced into the jungles of the Bataan Peninsula and the Island of Corregidor where they were cut off from supplies. Hungry and suffering from tropical disease, the troops were promised by the commanding Gen. Douglas MacArthur that "thousands of planes" with food, medicine, and reinforcements were on their way. But no help had arrived by March when MacArthur was ordered to leave and set up a command in Australia. Over 25000 American Soldiers Surrendered Into Captivity During the Raid On Cabanatuan By April, Allied losses and the lack of supplies in Bataan were so bad that Maj. Gen. Edward King, the local commander, ordered the surrender of 70,000 troops (Filipinos and Americans); the largest American army in history to surrender. Having made plans to accept the surrender of about 25,000 soldiers, the Japanese were overwhelmed with POWs. Food, water, and...
