TogetherWeServed Blog - Page 16 of 114 - The Most Incredible Military Stories

Service Reflections of Sgt Howard Johnson, U.S. Marine Corps (1969-1973)

One of my family members served with Washington in the Revolutionary War, John Cahoes. He was actually on a sortie to capture an English General. They had to cross from New York to New Jersey in a rowboat, crossing between English warships in the dark of night. Intel had it that the British general had a kept maiden at a local pub, and the Americans caught him with his pants down. His troops were encamped just down from the pub. They caught him in bed and hauled him back down to the bay before they let him put his pants on. Then they rowed back across the bay between the warships.

War in the Pacific – The Battle of Manila

Battlefield Chronicles, World War II

On February 3, 1945, American forces entered the outskirts of Manila, capital of the Philippines, beginning the Battle of Manila, a ferocious and destructive urban battle against the Japanese that would leave Manila the second-hardest hit Allied capital (following Warsaw) of World War II. The Road to Manila and the First Days of Battle As part of his campaign to retake the Philippines from the Japanese (who had captured it from the Americans in 1942), General Douglas MacArthur first...

Maj Audie Murphy, U.S. Army (1942-1969)

Profiles in Courage, World War II

He wanted to join the Marines, but he was too short. The paratroopers wouldn't have him either. Reluctantly, he settled on the infantry, enlisting to become nothing less than one of the most-decorated heroes of World War II. He was Audie Murphy, the baby-faced Texas farm boy who became an American Legend. Audie Murphy Begins Life in Hardship and Early Responsibility The sixth of twelve children, Audie Murphy, was born in Kingston, Hunt County, TX, on June 20, 1925. The son of poor...

WWII – The Defense of Wake Island

Battlefield Chronicles, World War II

In December 1941, as Japan ripped across the Pacific, most American outposts collapsed in days. Guam fell between Dec. 8 and Dec. 10 to a larger Japanese landing force after only brief resistance by a small, lightly armed garrison of sailors and Marines. Wake Island was supposed to be another speed bump. Instead, a few hundred Marines, sailors, and civilian contractors turned it into a two-week fight that delivered the first American tactical victory of the Pacific War and a badly needed...

PFC Ross Andrew McGinnis, U.S. Army (2004–2006)

Global War on Terror, Profiles in Courage

On the afternoon of Dec. 4, 2006, a Humvee rolled through the narrow streets of Adhamiya, a tense neighborhood in northeast Baghdad. It was one of hundreds of patrols that had blurred together for the men of 1st Platoon, C Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment. The mission that day was the same as it had been for months: show presence, deter sectarian violence, and make it just a little harder for insurgents to own the streets. Ross Andrew McGinnis Grew Up Wanting to Be a Soldier In...

94th Fighter Squadron

Famous Military Units, World War I

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared."Eddie Rickenbacker, Major, USAAS The 94th Fighter Squadron is a unit of the United States Air Force 1st Operations Group located at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. The 94th’s primary weapon system is the F-22 Raptor at this time. Throughout its full course and its precursor units, the 94th has been assigned to 70 different stations worldwide, and since its inception, has flown 43 different airframes....

Capturing Skunk Alpha By Raúl Herrera

Military Book Reviews, Vietnam War

In "Capturing Skunk Alpha: A Barrio Sailor's Journey in Vietnam," author Raúl Herrera does something a lot of Vietnam books promise but very few deliver: he keeps you at "deck level" the whole time and still shows you the bigger war. Capturing Skunk Alpha Brings the War Down to Deck Level On the surface, it's the story of one mission: the July 1967 hunt for a North Vietnamese resupply trawler, codenamed "Skunk Alpha," and the small Swift Boat, PCF-79, that helped stop it cold off the coast of...

Service Reflections of CMCS Daniel McKinnon, U.S. Navy (1976-1997)

Cold War, Navy Reflections

My decision to join the Navy was heavily influenced by my stepfather, a seasoned World War II and Korean War Navy veteran who retired as a Boatswain’s Mate First Class (BM1). After my mother remarried, he was transferred from the Navy shipyard in Boston to the Navy shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia, just when I started high school, and it was not an easy transition for me. During my senior year of high school, his no-nonsense advice was clear: he strongly encouraged me to enlist, telling me to visit the recruiter because, upon graduating from high school, I’d need to leave his house. His experience as a crusty old salt and his ‘firm guidance’ (nice way of saying it) steered me toward a Navy enlistment.

Sgt Alvin York – An Unlikely Hero

Profiles in Courage, World War I

Alvin Cullum York was one of the most decorated United States Army soldiers of World War I. He received the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nests, killing at least 25 enemy soldiers, and capturing 132 during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. He was also a conscientious objector. Alvin York Grows Up in Rural Tennessee Shaped by Hardship York was born on December 13, 1887 to William and Mary York of Pall Mall, Tennessee and raised in a two-room log cabin in a rural...

The Christmas Truce of 1914

Send Us More Japs!

Military Myths and Legends, World War II

The defense of Wake Island in December 1941 became one of the only bright spots in a month of disasters for the United States and its Allies in the Pacific. A tiny garrison of Marines, Sailors, Army radiomen, and civilian contractors held out from Dec. 8–23 and even stopped the first Japanese landing attempt cold, sinking two destroyers and inflicting heavy casualties in the process. Early war coverage turned the defenders of the tiny atoll into instant heroes. Wake Island Myth Became A...

Custer’s Last Stand

Battlefield Chronicles

In 1868, many Lakota leaders of the Sioux nation agreed to a treaty, known as the Fort Laramie Treaty that created a large reservation for them in the western half of present-day South Dakota. They agreed to give up their nomadic life, which often brought them into conflict with other tribes in the region, with settlers, and with railroad surveyors, in exchange for a more stationary life relying on government-supplied subsidies. However, some Lakota leaders such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse...

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