TogetherWeServed Blog - The Most Incredible Military Stories

Gunnery Sgt. John Lee Canley, U.S. Marine Corps (1953-1981)

As 1967 turned to 1968, American forces had officially been fighting in Vietnam for years, and many believed the Vietnamese Tet holiday would pass uneventfully, as it had in years past. They were wrong. On January 31, 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched an offensive across South Vietnam, targeting more than 100 towns and cities. It was the largest operation from either side until that point in the war. Eighty thousand communist troops hoped to spark a mass uprising...

Col Pierre Julien Ortiz, U.S.Marine Corps (1942-1954)

Celebrities Who Served, World War II

The first thoughts that come to mind when one thinks about World War II Marines is them landing on bloody beaches and fighting in steamy jungles of the Pacific. But this was not the role of Marine Pierre Julien Ortiz, who served in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. His exploits and dare-devil attitude were things of fiction yet they were all real. He was an American and a Frenchman with a Spanish name and he lived in remarkable times and did remarkable things. His life was a series of...

WW2 – The Battle of Iwo Jima

Battlefield Chronicles, World War II

The Battle of Iwo Jima was an epic military campaign between U.S. Marines and the Imperial Army of Japan in early 1945. Located 750 miles off the coast of Japan, the island of Iwo Jima had three airfields that could serve as a staging facility for a potential invasion of mainland Japan. American forces invaded the island on February 19, 1945, and the ensuing Battle of Iwo Jima lasted for five weeks. In some of the bloodiest fighting of World War II, it's believed that all but 200 or so of the...

Service Reflections of RM2 Alfred Campbell, U.S. Navy (1967-1971)

Navy Reflections, Vietnam War

As a Cub Scout, the pack took a trip to the Philadelphia Navy Yard. We went through a submarine, and I was scared the thing would sink or blow up or something, so I ran through it. Going out, we passed all those old mothballed ships, and something inside me rang and said, “I want to be on one of those gray ships someday.

Escape from Libby Prison: The Largest Successful Prison Break of the Civil War

Civil War, Military Myths and Legends

On February 9, 1864, more than 100 Union prisoners tunneled their way to freedom in an audacious escape from Libby Prison in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. More than half of the prisoners made their way to Union lines while others were recaptured and returned to the confines of Libby. Libby Prison started as an old food warehouse on Tobacco Row along the James River. Captain Luther Libby, along with his son George W. Libby, leased the three-story brick building where they...

Service Reflections of EM3 Douglas McQuaid, U.S. Coast Guard (1971-1975)

Coast Guard Reflections, Vietnam War

William McCrystal (a good family friend) and I worked together when I was a senior in high school. He used to tell stories of his time in the service. Vietnam was still going on, and I had just received my draft number. Rather than getting drafted I picked my service and joined the USCG at the end of the summer after graduation.

With The Old Breed by E. B. Sledge

Military Book Reviews, World War II

Sledge's memoir gives a firsthand and unapologetically honest perspective on the Pacific Theater of World War II. His memoir is a front-line account of infantry combat in the Pacific War. It brings the reader into the island hopping, the jungle heat and rain, the filth and malaise, the fear of potential "banzai attacks," and the hopelessness and loss of humanity that so uniquely characterized the campaign in the Pacific. Sledge wrote starkly of the brutality displayed by Japanese soldiers...

PV2 Robert Duvall, U.S. Army (1953 – 1954)

Celebrities Who Served, Korean War

Robert Duvall is best known for his 70-plus years in Hollywood, playing such iconic military roles as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore in "Apocalypse Now," Maj. Frank Burns in "M*A*S*H" and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in the TV miniseries "Ike: The War Years." But did you know that before his acting career took off, Robert Duvall served in the Army, shortly after the end of the Korean War? Robert Duvall’s Early Life Actor and filmmaker Robert Duvall was born in San Diego, but grew up a Navy brat — an...

Service Reflections of SSG Peter Olsen, U.S. Army (1967-1973)

Army Reflections, Vietnam War

Too much partying, and it turned out a 1.2 GPA would not keep me from being drafted. So I volunteered for the draft. Once I got back from Vietnam, I actually received 2 degrees and maintained a 3.7 GPA while working full time as a police officer. Funny story – After I left school to volunteer for the draft, I thought it would be a quick process. Not so. The first month my draft board did not meet for some reason. The second month the draft board did not take up my request. The third month a draft board member died of old age – no meeting. In the 4th month, the draft board finally met and acted on my request but did not approve it until the 5th month.

The American Indian Wars – The Battle of Bear Valley

Battlefield Chronicles

When we think of the Indian Wars that pitted the American Indian tribes against the United States Army, we tend to think of U.S. Army Cavalry, wearing their trademark stetson hats, sabers gleaming, riding into battle. They're usually fighting Native tribesmen who are shooting rifles while riding bareback across the Great Plains. That may have been how some of those battles looked, but after the closing of the frontier in 1890, it looked a lot different. The last great battle (The Battle of...

The X-15 Rocket Plane by Michelle Evans

Cold War, Military Book Reviews

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into low-earth orbit in 1957, it set the Space Race in full motion. The United States was determined to break the barriers of man's entry into space and dominate this undiscovered country. While NASA projects Mercury, Gemini, and especially Apollo are often remembered and celebrated, a little-remembered partnership between the US Air Force and NASA brought an incredible new aircraft, arguably the first-ever manned...

Where Are the Alien Bodies?

Cold War, Military Myths and Legends

By now, we all know the gist of the story. An unidentified flying object crashed in the desert near Corona, New Mexico, in 1947. Military and government agents from nearby Roswell Army Air Field rushed to the site and found alien bodies hidden among the wreckage and debris. Then, they immediately covered it up and left the American public in the dark. The Army didn't help matters any, releasing a report claiming to have captured some kind of "flying disc." It immediately retracted that claim,...

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