The Christy Collection

Military Stories and Articles

USS Midway Historic Aircraft Carrier & Naval Museum

USS Midway Historic Aircraft Carrier & Naval Museum

The USS Midway aircraft carrier is America’s most popular naval warship museum. Located in downtown San Diego, the museum is open 10am to 5pm 7 days a week, closing only for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. The museum holds over 700 events a year, from Navy retirements and re-enlistments to changes of command. What is the USS Midway Known For? Commissioned after the culmination of World War II, the USS Midway was one of the longest-serving aircraft carriers of the 20th century. The United...

read more
Famous Air Force Unit: 1st Reconnaissance Squadron

Famous Air Force Unit: 1st Reconnaissance Squadron

The squadron emblem roundel pictured above is still current and has been in active use since 1933. As of this year, there are twenty-six active reconnaissance squadrons in the United States Air Force. The 1st Reconnaissance Squadron, by that specific unit designation, was not technically constituted until 1991-94 but was preceded by the 1st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron in 1966 and two training units utilizing similar nomenclature in between. Yet, this organization traces its full roots...

read more
Budapest to Vietnam by Nicholas J Hun

Budapest to Vietnam by Nicholas J Hun

Today, an estimated 200,000 U.S. military members are not actually citizens of the United States. They join for many reasons; a pathway to citizenship, learning new skills, or just being part of the camaraderie of their respective services. It's nothing new; foreigners have been joining the armed forces since the birth of the nation.  Times were no different during the Vietnam War. Many noncitizens joined to fight, and fight they did. One of those came from an unlikely place: Hungary....

read more
Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, U.S. Army (1952–1994)

Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, U.S. Army (1952–1994)

Sidney Shachnow was born in Lithuania in 1934, Sidney Shachnow faced oppression in his homeland and found his calling in the U.S. Army after immigrating to America in 1950. Sidney Shachnow enlisted in the military in 1955 and served for more than 39 years, including 32 in the Special Forces community. His top posts included leadership of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and U.S. Army Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg and U.S. Army-Berlin in Germany. "Maj. Gen. Sidney...

read more
Service Reflections of GMM1 Tom Bateman, U.S. Navy (1976-1989)

Service Reflections of GMM1 Tom Bateman, U.S. Navy (1976-1989)

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.

read more
Famous Military Unit: American Forces Network (AFRTS)

Famous Military Unit: American Forces Network (AFRTS)

In 1984, the first commercially available DynaTAC audio-only cell phone cost just short of $4,000, with each call billed at 45 cents per minute. Forty years later, anyone in uniform accesses audio-visual news from thousands of sources using a personal cell phone throughout the world, wherever a signal and transmission tower can reach. Yet, for eighty years, the most reliable military broadcast remains the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS). AFN Was Founded in 1942 as the Armed...

read more
WW2 – The Malmedy Massacre

WW2 – The Malmedy Massacre

In the last German offensive of World War II, three German Armies conducted a surprise attack along a 50 mile front in the mountainous and remote Ardennes Forest beginning on December 16, 1944, and quickly overtook thin U.S. lines during what became known as the Battle of the Bulge, the deadliest battle in the European campaign. On December 17, men from Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion were ordered to move from Schevenhutte, near Aachen, to St Vith in the Ardennes....

read more
Cold War – The Berlin Airlift (1948)

Cold War – The Berlin Airlift (1948)

After World War II, the Allies partitioned Germany into a Soviet-occupied zone, an American-occupied zone, a British-occupied zone, and a French-occupied zone. Berlin, the German capital city, was located deep in the Soviet zone, but it was also divided into four sections. In June 1948, the Russians–who wanted Berlin all for themselves–closed all highways, railroads, and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. This, they believed, would make it impossible for the...

read more
Famous Navy Unit: Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 11

Famous Navy Unit: Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 11

The Naval Mobile Construction Battalions are perhaps one of the most misunderstood military units across the armed forces. More commonly known as Seabees, these units are a reasonably new phenomenon with only eighty years of shared history. And surprisingly, this force has been redesignated multiple times to embrace the spirit of their mission and contend with political maneuvering among US Naval and Marine infrastructure. Moreover, as a support organization, the Seabees are typically not...

read more
Rise and Fall of the SR-71 Blackbird

Rise and Fall of the SR-71 Blackbird

During the last few years of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union - both long weary of the other - became unlikely allies against Adolf Hitler's takeover of Eastern Europe. Following the defeat of German in 1945, however, the wartime allies became mortal enemies, locked in a global struggle to prevail militarily, ideologically, and politically in a new "Cold War." To learn of the other side's military and technical capabilities, their actions and intentions, both sides used...

read more
Blue Boy by Buck Cole

Blue Boy by Buck Cole

Every veteran has a unique and interesting story to tell. Many of us are plucked out of our lives in the United States and sent to join our chosen branch of service, where we often travel around the country and around the world, engaging our senses in a series of new experiences. Air Force veteran Buck Cole is one of us.  Cole is not only a veteran; he's a retired history teacher, which gives him a unique perspective on what to teach us about the lessons he's learned and - more importantly -...

read more