The Christy Collection

Military Stories and Articles

SGT Marivel Perez, U.S. Army (2001-2011)

SGT Marivel Perez, U.S. Army (2001-2011)

Where did you go to Boot Camp/ Basic Training? What specific memories do you have of instructors, fellow recruits and any rigorous training?:

22 years ago, I was an 18-year-old who had just joined the Army. On 9/10 and 9/11 2001, I was at Fort Jackson, South Carolina conducting my final field training exercise in Basic Training. That morning, after setting up fox holes in the rain, pulling guard duty in the cold, and feeling completely drained from marching to the middle of nowhere the night before, we woke up, and were informed by our Drill Sergeants that our country had been attacked.

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Civil War – From Manassas to Appomattox Court House

Civil War – From Manassas to Appomattox Court House

The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election as the first Republican President on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, South Carolina legislature passed the "Ordinance of Secession," which declared that "the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states,...

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Civil War – Sherman’s March to The Sea (1861-1865)

Civil War – Sherman’s March to The Sea (1861-1865)

The March to the Sea, the most destructive campaign against a civilian population during the Civil War (1861-65), began in Atlanta on November 15, 1864, and ended in Savannah on December 21, 1864. Union General William T. Sherman abandoned his supply line and marched across Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean to prove to the Confederate population that its government could not protect the people from invaders. He practiced psychological warfare; he believed that by marching an Army across the state...

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LCDR Montel Williams, US Navy and USMC (1974-1986)

LCDR Montel Williams, US Navy and USMC (1974-1986)

Montel Williams is best known as the Emmy Award-winning host of The Montel Williams Show, which aired nationally for seventeen years. Montel Brian Anthony Williams, known to most as simply “Montel,” is also an actor and motivational speaker. But did you know that Montel Williams served in the military? His decorated military service spanned 22 years in two branches of the service—the United States Marines and the United States Navy. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1974 and later became the...

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