The Christy Collection
Military Stories and Articles
Because my father spent little time with me when I was young, my older brother became my father figure. I always wanted to be like my brother, so when he attempted to join the Marines in ’67 and didn’t make it due to having a wife and child to care for, I decided I would join when the time came.
The movie “Sands of Iwo Jima.” We were twelve-years-old when a friend and I came out of the movie theater and agreed that we would join the Corps together when we were old enough.
In 1955, my senior year in high school, I joined the 99th Special Infantry Company, our local Reserve unit. That is where I was recruited by then SSgt. H. Gene Duncan.
World War II as a global event unfolded over more than a decade, impacting countries in different ways and at very different times. Undoubtedly Americans identify the war’s start consistently with the Pearl Harbor attack and declaration of war by Japan on December 7, 1941, but the beginnings of the conflict date much earlier to 1931 with Japan’s invasion of Manchuria. In recognition of their brutal ambitions and the escalating political activities in Europe the US became deeply...
The only Medal of Honor to be awarded to a combat photographer is now on display in the Medal of Honor Gallery in the "Price of Freedom" exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Marine Cpl. William Thomas Perkins Jr Marine Cpl. William Thomas Perkins Jr. died at the age of 20 on Oct. 12, 1967, when he flung himself on a grenade to preserve the lives of three other Marines during Operation Medina, a Marine search and destroy operation in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam....
