We Remember
Army vet Chi Chi Rodriguez, 88 passes
A lot of older celebrities were also veterans – that’s just the nature of having a draft. Some just served their time and got out quietly, some did surprisingly well like Johnny Cash, an airman who enlisted and became a Morse code intercept operator (reputedly the op who intercepted the first news of Stalin’s […]
Valor Friday
In the first couple of years of World War II, many Americans disagreed with the isolationist stance of the federal government. A lot of young men would hear the call to service pre-war, and enlisted into the American military. The armed forces were rapidly expanding long before the Attack at Pearl Harbor, with America already […]
Valor Friday
It’s the end of September, 1918. At about the same time that the German high command is trying to tell the Kaiser that they will lose to war and it’s best to capitulate now, an American all-black infantry regiment is attempting to take Hill 188. Hill 188 is a tall, well defended German post overlooking […]
Valor Friday
You never really know where your military service will take you. That’s especially true in wartime. John Galvin (pictured) was a Naval Aviator during World War II. Serving in the Pacific Theater, he ultimately shot down seven enemy fighters (and thus a fighter Ace) and earned four Distinguished Flying Crosses (among other awards). In the […]
Valor Friday
I’m currently reading Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart’s memoirs Happy Odyssey, so I figure it’s as good a time as any to refresh everyone on the story of this amazing chap. I also learned a new bit of old British slang. While at an all-boys school, he complained about “fagging“, which is not what you might […]
“Buttoned down” vet Bob Newhart, 94, passes
Bob Newhart may not be as familiar a figure to you younger guys, but to us old farts, he is a comic icon. Like most of his generation, Bob served a two year term as a draftee in the Army. He then enrolled at Loyola University Chicago from which he graduated in 1952 with a […]
Valor Friday
Staff Sergeant Michael Ollis of Staten Island, NY was on his last day in Afghanistan. It was his third combat deployment, and he was only 24 years old. He’d enlisted seven years prior in the Army infantry, getting his parents’ permission to enlist at 17. Soon after he saw Iraq and then Afghanistan, with this […]
Valor Friday
It’s the spring of 1862. The United States has been cleaved in two, with the southern states secceeding from the Union a year previously. With Lincoln in the White House, the Union is waging a war to reunite the country. The Civil War was in its infancy, but already the war had claimed more American […]
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