Category: Military History

I received some odd assignments as assistant adjutant of the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) in the fall of 1962. I supervised the carving of a large pair of parachute wings out of ice for a formal ball. I ordered the names of officers departing from the Group headquarters engraved on boxes of dessert bronzeware […]

May 5, 1961 — Former WWII combat veteran and Naval pilot Alan Shepard was strapped tight into his seat as he blasted upward out of the earth’s atmosphere. The Mercury-Redstone 3 rocket barreled through the sky, subjecting Shepard to 6.3g forces as he entered space and the engines shut off. The “tower,” or the main body of […]

May 4, 1939 — The Royal Air Force (RAF) lines up its premier fighter planes on the tarmac at the RAF Duxford airfield in England — the Supermarine Spitfires, pictured above. The plane had only been introduced into the RAF the year prior on this very airfield, piloted by men from 19 Squadron, RAF Duxford. Spitfires […]

May 3, 1469 — Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence, in the Republic of Florence located in modern-day Italy. He was a politician, a philosopher, a diplomat and an early Italian humanist. He was devoted to the unification of Italy and penned many politically inclined philosophy books that would eventually make him (according to some) the […]

A new monument stands in Arlington National Cemetary, VA, that honors the fallen pilots and crew members of helicopters during the Vietnam War. The memorial was dedicated on April 18, 2018, and according to the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA) approximately 3,400 were in attendance, including Vietnam veterans and Gold Star families. Air Force Bell UH-1N […]

April 27, 1865 — The Sultana was overcrowded with almost 2,000 recently released Union soldiers that had been held by the Confederacy. They were packed into the steam boat as it powered up a relentless spring-time flood on the Mississippi river, and though it was cramped, many were probably happy to be there. After the […]

April 25, 1915 — Allied forces in WWI land on six beaches on the Gallipoli peninsula of the Ottoman Empire, including troops from France, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. There, Turkish forces lay in wait and set up a fierce resistance to the landing parties. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) were located […]

The International Space Station has been in orbit around our planet since 1998, providing the human race with a (semi) permanent habitable space at the front door of the great beyond. That timeline offers an interesting bit of perspective — as you come to realize that America’s latest generation of enlisted warfighters, joining the service […]

The U.S. Navy’s legacy fleet of F/A-18 Hornets concluded their final voyage aboard an American aircraft carrier earlier this week. These jets have served as the Navy’s workhorse fighter since first becoming operational in 1983, and will continue their service lives in other capacities as the Navy makes room for Block III Super Hornet variants […]

Chemical weapons have dominated the headlines recently — two Russians were exposed to the Novichok nerve agent in the UK, sparking an international incident; the airstrikes in Syria were spawned from reports of a chemical attack on civilians. In Douma, Syria, the specifics aren’t exactly known about the agents used, but most sources say it […]

In telling the stories of war, we have a natural inclination to focus on the action, the drama of the front lines. Heroes, villains, and violence unlike most people have ever seen has a unique way of grabbing at the human attention span, luring us in with via own aspirations of heroism, or our own […]

April 17, 1970 — The lunar and service modules had been jettisoned between Fiji and New Zealand; the three crew of Apollo 13 were barreling back to earth in the command module. After a mission rife with uncertainty, malfunction and extreme danger, the extended communications blackout during reentry had many on edge. Still, the three […]