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![Korea](images/topics/korea.jpg)
For the last four months we were living at a camp in Japan called Camp McNair . It was located at the base of Mt. Fuji. It consisted of 440 twelve-man squad tents and several Quonset buildings as mess halls. The streets were bulldozed into the mountainside. They looked like steps.
Note: by Bill Arnold, 143d FA 40th ID 11766 Reads
![Vietnam](images/topics/vietnam.jpg)
The plane touched down at Bien Hoa in the mid-afternoon sun. The realization of where I was came to me with mixed emotions of wonder, excitement, apprehension and fear. I had volunteered for this, I told myself, so there's no use in questioning the decision now. You better suck it up and accept whatever happens.
Note: by Steve Nirk 11685 Reads
![Vietnam](images/topics/vietnam.jpg)
Det 6 was staging out of Song Ong Doc. It was going to be a dark night with no moon, so as we watched the sun slip below the horizon, we knew we would be flying that night. Sure enough, the scramble alarm went off around midnight. The AMY, a series of support barges for PBR's, was the command post for our area of operations. The AMY activated the alarm.
Note: by Jim Plona 9739 Reads
![World War II](images/topics/ww2.jpg)
V-Mail , June 1944:
Dear Mom,
"The O.W.I. has given you more information about the historic D-Day than we could hope to include in one letter.
8048 Reads
![World War I](images/topics/ww1.jpg)
Before reaching Louvain we bivouacked near a large well-built village, and here we had the wettest and merriest evening in the whole campaign. Some of our battalion water-carriers discovered a wine-cellar in the village. On going into a cellar they noticed a stack of fagots, and guessed that they were put there with a purpose. The fagots were quickly cleared away, and behind them appeared a door.
Note: by Captain Henry Huebner 16382 Reads
![World War II](images/topics/ww2.jpg)
When I got to the hangar, navigators were working around a large table with their topographical maps and plotting charts. Navigators made their own calculations, and then compared results with others. When we had finished we went to the locker room. Dressing up was a long process for the gunners. It was a cold ride in the turrets and gunners wore as much clothing as they could from woollen underwear to electrically heated suits.
Note: by Jerrold Morris, 419 Squadron, RCAF 8904 Reads
QuiNhon Airfield Security Detachment It was around 0100, 2 February, 1968 and the Sergeant came to the door of the billets screaming that order. It meant that Little John, that's me was to go to tower number 2 about 500 yards from the billets and there was the banging all around the airfield. Weren't the gooks celebrating their New Years?
Note: by Sp4 Little John, QuiNhon Airfield Security Detachment 8012 Reads
![Civil War](images/topics/x.jpg)
Where the Jerusalem Plank Road, leading into the city of Petersburg, Va., passed through the earthworks of the contending forces, a little east of south of the city, there had been hot contention from the first approach of the Union army. The right of the original line of Confederate works, prepared in advance by their engineers, rested upon this broad road.
Note: by Captain Thomas P. Beals, Company E, 101st Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry 13859 Reads
![World War II](images/topics/ww2.jpg)
A week or so before the December 31, 1943, mission, my crew, the Mendelsohn crew, was breaking apart. Our navigator, Bill Borellis, was promoted to the exalted position of 91st Bomb Group navigator; our bombardier, Harold Fox, (later to be killed in action over Hamburg) had applied for special training as a navigator and was leaving the crew, and the pilot, Stuart Mendelsohn, had been designated, but not yet officially installed, as the new operations officer of the 324th squadron. And I had just been checked out as first pilot and was about to take over what remained of our original crew.
Note: by Verne Woods, 91st BG 18134 Reads
![Civil War](images/topics/x.jpg)
The war was assuming large proportions, and I began to see that the rebellion could not be put down without my help. George had served his time of enlistment, and was at home. Sam was only 18, and was needed at home, but for the fear that we might be drafted and sent to different parts of the country, our parents preferred that we all go together so we could all help each other. It was hard to leave them without help, but they could rent the place or hire some help. Hester was with them and was 9 years old, big enough to run on errands and be of some help at home.
Note: by John Marshall Alley 13947 Reads
![Airforce](images/topics/airforce.jpg)
On September 8, 1958, two B-52 collided about 1,000' above the eastern approach to the runway at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington. The time of the crash was about 1730 hrs (5:30 PM) Pacific Time.
Note: by Richard P. Roberts 19643 Reads
![World War II](images/topics/ww2.jpg)
We were dropped into the channel from the mother ship at about 4:30 in the morning. I was the intelligence sergeant in headquarters company so a few weeks prior to the invasion I was put into a Quonset hut that had triple Concertina wire around it and was under 24 hour guard.
Note: by Herb Epstein, Intelligence Sergeant, Headquarters Company, 5th Ranger Battalion 8086 Reads
![Vietnam](images/topics/vietnam.jpg)
Take five dumb bombs, one dumb A6 (non-system), one dumb target, and one dumb way to fight a war. Add a large portion of luck. What's the result? An averted disaster. But leaving a crew who will be able to fly another day and an Intruder still around to fly in harms way.
Note: By Captain Bill Kretschmar (retired), VMA (AW) 533
MAG 12, 1st MAW, Chu Lai, RVN, September, 1967
I Corps, South Vietnam 9057 Reads
![Gulf War](images/topics/desertstorm.jpg)
NBC. Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. These were some of the most thought about things in the blast furnace of Iraq. Not that we did not have other things to think about but the idea of a virus that could live 3-5 days in the desert environment was not something to take lightly.
Note: by David 14850 Reads
![Airforce](images/topics/airforce.jpg)
As I sometimes did, when the information for the next day's mission was slow in coming in, I would not call my driver but just get in my car and drive myself around the perimeter track, stopping now and then to talk to the men working on the planes. Of course, everything was blacked out. To drive we used a mere slit of light from the car's headlights to see the road.
Note: by Joseph A. Moller, Commanding Officer, 390th Bomb Group 10004 Reads
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This Day in History
1758:
British forces capture Frances Fortress of Louisbourg after a seven-week siege.
1759:
The French relinquish Fort Ticonderoga in New York to the British under General Jeffrey Amherst.
1790:
An attempt at a counter-revolution in France is put down by the National Guard at Lyons.
1794:
The French defeat an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus, France.
1848:
The French army suppresses the Paris uprising.
1861:
George McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac after the disaster at Bull Run five days prior.
1863:
Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his men are captured at Salineville, Ohio, during a spectacular raid on the North.
1912:
The first airborne radio communications from naval aircraft to ship is conducted.
1917:
Repeated German attacks north of the Aisne and at Mont Haut are repulsed.
1941:
President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China.
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