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Military Quotes
We have resolved to endure the unendurable and suffer what is insufferable.
-- Emperor Hirohito
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In the summer of 1950, I had just completed electronics school in Memphis, TN. I was ordered to Geiger counter school in San Diego, CA. Upon arrival in San Diego, we noticed a high degree of alert and activity at the base. I soon learned of the Korean War and how it would change my life.
Note: by Ed Buckman, VF-193, USS Princeton Task Force 77 11819 Reads

February 15, 1918 -- Left guns at 12 noon for wagon lines. Got a change of tunic and pants.
February 16, 1918 -- Started away on leave from Neun Le Mines. Fritz was shelling station. Had to beat it to Bethune Road down in boxcars and caught the leave train. Arrived in Balounge about nine p.m. Slept in the fish market all night.
9788 Reads

I don’t know if those of you that were in Viet Nam during the war remember the custom of poc time. If you remember, this will be a refresher. If you never heard of poc time, well it’s time you learn about this Vietnamese tradition. What follows are my observations based on my brief time in country.
Note: by Robert D. Pryor, Detachment A-344, 5th Special Forces Group (ABN) First Special Forces. 10123 Reads

Headquarters, 1st Brig., 3d Div. 6th Ar.
Near Gaines Mills
June 4, 1864
Dear Ha: I have just received a letter from you and as a mail will leave in an hour or two, I hasten to answer. We are behind entrenchments, holding a position which we have just taken from the enemy. Bullets, as I write, are flying in all directions, and wounded and dead men pass me continually.
Note: Letter from Chas. Leonard to his father in the trenches, Virginia countryside near Richmond, Va. 9484 Reads

Once through the entrance, as I deemed it wise to keep moving in order not to be taken by surprise when the ships had no headway, and as, at the same time, I did not wish to reach our destination before we had sufficient daylight to show us the position of the Spanish ships, the speed of the squadron was reduced to four knots, while we headed toward the city of Manila.
Note: by Admiral George Dewey 11771 Reads

September 16 I remember crossing the Siegfried line with it's dragon teeth. We had seen pictures of this defensive system for years and now we saw it first hand. With the return of our men from the Red Ball Express we are now back in business. I don't remember details of all the areas we were in when we arrived in Germany. I recall one position shortly after we were in on the outskirts of Aachen. We had an antiaircraft unit of two half-tracks with us. One vehicle had quad fifties in a cockpit like arrangement and the other was a thirty seven mm. with a pair of fifties.
Note: by William H. Gieske, 172nd Field Artillery Battalion. 12275 Reads

20 Oct 68
Dear everybody,
Well it's another rainy day in Vietnam. When they say its been known
to rain 40 days and nights you can believe it.
Today I had to fill sandbags and build a bunker where a mortar round
came in last night. No big worry. It was at least 300 yards away. That's for
really!
8054 Reads

I was in the first chopper in the assault. Not a comforting thought but, as it turned out lucky for me. Our chopper crossed the treeline and immediately started dropping down in a stomach lurching dive. As we swept across the Lz toward the far end to allow the choppers behind us to land, we started receiving automatic weapons fire from the surrounding treeline.
8464 Reads

Early on the morning of December 3, 1971, Paddy Control contacted Dustoff Operations with an emergency scramble mission. A Navy Seawolf helicopter had just given a mayday call near Tra Vinh, indicating he had been hit by enemy fire and was going down. We scrambled immediately, and Paddy vectored us to the coordinates where he'd last seen the Seawolf on radar.
Note: by David Freeman 7744 Reads

It was a normal day. I reported to work, started logging into the computer, checking e-mails, taking phone calls, talking with the office about what was going on. Then someone heard about the happenings at the World Trade Center - the first plane. We were able to watch the live video and started hearing the reports. Then we saw the footage of the second aircraft coming into the second tower.
Note: by Lieutenant Commander David Tarantino, MC, USN 14454 Reads

Shortly after joining up we saw this notice on the notice-board looking for volunteers for a "suicide mission." Some brilliant officer had come up with the idea that he would like to form a unit that would go behind the enemy lines at night and blow up the German's tanks while they slept. Imagine that!
Note: by Ronald Arthur Tee, 56th Reconnaissance Regiment, 78th "Battleaxe" Division of the British 1st. Army, 1941-1946.
7291 Reads

Friday, 14 September 2001, turned out to be a tough day. We all got to NNMC early in the morning and boarded the buses for the 4-hour ride up to Earl, New Jersey. Eventually, we all got unloaded, checked aboard, got our rooms, unpacked our seabags, and checked into our workstations. Then, within an hour of arriving, there was an announcement that there had been a change in the mission. The hospital ship was going to be used to provide comfort, meaning living spaces, food spaces, and showers for the rescue workers. And except for a very core crew, everybody else was told to pack their seabags to go home.
Note: by Captain Ralph Bally, MCS, USN, USNS Comfort 16444 Reads

It was raining hard again, the monsoon deluge pouring down in sheets. 2d platoon had been out in the field for how many days? Weeks maybe. I had no idea what day it was anymore, but at the last resupply, they'd brought out some Stars and Stripes dated December 21st, so I knew it was somewhere around Christmas.
Note: by James Worth. 8120 Reads
Manila, June 8, 1899 Messers Horton, Bassett, Bell and Roberson: Dear Friends and Comrades: Your kind combination favor, after having been badly mutilated and miscarried, reached us late last month at San Fernando; a most welcome missive we assure you; and if we could receive more such evidences of good will and friendship from our Anthoney friends, the terrors of war would lose much of its terror.
7553 Reads
Santiago De Cuba July 18, 1898 Dear Parents, Received your welcome letter and was so glad to find all well. I am in the best of health, but my God, how the men around me suffer! There are 30 to 40 in the Company sick. It is the fever, and I thank God every day that He has spared me so far. He has heard your prayers, my dear Mama. As I have no paper, I will give you a brief sketch of what has happened on the Island and go into details some other time.
7480 Reads
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This Day in History
1865:
General William T. Sherman begins a march through the Carolinas.
1940:
Hitler cancels an attack in the West due to bad weather and the capture of German attack plans in Belgium.
1942:
Japans advance into Burma begins.
1944:
The U.S. First and Third armies link up at Houffalize, effectively ending the Battle of the Bulge.
1944:
Eisenhower assumes supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.
1945:
Adolf Hitler takes to his underground bunker, where he remains for 105 days until he commits suicide.
1952:
Knowing the requirements of the Korean war firsthand, General Earle E. Partridge, former Fifth Air Force Commander, put the full resources of the USAF Air Research and Development Command into searching for ways to increase the performance of the F-86 Sabre during this period. This top-priority effort led to the improved wing design "F" model that entered service with the 51st Wing in August 1952. The aircrafts operating altitude increased to 52,000 feet and its maximum speed went to Mach 1.05. In addition, the F-86F could make tighter turns at high altitudes.
1964:
President Johnson approves Oplan 34A, operations to be conducted by South Vietnamese forces supported by the United States to gather intelligence and conduct sabotage to destabilize the North Vietnamese regime.
1969:
An agreement is reached in Paris for the opening of expanded peace talks. It was agreed that representatives of the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the National Liberation Front would sit at a circular table without nameplates, flags or markings.
1990:
In the wake of vicious fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Azerbaijan, the Soviet government sends in 11,000 troops to quell the conflict.
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