American History

Veterans Day 2018

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Happy Veterans Day To all my fellow veterans!   Somebody has to be at the pointy end of the stick and you all took up the challenge,

American Military Cemetery with WWI war dead at Epinal, France

Today is Veteran’s Day in the US and Armistice Day in Britain and France. It is a day to remember the end of the fighting in World War I on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. It is also the day set aside in the US to remember all veterans, not just those of World War I but also those that served in our nation’s other wars and those that served during peacetime. It takes something special to serve your country and a little bit more to do so voluntarily. There is always the possibility of going to war and giving your life for your country while in the military. I hope that everyone takes a moment today and remembers the sacrifices of all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who have served and fought for the United States. If you meet a vet today, shake his hand and thank him for his service. Remember, less than 1% of US citizens currently serve, yet they do so to protect that other 99%.

US Department of Veterans Affairs site about Veterans Day

 

Veterans Day 2017

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Happy Veterans Day To all my fellow veterans!   Somebody has to be at the pointy end of the stick and you all took up the challenge,

Today is Veteran’s Day in the US and Armistice Day in Britain and France. It is a day to remember the end of the fighting in World War I on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. It is also the day set aside in the US to remember all veterans, not just those of World War I but also those that served in our nation’s other wars and those that served during peacetime. It takes something special to serve your country and a little bit more to do so voluntarily. There is always the possibility of going to war and giving your life for your country while in the military. I hope that everyone takes a moment today and remembers the sacrifices of all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who have served and fought for the United States. If you meet a vet today, shake his hand and thank him for his service. Remember, less than 1% of US citizens currently serve, yet they do so to protect that other 99%.

US Department of Veterans Affairs site about Veterans Day

Book Review: Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying To Destroy America by James E. Mitchell Ph.D.

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Enhanced Interrogation is the book that should have been written 10 years ago when the hype about America torturing captured terrorists was at its height.  Unfortunately, it has only appeared now when false “facts” and attitudes towards the interrogation of terrorists have settled into the collective psyche of the left and attained a life of their own. The book itself is 300 pages of text divided into twelve mostly chronological chapters detailing the establishment, working, and closing down of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program during the Bush administration in the months and years immediately following the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Dr. Mitchell was a psychologist who worked at … More after the Jump…

Pearl Harbor Day

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Never Forget Today is Pearl Harbor Day, 75 years ago this morning at 0755 Hawaiian time the Japanese Navy began its attack on the US Navy Fleet anchorage in Pearl Harbor Hawaii.  The attack lasted for two and a half hours and cost the lives of 2,402 Americans and 64 Japanese.  The US Navy lost 6 Ships sunk, 4 of which were Battleships and an additional 13 sips were damaged to a greater or lesser degree. Let us all take a minute today to reflect on the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war it started.  Most importantly, let us remember the men who lost their lives that day and … More after the Jump…

Decoding Civil War Telegrams

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The Huntington Library in California is asking for the public’s help in decoding an archive of thousands of Civil War telegrams in the library’s possession.  According to the Library’s News Release there are over 15,000 telegrams from top members of the Lincoln Administration to include the president himself that were sent encoded during the Civil War and the library would now like to decode them. The library has set up a project on zooniverse to crowdsource the decoding project where each participant gets one page of the telegraph logbooks to transcribe and then compare their transcription with those of others to increase accuracy.  This is history in action.  If you would … More after the Jump…

CSA PRL Book Review: The Philippine War by Brian McCallister Linn

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The 2014 US Army Chief of Staff Professional Reading List (PRL) was released in the Summer of 2014 and I was relieved in the extreme to see that there was only one novel on the list, Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer.  The list is different than earlier lists because it is organized topically instead of by position as earlier lists were.  I have read many of the books on the list already and decided to read the ones I have not and post my thoughts on the books on the list.  This review is the next in that series. Most people that have heard of the Spanish-American War at the turn of … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor: The Forging of American Independence, 1774-1776 by Richard R. Beeman

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[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] This is a repost of a review that originally appeared on the blog in June, 2013.  The book is now coming out in paperback and if you did not read it then I recommend you read it now as it gives you a great sense of the times in which our nation was forged and the risks,  hazards, and courage displayed by the Founding Fathers. Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor: The Forging of American Independence, 1774-1776 by Richard Beeman is … More after the Jump…

Book Review: OinK! by David Osterhout

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[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author and/or publisher. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] When most folks think of Military History they naturally think of war. Oink! Only In Korea! by DavidOsterhout breaks that mold.  It is military history but only peripherally is war involved because it takes place in 1980 in Korea where north and south are technically still at war.  I will admit I was skeptical when first approached about reviewing this title but as I remembered some of the crazy stuff that happened to and around me during my military career I agreed to … More after the Jump…

Book Review: In The Company Of Heroes by Michael Durant

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I picked up In The Company Of Heroes by Michael Durant recently  because it was something I always wanted to read but never got around to. I am glad I did. For those in the military back in the early 1990’s we all know who Michael Durant is, for those who were not or were not alive, very few do. Michael Durant was the helicopter pilot shot down on October 3rd, 1993 during what has come to be called the Battle of Mogadishu. He was severely injured when his helicopter crashed and was pulled from the wreckage by two Delta Force operators Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart, (who lost their lives … More after the Jump…

Military Nurses Save Lives and Affect the Course of History

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This is a guest post and infographic about the history of nursing in the US Military. Few careers give you the chance to have a profound impact on the course of history like nursing. Since the birth of the United States, nurses in the armed forces have made a significant impact on the lives of thousands of people. Military nurses have been caring for those dedicated to fighting for freedom since the Revolutionary War. American Revolution As with any war, the American Revolution brought forth an array of casualties. During the battle for independence from Britain, George Washington sought the aid of Congress in tending to the injured soldiers of the … More after the Jump…

Veteran’s History Project by the Library of Congress

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If you are a history geek like me, and I assume you are because you are reading the blog, then here is a project that should be interesting.  In the late 90’s and early 00’s there was a much bandied statistic floating around that 1,000 World War II vets died every day.  If that number were true then it is probably not true anymore because there probably are not enough World War II vets left to keep dying in those numbers for very long. One thing that modern technology allows is to capture the memories of individual and put them into a form accessible to both the public and historians.  … More after the Jump…

Book Review: House of War by James Carroll

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House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power is one of those books that when you are done reading it you cannot quite decide if it was worth reading or not. If you want to know what history looks like, particularly American history, from the perspective of someone who sees evil and nefarious dealings in just about every single action taken by the United States then this is the book for you. I never thought I would see the day when the Marshall Plan would be described as economic warfare but it is in this book and that is just one example. I found it difficult to … More after the Jump…

Book Review: The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945 by Richard Overy

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[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945 is one of those books that is going to end up a standard work for a long time to come.  It is the single most comprehensive history of the Allied bombing of Germany and occupied Europe during WWII that I have seen since the strategic bombing survey published by the US government in the immediate post-war years. I have a review copy of the book so the page counts may be a … More after the Jump…

The Battle of Antietam – 17 September, 1862

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The Battle of Antietam is interesting for several reasons the most important of which for me is that it is the single bloodiest day in American military history. There have been bloodier battles in American wars but no single day matches the blood spilled on those Maryland fields that early day in 1862. The Union victory at Antietam, if you can call it a victory, also provided Abe Lincoln with the opportunity to promulgate the Emancipation Proclamation. An executive act that was totally unconstitutional but that he did anyway for domestic and foreign political reasons. Antietam was the final battle of Lee’s first invasion of the North and while it … More after the Jump…

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