Veterans...Get the hell in here now!

smokinrav

smokinrav

Well-Known Member
Oh no! A bunny made it past all security to make it to the Pentagon courtyard! The Russians are coming!

"“It is currently living peacefully somewhere in the Pentagon’s courtyard, a location that is likely the most heavily guarded rabbit burrow on the planet… that is until the restaurant in the Courtyard decides to have an extremely locally sourced courtyard-to-table special.”

:lol:

www.arlnow.com

A bunny has apparently infiltrated the Pentagon | ARLnow.com

If you thought the Pentagon chicken was impressive, wait until you hear about the Pentagon courtyard bunny. In what might be the world's fluffiest and most adorable infiltration of a secure military installation, a bunny was recently spotted hopping around in the 5.1 acre outdoor courtyard at...
www.arlnow.com www.arlnow.com
 
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BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Today in Military History:


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"Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue"
—Admiral Chester W. Nimitz ​

U.S. Marines invaded Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945, after months of naval and air bombardment. The Japanese defenders of the island were dug into bunkers deep within the volcanic rocks. Approximately 70,000 U.S. Marines and 18,000 Japanese soldiers took part in the battle. In thirty-six days of fighting on the island, nearly 7,000 U.S. Marines were killed. Another 20,000 were wounded. Marines captured 216 Japanese soldiers; the rest were killed in action. The island was finally declared secured on March 26, 1945. It had been one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history.

After the battle, Iwo Jima served as an emergency landing site for more than 2,200 B-29 bombers, saving the lives of 24,000 U.S. airmen. Securing Iwo Jima prepared the way for the last and largest battle in the Pacific: the invasion of Okinawa.

The flag-raising atop Mt. Suribachi took place on February 23, 1945; five days after the battle began. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took the famous photograph of five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the flag. The flag raisers were Cpl. Harlon Block, Navy Pharmacist’s Mate John Bradley, Cpl. Rene Gagnon, PFC Franklin Sousley, Sgt. Michael Strank, and Cpl. Ira Hayes. Three of these men—Strank, Sousley, and Block—were killed before the battle for Iwo Jima was over. (Article below is about mis-identification of flag raisers.bb)

www.nytimes.com

Famous Iwo Jima Flag Photo Had Another Misidentified Man, Marines Say (Published 2019)

In 2016, the Marine Corps said it had wrongly identified another of the men in the famous photograph.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

The photograph was quickly wired around the world and reproduced in newspapers across the United States. The image was used as a model for the Marine Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Twenty-seven Medals of Honor were awarded for action on Iwo Jima—more than any other battle in U.S. history.
www.businessinsider.com

Rarely seen footage from the battle of Iwo Jima reveals more about the US troops who fought and died there

More than 50 Marine combat cameramen operated across the 8 square miles of Iwo Jima during the battle, shooting at least 24 hours of footage.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
www.militarytimes.com

The Battle of Iwo Jima: A 36-day bloody slog on a sulfuric island

The Japanese defending Iwo Jima on D-day displayed superb tactical discipline. As Lieutenant Colonel Justus M. ‘Jumpin’ Joe’ Chambers led his 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, across the first terrace on the right flank of the landing beaches, he encountered interlocking bands of automatic-weapons...
www.militarytimes.com www.militarytimes.com

The United States Marines On Iwo Jima The Battle and the Flag Raisings
 
BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member

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"On February 20, 1962, John H. Glenn, Jr., became the first American to orbit Earth. An Atlas launch vehicle propelled a Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit and enabled Glenn to circle Earth three times. The flight lasted a total of 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds before the Friendship 7 spacecraft splashed down in the ocean. Most major systems worked smoothly, and the flight was a great success as an engineering feat.

This Mercury-Atlas (MA) 6 mission also reestablished NASA and the U.S. as a strong contender in the space race with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had launched the world’s first spacecraft, Sputnik, in October 1957 and had also sent the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space on April 1961. NASA responded by sending the first American, Alan Shepard, into space in May 1961, but Shepard’s flight was only a suborbital lob, whereas Gagarin had orbited Earth. With Glenn’s orbital mission, NASA was finally able to pull back even with the Soviets.

The flight was the culmination of a tremendous amount of work in a relatively short time. On October 7, 1958, the newly formed NASA had announced Project Mercury, its first major undertaking. The objectives were threefold: to place a piloted spacecraft into orbital flight around Earth, observe human performance in such conditions, and recover the human and the spacecraft safely. Despite Shepard’s successful first flight, many questions had still remained about how Americans could survive and function in space.

The success of the Friendship 7 mission enabled NASA to accelerate further its efforts with Project Mercury. During less than five years, from Mercury’s start to finish, more than two million people from government and industry pooled their skills and experience to produce and manage the Nation’s first six piloted spaceflights. Mercury flights demonstrated that people could survive in microgravity for over a day without deterioration of normal physiological functions.

Mercury also set the stage for Projects Gemini and Apollo during the 1960s and all later U.S. human spaceflight activities. Thus, the MA-6 mission of Friendship 7 was both a capstone event and the beginning of many more achievements in human spaceflight for NASA."

I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts—all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.
— John Glenn, Jr, from speech announcing his Senate retirement (20 Feb 1997)

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BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Today in Military History:

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At 7:12 a.m. on the morning of February 21, 1916, a shot from a German Krupp 38-centimeter long-barreled gun—one of over 1,200 such weapons set to bombard French forces along a 20-kilometer front stretching across the Meuse River—strikes a cathedral in Verdun, France, beginning the Battle of Verdun, which would stretch on for 10 months and become the longest conflict of World War I.

By the beginning of 1916, the war in France, from the Swiss border to the English Channel, had settled into the long slog of trench warfare. Despite the hard conditions in the trenches, Erich von Falkenhayn, chief of staff of the German army, believed that the key to winning the war lay not in confronting Russia in the east but in defeating the French in a major battle on the Western Front.

In December 1915, Falkenhayn convinced the kaiser, over the objections of other military leaders such as Paul von Hindenburg, that in combination with unrestricted submarine warfare at sea, a major French loss in battle would push the British—whom Falkenhayn saw as the most potent of the

The chosen mark of Falkenhayn’s offensive was the fortress city of Verdun, on the Meuse River in France. The city was selected because in addition to its symbolic importance—it was the last stronghold to fall in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War—it was possible to attack the fortress city from three sides, which made it a good strategic target.

Ignoring intelligence that warned of a possible German attack in the region, French command had begun in 1915 to strip its forces at Verdun of the heavy artillery essential to defensive warfare, choosing instead to focus on an offensive strategy masterminded by General Ferdinand Foch, the director of the army’s prestigious War College, and dubbed Plan XVII. Thus the German attack of February 21 caught the French relatively unprepared.

From the beginning, the Battle of Verdun resulted in heavy losses on both sides. Falkenhayn famously admitted that he did not aim to take the city quickly and decisively, but to bleed the French white, even if it meant an increased number of German casualties. Within four days of the start of the bombardment on the Meuse, the French forward divisions had suffered over 60 percent casualties; German losses were almost as heavy.

After a few quick German gains of territory, the battle settled into a stalemate, as casualties swiftly mounted on both sides. The newly promoted French commander in the region, Henri-Philippe Petain, was determined to inflict the maximum amount of damage on the German forces, famously pledging to his commander-in-chief, Joseph Joffre, that, They shall not pass.

By the latter half of 1917, German resources were stretched thinner by having to confront both a British-led offensive on the Somme River and Russia’s Brusilov Offensive on the Eastern Front. In July, the kaiser, frustrated by the state of things at Verdun, removed Falkenhayn and sent him to command the 9th Army in Transylvania; Paul von Hindenburg took his place. Petain had been replaced in April by Robert Nivelle, who by early December had managed to lead his forces in the recapture of much of their lost territory.

From December 15 to 18, the French took 11,000 German prisoners; on December 18, Hindenburg finally called a stop to the German attacks after ten long months. With a German death toll of 143,000 (out of 337,000 total casualties) and a French one of 162,440 (out of 377,231), Verdun would come to signify, more than any other battle, the grinding, bloody nature of warfare on the Western Front during World War I.

www.britannica.com

Battle of Verdun - WWI, French, German | Britannica

Battle of Verdun - WWI, French, German: The Germans realized that the British were preparing an attack on the Somme. The Germans kept the Battle of Verdun going in order to disorganize the attack being prepared by the Allies in Picardy. The French were holding on at Verdun while preparing for...
www.britannica.com www.britannica.com
www.theatlantic.com

The Battle of Verdun

“Neither in France nor in Germany, up to the present moment, has the whole story of the battle been told, describing its vicissitudes, and following step by step the development of the stirring drama.”
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
 
BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
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A retired military working dog named Hertz has been awarded a medal known as the animals’ Victoria Cross for his service in Afghanistan. The German shorthaired pointer is the first dog in British military history to detect electronic communications equipment such as mobile phones, voice recorders, sim cards and GPS devices. Hertz, who serviced with the Royal Air Force police, has been awarded the PDSA Dickin medal, the 74th recipient of the honour since it was first awarded in 1943.

www.irishnews.com

Pioneering RAF sniffer dog given ‘animal Victoria Cross’ award

Hertz, the first dog in the British military trained to sniff out electronic communication devices, was awarded PDSA Dickin Medal.
www.irishnews.com www.irishnews.com
www.pdsa.org.uk

PDSA Dickin Medal

The PDSA Dickin Medal is the highest award any animal can receive while serving in the military. It recognises the outstanding bravery displayed by service animals in theatres of war worldwide.
www.pdsa.org.uk www.pdsa.org.uk
 
BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Today in Military History:
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"SHORTLY AFTER SUNRISE on Feb. 23, 1945, elements of the U.S. 11th Airborne Division along with Filipino resistance fighters struck the Japanese prisoner of war camp at Los Baños, Luzon, 40 miles south of Manila and deep in enemy-held territory.

It was a daring air, sea and land operation to liberate 2,146 civilian internees — most of them American men, women and children — held captive since the Japanese invaded the Philippines more that three years earlier.

In 1944, with the war going badly for the Japanese, the guards at Los Baños had turned more brutal; prisoners were being starved on orders of the vicious, Western-hating camp commander who had promised the prisoners: “Before I’m done, you’ll be eating dirt.” Those caught escaping — even those returning with food for the starving — were shot. With medical supplies scarce, prisoners were dying of diseases like malaria, dysentery and tuberculosis. Then, in February 1945, the Japanese began digging deep trenches near the prisoners’ barracks. Many in camp feared preparations were being made for mass executions and burials.

The Los Baños prison camp raid — a forerunner to today’s special operations — is considered the most successful airborne operation in history, and is still taught at America’s military academies and war colleges. Only three Americans were killed in the operation and two wounded. The Filipinos lost two of their number, while as many as 80 Japanese perished in the assault.

A half century later, General Colin Powell told surviving participants of the mission at their 50th reunion: “I doubt that any airborne unit in the world will ever be able to rival the Los Baños prison raid. It is a textbook operation for all ages and all armies.”

Yet back in February 1945, Americans saw little in their hometown newspapers about the triumph in the Philippines that could count the number of innocents saved rather than the number of enemy killed or ground gained. But the lack of press attention had nothing to do with wartime censorship. For on the same day as the raid – Feb. 23, 1945 — a combat photographer named Joe Rosenthal snapped an image of five soon-to-be-famous U.S. Marines raising the Stars and Stripes atop Mount Suribachi at a place called Iwo Jima."

militaryhistorynow.com

Raid on Los Baños – The WW2 Prison Camp Rescue That History Forgot - MilitaryHistoryNow.com

“The coordinated strike on the camp by 170 U.S. paratroopers and 75 Filipino guerrillas would use the element of surprise to overwhelm the few guards that remained at their posts.” By Bruce Henderson SHORTLY AFTER SUNRISE...
militaryhistorynow.com militaryhistorynow.com
warfarehistorynetwork.com

The Los Baños Raid

Carried out in a virtually flawless manner, the rescue of 2,000 internees from a Philippine prison compound is remembered as a textbook operation.
warfarehistorynetwork.com warfarehistorynetwork.com

World War II: Liberating Los Baños Internment Camp

As Allied forces reclaimed the Philippines, a number of prisons were liberated, including a civilian internment camp on the island of Luzon.
www.historynet.com www.historynet.com
 
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