How tough do you have to be to survive a Nazi concentration camp, defend a hilltop against wave after wave of enemy troops – twice – then spend 2 ½ years in another hellish prison camp, and still live through it? Hard as nails tough, Corporal Rubin tough. That’s him in the photo. Hungarian-born Tibor […]
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Francis Marion went to sea at 15. He once spent seven days on a lifeboat, drifting in the Caribbean after his ship was smashed apart by a whale. In 1754 he joined a militia in South Carolina, where he learned about guerilla warfare. When America declared Independence in 1776, Marion and his men helped build […]
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In Vietnam, he was part of an operation to battle and stop the Viet Cong’s resupply line along the coast. Within a year the enemy had to go inland to move supplies, using the tortuous Ho Chi Minh Trail as it wound through Laos and Cambodia. Chief Warrant Officer Bernard Webber added that victory to […]
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Before the Battle of the Bulge of WWII, American forces fought the Battle of Hurtgen Forest – the longest single battle in the history of the US Army. When the Germans were defeated in France in August 1944, GIs began to believe the war would be over by Christmas, but when the Americans reached German […]
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No one today can doubt how important George Washington’s leadership was in the battle for American freedom. But he had enemies who wanted to take him down. After a couple of battlefield defeats, some thought they saw their chance. One of them was Dr. Benjamin Rush, the Father of American Psychiatry. In January of 1778, Rush hand-wrote […]
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This is the second story about “The Filthy 13.” If you missed the first one, you can read it here. Known for their disregard of military discipline, they didn’t take a lot of baths, didn’t keep their barracks clean. Too busy going AWOL. They were members of the 101st Airborne, as you can see from the left […]
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Have you ever seen the movie, The Dirty Dozen? The real life soldiers it was based on were known as “The Filthy 13.” And a crew of troublemakers they were! Jack Agnew recalled it like this: “We weren’t murderers or nothing. We just did a lot more than they asked us to do, and we were always […]
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We hear a lot about how George Armstrong Custer met his end. But did you know he fought in the Civil war from the first major battle all the way to Appomattox? (He managed to take possession of the table on which Grant wrote the Terms of Surrender.) Custer had decent success for two years, but […]
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Paul Revere’s famous ride: every schoolchild learns of it. But who sent Revere to warn the British were coming? This man was a member of the Sons of Liberty. He was a member of the Committee of Safety, and made sure gunpowder and firearms were stored in towns throughout Massachusetts. An outspoken Patriot, he wrote, “When the […]
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The USS Constitution is one of the most renowned warships in American history. The ship was among the first six frigates authorized to be built to form the new United States Navy. Launched for the first time in Boston on October 21, 1797 the USS Constitution holds the distinct honor of being the oldest commissioned […]
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