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Non, je ne regrette rien
70 years ago this month. January 1954 – French Indochina. Legionnaires of the recently reformed 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion (1er Bataillon Etranger de Parachutistes) crouching, stationary, during...
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Last of ‘The Originals’ has grabbed his Sun Compass and Set Off Across the...
Major Willis Michael “Mike” Sadler, MM, MC, the last survivor of both the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), and David Stirling’s original L Detachment SAS, has marked his map for the last time at age...
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Service Guarantees Citizenship!
Some 100 years ago today, “18.5-year-old” student Robert Anson Heinlein of Kansas City signed up for a three-year stint in the Missouri National Guard, taken on to the rolls of the 110th Engineers. He...
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Win or die
How about this amazing early color photo (possibly an Autochrome Lumière) showing the combat-tattered banner of the French army’s 37e Régiment D’Infanterie (37e RI) shown resting on two stacks of...
View ArticleVale, Chubbs
Pouring one out for New Orleans-born Carl Weathers over the weekend. A big part of my childhood, I can’t remember how many times I saw him on bootlegged-off-HBO Betamax tapes as Apollo Creed–...
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‘Easy Harford, a professional soldier must remain cool in times of stress’
We seem to be on a roll when it comes to erasing familiar childhood faces from the planet this week. Michael A. James, better known as Michael Jayston, had the distinction of probably looking even...
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Vivr Libre du Mouris
From mid-January to late March 1944, some 460 French maquis guerrillas of the Battalion des Glières occupied the Glières plateau, making it a besieged Free “French” territory where they hoisted the...
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‘They don’t like it up ’em’
80 years ago this month, a great period Kodachrome of one Private Alfred Campin, 6th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, while undergoing training in Britain, March 1944. Note his late model No. 4...
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Unsung Book Mines
My first “real” job, one that wasn’t working for family or friends of the family for a little bit of cash, was as a “library page” for the local county library system. It wasn’t much. Age 13-14....
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Grenades, Tommy Guns, Whatever…
Official caption: “Tommy Gun Motor Cyclists. Grenadier Guards, famous the world over, are now, as part of their mechanization, equipped with motorcycles on which Tommy guns are mounted. A guardsman on...
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‘I weighed 125 lbs. and never would have survived the rations in a POW Camp…’
What a couple of great period Kodachromes that really put you in the head of an 8th Air Force bombardier in 1944. First, a window view inside the Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress bomber “Times A-Wastin'”...
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Catching up on the paper with the lads
St. Patrick’s Day in a dugout, 80 years ago today, the official caption: “Men of the 2nd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers read ‘Ireland’s Saturday Night’, a Belfast newspaper, in their foxhole in the...
View ArticleGodspeed, Gen. Stafford
Thomas Patten Stafford was a tall Oklahoman who, born too late for WWII, nonetheless served in the Oklahoma National Guard during high school and college. Starting his undergrad career at the...
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‘Father of the PDW’ Passes: Mack Gwinn Jr, Dies at 79
Florida-born Mack W. Gwinn, Jr., the son of a retired Army officer, joined the U.S. Army Special Forces in 1961 and served until 1972, a period that included seven deployments to Vietnam, earning...
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The Great Escape at 50
Today marks the 80th anniversary of “The Great Escape,” the largest Western Allied prisoner-of-war breakout of the Second World War (only surpassed by the mass escape of 300 Jews– spearheaded by a...
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White 35, in full Color
Check out this original Kodachrome, taken some 80 years ago today, of LT(JG) George T. Glacken and his gunner, Aviation Radioman Second Class Leo W. Boulanger, in their Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless dive...
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Keeping em clean
80 years ago today. 4 April 1944. Official caption, “Sgt. John C. Clark…and S/Sgt. Ford M. Shaw…(left to right) clean their rifles in the Bivouac area alongside the East-West Trail, Bougainville. They...
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Douglas World Cruisers at 100
This month marks the centennial of the first successful aerial circumnavigation of the globe. Kicked off on 6 April 1924 when four pairs of U.S. Army Air Service pilots and mechanics, using modified...
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The Beards Are Back, in British Service Anyway
With the British Army recently repealing the 100-year ban on beards, the first members of the King’s Guard to have the whiskers arrived on post this week, and personally, I think they look great. Via...
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Devil’s Brigade Loadout
How about this great photo spread from 80 years ago. Forcemen of the “Devil’s Brigade,” the U.S.-Canadian First Special Service Force— Sergeant Charles Shepard (6-2), Lieutenant Henry H. Rayner (5-2...
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