On this day .....

70 years ago today..........November 26th, 1950 Battle of Chosin Reservoir..........my dad in the Marine reserves would be called up and get there as a replacement just after the 1st Marine Div. had gotten back from Frozen Chosin. He would serve from November 1950 till he was WIA in April of 1951 ............Co C, 1st Batt, 7th Marines............Semper Fi.

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Amazing pic
What a great looking guy. I guess you take after a long lost cousin? :coolnana:

The corresponding current generation to his at his age is for the most part pathetic.
Thanks for sharing
 
He joined after WW11 ended?
That speaks volumes about his love for our country. And the Marines, why not some place safer like the Navy?.
 
well 79 years ago today about lunchtime back here in Texas an event unfolded that would have a very profound impact on many Americans lives............
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the tears of the Arizona as fuel oil still leaks from her hull......my mother had a neighbors family that had a son killed at Pearl.

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one of the Heroes that fought back that day..........Texas own Dorie Miller who won the Navy Cross for his actions that day.
 
Here is an amazing photo of them righting the USS Oklahoma in 1943.........you talk about some bigass block and tackle and some serious wenches............sadly the ship would sink in a storm on its way back to US West coast in 1947.


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One my wife’s great uncles was on the Arizona. On December 6th, 1941, he was headed home since his wife was about to have a baby. The next day came the attack. Back at Pearl Harbor on the 9th he learned all of his close buddies and other men he knew well were KIA during the attack. That haunted him the rest of his life. When he died, he was cremated and his ashes were placed in a box and divers at Pearl put them on the ship. He wanted to be laid to rest with his ship mates.

If you have the opportunity to go to Honolulu, take time visit Pearl and take the launch out to the Arizona Memorial. Near by, the USS Missouri is docked. The Arizona is the symbol of the war’s beginning in ‘41, and the Missouri is the symbol of it’s end since the Japanese officially surrendered on its deck in ‘45.
 
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76 years ago today................

On December 16, 1944- German forces launch a surprise attack through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium in what becomes known as the Battle of the Bulge. Over 250,000 German soldiers supported by tanks burst through the Ardennes, ground the Allies did not think could be used by a large force as an avenue of attack. The 80 mile front was lightly defended. A heavy artillery bombardment of over 1,600 guns preceded movement by the 5th and 6th Panzer Armies toward critical road junctions at St. Vith and Bastogne while the 7th German Army struck toward Luxembourg. Shot on fuel, the Germans hoped to capture Allied supplies as they drove toward Antwerp in the desperate hope that their offensive could split the British and Americans forcing them to sue for peace. Europe was in the midst of one of its snowiest and bitterest winters in recent memory. The Allies were further hampered by a heavy fog and overcast skies that prevented the deployment of their greatest asset and advantage, airpower. The Germans made good headway on the first day advancing into Allied territory and capturing thousands. Once it realized a major offensive was underway, the unprepared Allied High Command began scrambling to contain the German initiative.


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An old friend of mines Dad was 101st Airborne from D-Day onward and was at Bastogne.
 
from the Republic of Texas/History facebook page...........

December 23, 1820:
After traveling westward for three weeks along the El Camino Real, Moses Austin arrived in San Antonio de Bexar, the political capital of the Spanish province of Texas.
It was not the first time he had made such a journey. Twenty-four years earlier, while managing a struggling lead mining operation in southwestern Virginia, Austin had learned of a rich lead deposit rumored to be located in the area around St. Louis. With winter setting in, Austin headed west to see for himself, passing through the Cumberland Gap and following the Wilderness Road, the trail blazed into Kentucky by Daniel Boone during the early years of the American Revolution.
Along the way, Austin noted something that would later influence his decision to go to Texas. “I cannot omit noticing the many distressed families I passed in the wilderness,” he wrote in his journal. “Nor can anything be more distressing to a man of feeling than to see women and children in the month of December traveling a wilderness through ice and snow, passing rivers and creeks without shoe or stocking, and barely as many rags as covers their nakedness.” Austin inquired as to why these families were going to such great lengths to reach Kentucky. “The answer is Land. Have you any? No, but I expect I can get it. Have you anything to pay for land? No. Did you ever see the country? No, but everyone says it’s good land.”
Austin would not forget the sight of these families, “passing land almost as good and easy obtained, the proprietors of which would gladly give on any terms. But it will not do. It is not Kentucky. It’s not the Promised Land.”
At that time, St. Louis was located in Spanish Louisiana, territory that had been transferred from French to Spanish possession at the end of the French and Indian War. Upon his arrival, Austin met with Spanish officials, who allowed him to tour the area known as Mine à Breton. It did not require a close examination for him to determine that the rumors of the rich lead deposits were true.
After agreeing to become a Spanish subject, Austin was granted one square league (4,428 acres) of land, which he soon developed into a lucrative lead mine. By 1810, he had accumulated a fortune that some estimates place as high as $190,000.
But the good times did not last. Following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Austin found himself back on American soil. At the time, the United States was desperately trying to keep itself from being drawn into the Napoleonic Wars then raging in Europe. The Embargo Act of 1807, which cut off all American exports, hurt Austin’s business interests. Although the embargo was lifted in 1809, the outbreak of the War of 1812 and resultant blockade by the British Navy once again cut off American exports.
The Panic of 1819, the United States’ first major peacetime economic depression, brought about the final collapse of Austin’s mining operations. On March 11, 1820, the sheriff of Jefferson County, Missouri, appeared at Austin’s home (a large, two-story mansion grandly named Durham Hall, in honor of Moses’s birthplace of Durham, Connecticut) and arrested him for nonpayments of debts. Following a brief stay in jail, Austin watched as his entire estate was sold at auction.
Refusing to “remain in a country where I had enjoyed wealth, in a state of poverty,” Austin looked for a new opportunity to redeem his family’s tarnished name and pay off the debts he had accumulated. That opportunity, he believed, lay in the Spanish colonial province of Texas.
In 1820, Texas had a non-Indian population of less than 4,000, clustered around the province’s three primary settlements: Nacogdoches, La Bahìa, and San Antonio de Bexar. Faced with devastating raids by Comanches and Apaches from the north, and invading armies of American filibusters who sympathized with (or sought to take advantage of) the ongoing Mexican war for independence, Spanish forces were on the verge of losing their grip on the region.
Moses Austin sought to help stabilize the region by populating it with American immigrants, under the condition that they become loyal subjects of the Spanish crown. With its sparse population, Texas had more available land than the Spanish knew what to do with. Meanwhile, in the wake of the Panic of 1819, the American government had made it more difficult for common citizens to obtain land. Austin hoped to take advantage of this situation. Just as Kentucky had been the promised land of the 1790s, he hoped to make Texas the new promised land of the 1820s.
Austin traveled to Arkansas Territory, where his son Stephen was living. There he contracted malaria and ultimately spent the summer and early fall recovering. When he finally recovered in early November, he set out for Natchitoches, Louisiana, riding a horse, carrying fifty dollars, and accompanied by a young enslaved man named Richmond, all borrowed from Stephen.
From Natchitoches, Moses followed the El Camino Real to the southwest, crossing the Sabine River and arriving in the town of Nacogdoches. A series of invasions by American filibusters and subsequent Spanish reprisals had left the town nearly deserted.
Austin and Richmond continued along the El Camino Real. The four hundred miles between Nacogdoches and San Antonio was a nearly deserted wilderness. When they finally arrived in San Antonio on December 23, Austin sought out the provincial governor, Antonio Martínez. Displaying his Spanish passport, issued during his first visit to St. Louis in 1797, Austin attempted to outline his colonization plan. However, in light of the recent invasions by American filibusters, Martínez was under strict orders from his superiors to deny aid to any Americans who might show up in the region. The governor refused to even listen to Austin’s proposal and ordered him to leave San Antonio immediately.
A dejected Austin left the governor’s office and told Richmond to water the horses. Standing in the town’s main plaza, he suddenly noticed a familiar face: Philip Hendrik Nering Bögel, whom Austin had met nearly twenty years earlier on a business trip in New Orleans.
Born in the Dutch colony of Guiana and raised in Holland, Bögel had worked as a tax collector before fleeing to North America to escape an embezzlement charge. Settling first in Spanish Louisiana and adopting the title of Baron de Bastrop, he had moved further west after the United States purchased the territory, ultimately ending up in Spanish Texas. By the time of Austin’s arrival, Bastrop was a minor government official who held some influence with Governor Martínez.
Bastrop took Austin back to the governor’s office, convincing him to allow the American to remain through Christmas. In the meantime, Austin stayed with Bastrop in his one-room, adobe home. Austin used the opportunity to convince Bastrop of the benefits his colonization plan would bring to Texas. Bastrop agreed to take Austin to see the governor again and assist him in gaining its approval.
The result of this final meeting with the governor would change the course of history for Texas, Mexico, and the United States.






 
from the Enjoying Texas and American History Facebook page,,,,,,,,,,,

Stephen F. Austin Dies
On 27 December 1836, Stephen F. Austin, the founder of Anglo-American Texas, died at the age of forty-three. Austin had taken over his father's colonization scheme when Moses Austin died in 1821. He began the Anglo-American colonization of Texas under conditions more difficult in some respects than those that confronted founders of the English colonies on the Atlantic coast. He saw the wilderness transformed into a relatively advanced and populous state, and fundamentally it was his unremitting labor, perseverance, foresight, and tactful management that brought that miracle to pass. Some contemporaries criticized his cautious policy of conciliating Mexican officials, and Austin was initially a reluctant supporter of Texas independence, though he led volunteers against the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution and served as a commissioner to the United States on behalf of the provisional government. He ran unsuccessfully for president of the Republic of Texas in September 1836, but accepted the office of Secretary of State from the victorious Sam Houston. Shortly before his death, Austin wrote, "The prosperity of Texas has been the object of my labors, the idol of my existence--it has assumed the character of a ‘religion,’ for the guidance of my thoughts and actions, for fifteen years." [The image is an 1833 painting of Stephen F. Austin by Brand that hangs in the Texas House Chamber. – Jeff Modzelewski]

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On December 28, 1958- The Baltimore Colts led by Johnny Unitas defeat the New York Giants 23-17 in the first overtime, sudden death 1958 NFL Championship in what is later described as the “greatest game ever played.” 17 future Hall of Fame players played in the game.

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That game was credited with the start of establishing an NFL audience, and I believe had the largest viewing audience of any NFL game at that time. Alan Ameche off left tackle for the win.
 
86 years ago today, Gladys Presley gave birth to twin boys in Tupelo, MS.
Happy Birthday, Elvis.
Crying shame it only lasted 42 years.
 
Super Tex was born on this date in 1935..........IMHO the greatest driver ever............hard to argue with only driver to win Indy, Daytona 500, 24 Hrs of Daytona & LeMans along with the 12 hrs of Sebring.

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OTD in in 1835 at the US Capitol, Richard Lawrence shot at President Andrew Jackson.

The gun misfired, and the 67 year old Jackson viciously beat the attempted assassin with a hickory cane, with smack-down assistance from Rep Davy Crockett. Lawrence was tried, found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the remainder of his life in insane asylums and/or working at CNN

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