Odds and Ends
Billy Mitchell was Right (and still is).
I grew up in West Allis Wisconsin-a suburb of Milwaukee. There was parkway and a well-to-do neighborhood (well-to-do in those days) near my school. Sometimes, rather than go right home after school, my friends and I would walk over to the parkway and imagine “playing army” or otherwise adventure around-all the things young boys would […]
Stand Your Ground
One character from the War of Independence that I’ve found interesting, even intriguing, is Captain John Parker. Captain Parker’s main claim to fame comes from his role as the Captain of Colonial Militia for the area around Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Parker was a militia captain served served in the French and Indian War in […]
A Christmas Carol, Life Magazine, December 25th, 1944
Long before A Christmas Carol was a movie it was a radio play. Lionel Barrymore played Scrooge for many years on Christmas Eve starting in 1934. In 1944 a movie studio gathered the radio play actors and staged scenes for Life Magazine. The issue with A Christmas Carol came out on December 25th, 1944. At […]
On Renaming Army Bases
I was doing a little research for a blog post on the 21st WI Infantry-a unit that fought in the American Civil War. I found out they were mustered in at Camp Bragg in Fond du Lac County. The name of the camp intrigued me since a fellow by the name of Braxton Bragg was […]
The Cleansing of US History
Did you have a choice of where you were born? Did you have a choice as to your parents? Did you have a choice as to what year you born? Did you have choice as to what culture you were born into? Did I? The answer to all these questions is of course not. All […]
A Rapist and Murderer Hanged, 1937
This is the face of the worst kind of criminal-the kind whose acts turn civilized men and women into lynch mobs. It belongs to commonplace-looking men who move unmolested through the streets of U.S. cities.
New Cars for 1940!
“Hitler sure made a mistake fighting us. Every kid from age 14 on knows how to drive a car or a truck. We are a nation on wheels!” (line in a movie from a US tank driver somewhere in France in 1944.) As a kid I think I watched every World War 2 movie ever […]
Battlefield Action!
In our storage unit I have a small collection of Classic’s Illustrated that somehow survived after 50 years. What has not survived was my collection of war comics from the 60’s. Back in the day every time dad went to a drugstore or some other outlet that had comic books I got one. I remember […]
History and Hobbies 
Entangling Alliances
Did you know that only Congress has the power to declare war? It indeed requires an Act of Congress to declare war; yet, since 1941, the US has fought in numerous wars involving US personnel and other wars by proxy where we supplied arms and munitions. The war in Ukraine is a proxy war that […]