The smoke from the Confederate shelling of Fort Sumter had barely cleared when Robert Gould Shaw, the son of wealthy abolitionists, volunteered for the Union cause in 1861. Federal troops withdrew from the fort in Charleston Harbor on April 13, 1861. Robert Gould Shaw joined the 7th New York Militia six days later.
He didn't see combat with the New Yorkers. Instead, he waited out that enlistment and joined the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry from his home state as it was forming. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, he marched south and fought two losing battles at Winchester and Cedar Mountain before finally tasting victory at the bloody Battle of Antietam, where he was wounded.
As he recuperated back home, the Union ordered new regiments of Black troops raised. Massachusetts would lead the way, forming the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Even after the unit began to form, the state's governor, John A. Andrew, needed competent, open-minded white officers to lead it.
Before the 54th Massachusetts proved itself in combat, it was widely believed that Black men would lack the discipline needed to be effective on the battlefield. White commanders thought they would be hard to train and would run when the shooting started. Gov. Andrew knew he needed a particular kind of officer, and Shaw was his man.
Shaw was approached by his father to take command of the 54th but was initially reluctant. He wanted to get back into the fight and didn't want to leave the men he currently commanded. Shaw believed the Federal government would never send the 54th to actually fight. He eventually did take the command, becoming a colonel at 25 years old.
Many Black men volunteered to join the new regiment. So many, in fact, another unit was formed from the overflow, the 55th Massachusetts. After their basic training, they were shipped to the front in South Carolina, arriving in June 1863.
Shaw's prediction became a reality when the 54th under Shaw arrived in South Carolina. The 54th was used for manual labor. However, Shaw pressed for combat duties and eventually got them, raiding the outlying islands of South Carolina and Georgia. He and the 54th were also sent on raiding parties deep inside Georgia, along the coastline, but it was back in Charleston where Shaw and the 54th would make history.
During the Civil War, Charleston, South Carolina, was a hotbed of blockade runners and smuggling for the Confederacy. To ensure the Union blockade kept its stranglehold on southern shipping, the Union sent Gen. Quincy Adams Gillmore to attack the approaches to Charleston Harbor.
Gillmore captured the southern half of Morris Island first and believed he had enough men and material to assault heavily-defended Fort Wagner on the north end. He was wrong. The entrenched Confederate defenders repulsed the Union attack on July 11, 1863, but Gillmore was far from done. He needed to take Fort Wagner before attacking Charleston.
On July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment volunteered to lead the second assault on Fort Wagner. They had to cross an open beach just 60 yards wide, between a creek and the ocean. After the open sand, they had to cross a moat and rows of sharpened Palmetto logs before they could even get into shooting distance of the fort, which was manned by 1,800 defenders.
Throughout the day of the battle, the Union Navy battered the fort with its offshore guns. When the sun finally set, Col. Shaw led the long march to the fort, with the 54th Massachusetts behind him. The naval barrage, it turned out, did little damage. So when the Union attack came, the defenders of Fort Wagner were able to put their guns to full use.
The 54th hit the fort hard, even reaching the parapets at the top of its walls. Union troops swarmed Fort Wagner's other points as the 54th began to enter the fort, but it was all for naught. Col. Shaw was killed on the parapets as he rallied his men forward. By 10 p.m. that night, it was all over.
Fort Wagner would hold out until it was abandoned on September 7, 1863. The battle was a loss for the Union and the 54th. Thirty men from the regiment, including Shaw and his other white officers, were dead. But news of the 54th's bravery under fire spread across the Union, changing public sentiment about Black men serving in the Union Army. Public support led to the creation of more all-Black Union units, and large numbers of new Black recruits lined up to wear the Union blue.
After the battle, Confederate Gen. Johnson Hagood returned the bodies of white Union officers, but not those of Shaw and the others commanding the Black men of the 54th. The rebels buried Shaw and the others with the Black men of the 54th in a mass grave, intending it to be an insult. Upon hearing the news, Shaw's father wrote:
"We would not have his body removed from where it lies surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers... We can imagine no holier place than that in which he lies, among his brave and devoted followers, nor wish for him better company. What a bodyguard he has."
Shaw and the bravery of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment were later immortalized on the silver screen in the 1989 film, "Glory."
The July 1943 invasion of Sicily was a masterstroke of military planning and execution. It freed much of the Mediterranean Sea for Allied shipping, inflicted more than 175,000 casualties on the Axis forces, took down Benito Mussolini’s government, and knocked Italy out of the war. It’s stunning, in retrospect, to consider that it almost didn’t happen.
American planners believed invading anything but the Italian mainland would be an irrelevant venture. At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the British convinced the U.S. that clearing Sicily would mean clearing the Mediterranean of Axis aircraft and ships.
Before the invasion, code-named Operation Husky, could begin, the Allies needed to reduce the island’s defenses. The Allied bomber force 
began hitting targets in Sardinia, Sicily, southern Italy, and Greece to keep the Axis guessing where the next attack would be. Allied forces also bombed and captured small islands with airfields to keep them from being used against the Husky invasion force.
Most critically, the British launched Operation Mincemeat, a deception operation that dropped a corpse dressed as a Royal Marines officer off the coast of Spain. The corpse carried with it disinformation papers identifying Operation Husky as an invasion of Greece, knowing Fascist Spain would share the intelligence with the Germans.
The ruse worked like a charm. The Germans moved three panzer units from Sicily to Greece, along with a panzer division from France and two on the Eastern Front, reducing pressure on the Red Army there. They also sent Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to take command. Sicily was as ready as it would ever be.
On the night of July 9, 1943, the American 82nd Airborne and British 1st Airborne began landing over the island. However, due to a strong wind, they were scattered, some far from their units and objectives. Despite the winds and difficulty gathering in the dark, many were able to form fighting units and seize objectives.
The wind also worked in favor of the Allied amphibious landings because the island’s defenders didn’t expect anyone to try and invade in winds up to 70 miles per hour. The British 8th Army and 1st Canadian Infantry Division landed in the southeast on the Gulf of Avola. The U.S. 7th Army landed in the southwest, along the Gulf of Gela. The idea was to cut off southern Sicily, then push northward.
Although the wind and other unforeseen surprises hampered the landings, the Italians’ defense plans didn’t include stopping a landing on the beaches, so the Allies were able to land relatively quickly in most areas. By the time the sun rose on July 10, the Americans had captured their western objective of the port city of Licata. By evening, seven Allied divisions had landed, and the British captured the city of Syracuse.
With southern Sicily cut off as planned, the Allies needed to capture key airfields and prepare to move north. Gen. George S. Patton’s Seventh Army was in place to prevent Axis reserve forces from flanking the British 8th Army. The Germans and Italians defending the island were not counterattacking as a unified defense. Instead, various elements had been attacking the invaders piecemeal.
On July 13, the Allies’ next step became a thrust north to cut the island in two. Montgomery’s 8th Army would lead that thrust while Patton defended its flank. But Patton didn’t stay put; he instead divided his Army into two Corps and sent the Provisional Corps under Maj. Gen. Geoffery Keyes north along the coast to capture Agrigento.
Patton’s next move was sending his II Corps under Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley north toward Palermo. His forces overran the Italian defenders while pushing the Germans back towards the west. On July 22, while Montgomery and his 8th Army were fighting entrenched German positions in the east, Patton’s forces were taking Palermo on the northern coast.
By August 1, Montgomery was able to renew his attack on German positions; the goal was taking Adrano, a heavily defended town near the base of Mount Etna. After the fall of Adrano, the British were able to advance much faster. Meanwhile, Patton’s forces were moving east along the northern coast and encountering heavy defenses. To defeat them, Patton made a series of small amphibious landings behind entrenched defenders.
Even before the end of July, the Axis defenders knew they’d been beaten. From July 29 onward, they were doing their best to buy time for an evacuation to mainland Italy from Messina, on Sicily’s northeast coast. The full-scale withdrawal took place between August 11-17, with elements of the U.S. 3rd Division entering the city on August 16.
Operation Husky took just six weeks and was a resounding success. It was not without its casualties and lessons learned. Axis ships and aircraft managed to devastate the Allied invasion in some places. 
The panzers from the German Hermann Goring Division managed to attack the U.S. beachhead and wreak havoc on British forces around Mount Etna. Italian anti-aircraft guns also made it impossible to attack the Axis evacuation from the air.
Although the Axis managed to withdraw more than 135,000 combined troops, they lost many more killed, wounded, or captured. The Allies suffered some 5,700 killed, along with nearly 16,000 wounded and more than 3,000 missing. As the Axis were being beaten on Sicily, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini lost a no-confidence vote in the government and was arrested. Around two weeks after capturing Messina, the Allies would invade the Italian Peninsula.
TWS is a great way to connect with other Navy vets. Also, the site is an extraordinary living history resource.
AKC Mary Vernoy US Navy Reserves (Ret)
Served 1972-1994
Wars are expensive, and there was a time when the United States paid for them with money instead of going into debt. Back in those days, however, the American government collected revenue very differently.
Those old-timey methods of paying the bills led to more than 100 years of telecommunications excise taxes, including cell phone taxes that some believed were still paying for America's 1898 war with Spain. Congress did originally pass an excise tax to pay for the Spanish-American War, but it was renewed time and again over decades to pay for more wars.
At the turn of the 20th Century, the U.S. government drew most of its money from tariffs. Excise taxes on specific goods (like tobacco and coffee) were another source of revenue. The United States imposed its first income tax during the Civil War, but it was repealed in 1872. So when it came time for war with Spain, Congress needed a way to pay for it.
The answer they came up with was an excise tax on a new technology that was sweeping the nation at the time: the telephone. American Telephone and Telegraph (which you might know as AT&T) was formed in 1885, and by the time the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor, there were around half a million telephones in the U.S.
That excise tax did not last forever, as some would have us believe, but the idea of the tax never died. It was repealed at the end of the Philippine-American War in 1902. Congress then voted to pass the 16th Amendment to the Constitution in 1909, which allowed the body to enact a permanent income tax. It was ratified in 1913, becoming the law of the land.
The phone excise tax stayed gone until tariff revenues dipped at the start of World War I in Europe in 1914. With fewer goods shipping from the war-torn continent, and despite the new income tax, the U.S. needed to make money somehow. So Congress brought back the old phone tax.
This new tax costs Americans one cent for every 15-cent phone call. It was supposed to expire in 1915, but Congress renewed it through 1916. When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, Congress needed money again. This time, the charge was five cents for every "telegraph, telephone, or radio, dispatch, message, or conversation," costing 15 cents or more. It was extended through 1924.
Of course, Congress would come calling again when the Great Depression hit. With fewer businesses paying taxes and fewer Americans earning an income, the income tax just wasn't raking in the money like it once did. After passing in 1932, the excise tax was renewed 29 times. During World War II, the tax rate reached 15 percent on local calls and 25 percent on long-distance calls.
Excise taxes on phone calls fluctuated in the 1950s and 1960s during the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, Congress voted to reduce the tax annually until it disappeared entirely. Unsurprisingly, its repeal was delayed repeatedly throughout the 1980s. In 1991, George H.W. Bush called for the tax to be enacted permanently while raising its rate to a percentage instead of cents on the dollar.
After President Bill Clinton vetoed a budget that repealed the tax in 2000, after more than 100 years, the excise taxes had cost Americans an estimated $300 billion. It wasn't until trade groups sued the IRS over the tax in 2006 that it finally disappeared from phone bills across the country.
It's not that the country didn't need the money. The Spanish-American War cost the U.S. $250 million overall. Some ancestors of veterans are still receiving a pension for the war from the Department of Veterans Affairs, so we aren't done paying back. But at least nowadays, cell phone users aren't stuck footing the bill for America's fight to avenge the Maine.
"Most Holy Spirit, who didst brood
Upon the chaos, wild and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease,
And give, for fierce confusion, peace;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea…."
William Whiting (1825-1878)
The circumstances of a warship's lineage and history, including its end of days, sometimes assume both heroic and dramatically calamitous features. Between 1943 and 1946, fifty-eight US Navy Destroyers of the Sumner class were built in eleven shipyards. Although somewhat slower owing to greater displacement, Sumner vessels were distinguished from their predecessor classes primarily by having a slightly wider beam, adoption of twin rudders, and an enormous firepower that could be directed forward. A great many served in the Pacific, and the USS Frank E. Evans was among them. Eventually, their numbers simply became obsolete; some were lost in battle or damaged beyond repair. Today, only one of the Sumners survives; at Patriot's Point Naval and Maritime Museum, South Carolina, the USS Laffey DD-724, aka "The ship that would not die."
The Destroyer DD-754 was named for BGen Frank E. Evans (1876-1942), USMC (Ret), who enlisted during the Spanish-American War and was soon commissioned serving aboard Navy warships then and during the Philippine-American War; known as a skilled rifle shot. He was recalled to active duty for WWI service with the AEF, earning the Navy Cross and Meritorious Service Citation for performance during Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, and later at St-Mihiel. He continued in uniform until 1940. His decorations included the Purple Heart, the WWI Victory Medal with two clasps, the Haiti Expeditionary Medal, the French Fourragere of the Croix de Guerre, and the French Legion of Honor.
Of the Allen M. Sumner class, the Evans keel was laid down in April 1944 at Bethlehem Steel, Staten Island, and launched in October that same year, sponsored by Mrs. Allean Evans, widow of the ship's namesake. The 2.2-ton super-destroyer was commissioned in February 1945 to begin nearly 25 years of service in three wars of the Pacific Theater. Her assignments included convoy escort, fighter director, picket duty, screening cargo and troopships, anti-submarine patrol, troop movements, anti-aircraft gunnery, rescues at sea or from land, post-war occupation, Japanese surrender enforcement, covering and suppressing fire, humanitarian aid to US prisoners and Allied civilians, flagship, landing craft support, mail runs, and training until June 1946. She returned to Mare Island in 1947. She was refitted at Hunters Point, transported ammunition, and was decommissioned in 1949 at NS San Diego. The Evans was again activated in 1950 there and sailed to join the Seventh Fleet, as hostilities worsened on the Korean peninsula, to combine with the ten ships of Task Force 77. During the siege of Wonsan and in several other battles, she engaged communist shore batteries eleven times and regularly fought back against enemy incoming. Her crew proudly called her "The Gray Ghost," "The Fighter," or "The Lucky Evans," and she participated in formations with a number of the more famous Navy ships, including the USS Missouri, before coming back home after a cruise of almost 52,000 miles. In 1952 she returned to Korean War service for a second time until the conflict wound down. "From 1954 through 1960, Frank E. Evans completed five tours of duty in the western Pacific, as well as joining extensive training operations along the [US] west coast and in the Hawaiian Islands, occasionally with Canadian naval ships."
All in all, taken together in orders of battle and stations, the USS Frank E. Evans touched in practically every notable waters and port of call anywhere in the Pacific area of operations from Midway, to Pago Pago, Subic Bay, Pearl Harbor, Yokosuka, Okinawa, Gulf of Tonkin, Hong Kong and points in between with a wide variety of battle groups and Task Forces, in war and peace. In the early 1960s, she was physically and technically upgraded as part of FRAM II. Starting in 1966-67, she joined with teams that included the Oriskany, Kearsarge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Constellation during Vietnam, Operation Market Time, and later in support of US Coast Guard activities attempting to interdict enemy supply in theater, performing all the activities she'd become accustomed to and highly skilled at since her service first began.
Yet, the valiant constancy of the Evans was not ready to end. "The Vietnamese Tet lunar holiday of 1968 ushered in the Year of the Monkey, but more than 80,000 People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and PLAF troops attacked throughout South Vietnam as the Tet holiday began on 30 and 31 January 1968… On the night of January 2nd, Salted Flakes 26D directed the ship's shooting onto enemy infiltration routes, a bivouac area, and a 
staging area. Frank E. Evans opened fire from a range of 14,000 yards, opened to 15,100, and closed to 11,800 before she ceased fire after throwing nine 5-inch variable time nonfragmenting and 171 anti-aircraft common rounds, along with a single white phosphorous shell, toward the enemy." And, when North Korea seized our naval intelligence vessel USS Pueblo that year, the Evans was sent to aid in operations until late March.
Along with necessary and routine maintenance allowing its crew to recuperate in various stateside ports from San Diego and Long Beach to Portland, the ship was active and alert on intense duty all along, returning again to a familiar South China Sea. In May 1969, "Frank E. Evans fired a staggering 278 5-inch variable time nonfragmenting, 717 high capacity, 662 anti-aircraft common, 86 white phosphorous, and 95 illumination rounds during [a] battle. Following Daring Rebel, she turned from the fighting and arrived at Subic Bay…."
Navy TWS lists 126 registered members who had served aboard the USS Frank E. Evans at various times. An unofficial summary of the tragic conclusion is also included with the vessel's Unit History published there as follows:
"In calm seas a little after 0300 on June 3rd, 1969, the Destroyer DD754 Frank E. Evans was participating in exercise SEA SPIRIT in the South China Sea with elements of the Royal Australian Navy and other allied navies. The Evans was operating [under darken ship conditions] as right flank escort in company with the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. At flying stations, Melbourne signaled Evans, which was to port of the carrier, to take station astern of her. The most plausible action by Evans would have been to make a turn to port (away from the carrier) and describe a circle, taking station astern of the carrier. Because of confusion as to Melbourne's course, intentions, and errors of judgment, instead of turning to port, Evans turned to starboard onto a collision course. After being warned by Melbourne, she came hard right, while Melbourne simultaneously (or nearly so) came hard left. Evans was cut in half in the ensuing collision. Her bow section sank in two minutes into 1,100 fathoms, taking 74 of her crew down with it. At the time of the collision, Evans's captain was asleep. The officer of the deck failed to notify him when he executed the station change as required by the Commanding Officer's standing orders. The Evans was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on July 1st, 1969. The stern section was salvaged and sunk as a target in Subic Bay on October 10th, 1969."
The violent impact of the ship against ship was reportedly so immense that an Evans lookout was thrown by it on to the Melbourne's flight deck. For the next fifteen hours, all possible efforts were made by several nearby vessels to render aid and rescue. One hundred ninety-nine survivors were found; Evans's Cmdr Albert McLemore and LtJG Ronald Ramsey, OOD, among them. The remaining ship's company, with immediate assistance from nearby crews, fought hard to keep what was left of the Evans' stern section from sinking. That portion stayed afloat and was towed by the Tawasa AFT-92 back to Subic beyond repair. The greatly damaged HMAS Melbourne was restored to duty until decommissioned in 1982 and scrapped. The seventy-four, including twenty-two Californians, whose lives were lost that morning, with photographs of each one may be found at: https://www.ussfee.org/lost-74/ Included among the casualties were three Sage family brothers, from Niobrara, Nebraska; one of whom was on signal duty as the other two slept at the time of the collision. Despite an outpouring of public sentiment that arose with the 1942 loss of five Iowan Sullivan brothers aboard the USS Juneau, this family had remained together.
Because the incident took place about 100 miles outside the official Vietnam War combat zone, despite subsequent sentiment and efforts, the fallen are not named on the Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. "'After surviving an epic sea battle in 1945 off Okinawa, in which she had repulsed 150 kamikaze planes, shooting down 50,' one historian concludes, 'the Evans ignobly went to her death through poor navigation.' "In the end, there were a number of conflicting testimonies about the naval technicalities of speed, course, lighting, and orders given associated with what actually happened. Regardless, the sailors and officers aboard that morning felt and saw what they saw. The USS Frank E. Evans earned one battle star for World War II, five battle stars for Korea, and five battle stars for her service in the Vietnam War. She also received the Navy Unit Commendation, E Ribbon, and Ney Memorial Award. Our Navy developed a training film based on the collision entitled, "I Relieve You, Sir."
Today, there are a total of seventy-five official public memorials remembering this fighting ship and her crew in thirty-four States, including five in Australia. She gave her all and then some.
Just answering these questions has flooded my mind with many pleasant memories of friends I met along the way. It would be nice to see them again and to know that their life went well. I also try to read the profile (Service Reflections) of the day every day.
CMSgt Daniel Diveney US Air Force (Ret)
Served 1954-1974
Veterans Affairs officials plan a public awareness blitz over the next five weeks to get as many individuals as possible to sign up for new military toxic exposure benefits ahead of an August deadline for retroactive payouts.
The Summer VetFest is part of a year-old, $11.4 million effort connected to the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxins Act (better known as the PACT Act), sweeping benefits legislation approved by lawmakers last summer. As many as one in five veterans living in America today could receive new health care or disability payouts as a result of the measure.
The PACT ACT provides presumptive benefit status for 12 types of cancer and 12 other respiratory illnesses linked to burn pit exposure in the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq; hypertension and monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) for veterans who served in Vietnam; and radiation-related illnesses for veterans who served in several new locations in the 1960s and early 1970s.
"There are millions of veterans and survivors across America who are eligible for new health care and benefits, and we will not rest until every one of them gets what they've earned," VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement. "That's what this Summer VetFest is all about educating veterans, their families, and survivors - and encouraging them to apply today."
Since the PACT Act was signed into law on Aug. 10, 2022, more than 660,000 veterans have applied for benefits, and the department has paid out more than $1.4 billion.
Under federal law, veterans who apply for the PACT Act payouts within a year of the bill signing are potentially eligible for retroactive benefits back to that date. But veterans who enroll after Aug. 9, 2023, will only receive payouts back to their date of filing.
Veteran Affairs officials said that's the impetus for the July outreach push. By filing ahead of the Aug. 9 deadline instead of after it, veterans who are awarded toxic exposure disability benefits could get tens of thousands of dollars more in payouts.
Department staff have held similar outreach efforts throughout the past 12 months, including a "PACT Act Week of Action" in December, when VA hosted dozens of local information events across the nation.
Along with new online ads and public service announcements, the new outreach push will include events in all 50 states (plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico) where veterans can apply for PACT Act-related benefits, enroll in VA health care, get screened for toxic exposures, or learn more about VA services.
Veterans or their family members can also get information about PACT Act benefits by visiting the department's website or by calling 1-800-MYVA411 (1-800-698-2411).
Helpful Book on Navigating VA Benefits
Veterans of the United States armed forces are entitled to a broad range of benefits and services provided by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Dr. Paul R Lawrence, former Under Secretary for Benefits in the Department of Veterans Affairs, provides an up-to-date, comprehensive, and easy-to-read guide to these benefits.
In his book, he clearly describes each benefit, explains the process to apply, and offers tips about what is needed to be successful.
Specifically, his book covers:
· Disability Compensation
· GI Bill
· Home Loan Guaranty
· Veteran Readiness and Employment
· Pension
· Fiduciary
· Dependency Indemnity Compensation
· Insurance
He describes how to receive help applying from a veteran service officer and how to appeal a decision if you are not satisfied. Beyond these benefits, he explains eligibility for benefits, benefits for survivors, and other programs such as no-cost checking accounts and help for struggling veterans who may be headed toward homelessness.
TWS members can obtain his book at a 20% Discount on the normal price of $24.95 for $19.95:
https://www.unisonbooks.com/veterans-benefits-for-you-get-what-you-deserve/?showHidden=true&ctk=5c88d8d1-da5d-4eb7-8a48-501224ed39d9
On December 4, 1959, the school children of Hawthorne Elementary in Clairemont, California, witnessed an impossible and traumatic sight. The Navy pilot of an F3H Demon jet fighter flew low over the school, barely missing the school fence, and then disappeared. Suddenly, a massive fireball erupted from the nearby canyon.
The students, many of them children of Navy service members, didn't know it, but a pilot had just sacrificed himself to protect them. Navy pilot Ensign Albert Hickman.
Navy Ensign Albert Hickman, just 21 years old, practiced carrier landings that morning and then headed back toward NAS Miramar, where he was assigned to land. While flying relatively low, just 2,000 feet above the ground, his F3H Demon's engine suddenly gave out.
The F3H flew from 1951 to 1964 and, from 1952 to 1955, was known for its frequent engine issues. After a Congressional investigation, the Navy bought a new engine, the Allison J-71. This improved the plane and its safety record but it remained a troubled jet nonetheless.
When Hickman's engine failed, he was in an especially vulnerable position. He was flying low over a residential area. He was well within his rights to decide to eject. But he could see neighborhoods and a school ahead of him and couldn't know where a pilotless plane would land.
Hickman's Heroic Decision
We don't know for sure when Hickman saw them, but kids were actively playing outside the school. Hickman stayed in the cockpit and entered a controlled glide designed to maximize his distance. Navy investigators later decided that this likely prevented a catastrophic crash into the school or nearby houses. Even with Hickman carefully piloting the plane, he barely cleared the fence around the play area.
Hickman's decision was not without cost, though. He stayed in the cockpit even as he descended past the minimum altitude for him to eject.
And kids at play reported seeing his cockpit open just before the crash, with Hickman waving frantically to urge them away from his path.
He made it just past the playground and into a canyon just past it but quickly crashed there. The crash killed Hickman immediately and triggered a fire that consumed 20 acres of brush. But Hickman's heroism prevented the death of anyone else. The Navy and the local community quickly credited Hickman with saving everyone in the school, 700 children and staff.
The Navy Pilot's Legacy
Schoolchildren at Hawthorne Elementary School sent thank-you letters to Hickman's parents. And the next elementary school in the area was dubbed Hickman Elementary. A number of other memorials to Hickman, including the name of the local American Legion post and a plaque at Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial, honor him.
One of the children saved on December 4, 1959, spoke at the ceremony for the Mt. Soledad plaque. She said:
"I was born into a Navy family like so many children in Clairemont at that time. The sounds of jets and sonic booms were everyday occurrences nobody thought anything about; it didn't disrupt our lives.
But that day on the playground, there was a sound that was out of the ordinary, and it caused many of us, including myself, to stop and take note and look up into the direction of the sound. As I did, I saw this jet making a very controlled glide, and I could not take my eyes off of it. The reality hit me when I saw the fireball, and it happened right outside of our playground; as you can imagine, chaos ensued.
As an eight-year-old child,d I had one view of that day, but as I have grown older, it has taken on a much more profound acknowledgment of what happened that day. A 21-year-old man had the wherewithal and the compassion in his heart and the heroism in his soul, not to bail out, not to save himself, but to save a playground at a school filled with children and teachers. There are no words to explain what he did; there's nothing that I can say to give thanks to his parents for giving birth to a man that saved my life, that saved the lives of my schoolmates."
Debra Dawson, a Hawthorne Elementary survivor, in 2019
Hickman posthumously received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. The community near Miramar, California, has suffered other crashes in recent years, including the loss of a Marine pilot in a Hornet crash.
Reprinted with permission from We Are The Mighty
By March of 1944, World War II had turned decisively in favor of the Allies. The war was far from won, but the Allied nations were advancing on all fronts, in every theater of battle, all over the world.
The Allies had broken the Japanese on Papua New Guinea, German U-boats were dropping to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Army Air Forces began bombing Italy, Berlin, and Palau.
On the homefront, life was beginning to return to a kind of normalcy. Dartmouth College was set to play the University of Utah in the NCAA Division I basketball tournament. "Casablanca" would win Best Picture at the 16th Academy Awards, and Jimmy Dorsey's "Bésame Mucho" topped the Billboard charts.
Everything seemed to be going well for the U.S. until March 21, 1944, when residents of a Montana town woke up to a startling picture: the Yellowstone River, full of ice floes amid a winter storm, began to overrun its banks. Large chunks of ice had jammed up the river and were threatening the nearby town of Miles City.
Miles City has had a long military history. It was named for Gen. Nelson Miles, who was the commander of Fort Keogh, around which the town was founded in the 1890s. Fort Keogh itself was named for Capt. Myles Keogh, who was killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Miles City is even the seat of Custer County.
In 1944, the town wasn't much smaller than it is today, with a population of just 7,300. Despite its size, the rising waters of the Yellowstone didn't mean the U.S. government would just let thousands of American citizens die an icy, watery death. If the government didn't take action, the whole town would certainly be wiped off the map.
L.S. Keye, the Mayor of Miles City, cobbled together some explosives to break up the ice jam that was causing the river's rise. They put them together as 50-pound bombs and dropped them on the jam with the help of some local pilots flying small planes. It was a gamble that didn't pay off. When the bombs failed to solve the problem, the mayor called the governor.
If there was one thing the United States definitely had on hand in 1944, it was bombs and planes, so when the governor of Montana heard the call for help, he got the Army Air Corps to work on the best solution they knew: the same solution, only much, much bigger.
At Rapid City Army Air Base, which is today Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, a B-17 Flying Fortress crew immediately agreed to drop bombs on American soil. Eight crew members fused and loaded a B-17 with 250-pound bombs and took off into the blizzard conditions – a dangerous feat at the time.
In the icy air, the bomber crew had a hard time making out the target as they made their bombing run. At 7:30 p.m. local time, a lone bomber cut through the skies over Miles City, Montana, flying at 10,000 feet. As the imperiled townsfolk watched, the B-17 made two dummy bombing runs to ensure the ordnance would hit the target in the heavy weather.
Then the Flying Fortress dropped one real bomb on the town. It slowly fell and hit the ice jam, right on target – but nothing happened. After two more bombs, the ice was still firmly in place, so the crew decided to drop its entire payload. As the bombs exploded across the ice jam, columns of mud, ice, and debris shot into the air as the jam crumbled under the barrage.
The water began flowing once more, and the flood waters receded. The Yellowstone River went back to its natural levels, and the town of Miles City was saved from an icy, murky doom. It turns out nothing can stop the U.S. (Army) Air Force, not even Mother Nature.
Reprinted with permission from We Are The Mighty
It's pulling up old memories and names I had forgotten. It's a great way to honor those who served, and I am excited to dig through my family's history of those who served. It's also a great place that acts as a repository for my records, reflections, photographs, and documents that will live on after I am gone. I had forgotten many of the things I did and the service schools I attended.
I created a page for my brother, who died in an accident at Fort Hunter Liggett in 1973. A retired Army First Sergeant wrote me a message letting me know he remembered my brother as they were roommates at the time of my brother's death.
It's a great way for us to remember each other, get to know others, and honor those who went before us.
SSgt Michael Weaver US Marine Corps Veteran
Served 1983-1993
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, June, 1950
At the age of 19, I had just been promoted to the exalted rank of Corporal, having served as a Private First Class (PFC) since my Basic Training in Texas. I was in the US Air Force, now stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in
Dayton, Ohio.
On Saturday, June 23 of 1950, after dinner, having nothing better to do, I went to a movie at the base theater. I don’t remember the name of it, but during the movie, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Come outside.” The person who tapped me had a First Lieutenant’s silver bar on his collar and, therefore, outranked me—I was at this time a lowly Corporal with two little stripes on my sleeve - and, without question, I walked out with him. There were three or four people standing outside, including another officer, a captain, who said to me, “North Korea has just invaded South Korea.” I was thinking (but, of course, not saying) “What the hell does that have to do with me?”
And then the four words that no GI ever wants to hear: “Get your stuff together.” I found out later that everyone in the Air Force who had been through the Air Force Radar School and, specifically, anyone who was familiar with the AN/APQ-13 radar was rounded up to be shipped out to the B-29 bases that were being built in Asia. The roundup began only hours after the North Korean invasion.
The B-29 was the primary heavy bomber used during the Korean War. And the radar APQ-13 was the bombing radar for the B-29.
They gave us an extra day to track down our laundry and write a few letters. Then the order came, “Be at the flight line at 0700 tomorrow, bag and baggage.” Each airman has a duffle bag, a huge sack that will hold everything he owns. When stuffed, it weighs 40 or 50 pounds. We boarded a C-47 (the commercial equivalent was a Douglas DC-3, a twin-engine tail-wheel transport.) We flew from Wright-Patterson to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City to refuel and take on new passengers. The temperature there in June was probably 100°. In the non-air-conditioned plane, we were sweating. The next stop was Fort Frances E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. By now, the sun had set, and the temperature at the 6,000-foot altitude in Cheyenne was probably 40°. We were freezing in the unheated rear bucket seats of the C-47. From Cheyenne, we loaded up more airmen and took off for what is now Travis Air Force Base 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. In those days, it was called Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base. We arrived at a very early hour in the morning. From there, we were bussed to a WW II Army base, Camp Stoneman, on the San Francisco Bay near the town of Pittsburgh, CA.
First Visit to San Francisco
After a few days of orientation at Camp Stoneman, we were transferred by bus to Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. The small Army camp there on the island had served as a replacement depot (GIs called it the “repple-depple”) for World War II soldiers returning from the Pacific War in 1944 and ‘45. We spent a week there, getting some indoctrination on Korea along with more vaccinations against Japanese B-type encephalitis and God-knows-what-else.
The Bay Bridge in those days was, as it is today, a double-deck structure. Today, the westbound traffic is on the upper deck, and the eastbound on the lower. In 1950, all automobile traffic was on the upper deck and truck traffic on the lower. On the lower deck, there was also a train system, the “Key System”, trains that took passengers back and forth between San Francisco and Oakland. We wanted to go to San Francisco, of course. Our problem was that the lower deck of the bridge was several hundred feet above our barracks down on Yerba Buena Island. Believe it or not, a group of three or four of us would walk up the 267 steps to the lower deck and catch a train to San Francisco. My first visit to this magnificent city! I was 19 years old.
From the train station in San Francisco, we walked to Market Street with its bars, restaurants, movies, and almost anything else we could desire. We would head for a bar to get a beer, and being a group of young GIs in uniform (of course, the Korean war had just started), the bar customers would line up to buy our drinks. We could not take our wallets out of our pockets.
This happiness lasted only five or six days when we got the word that we would be shipping out. We were taken by bus to Fort Mason to board our ship. Off to War at the age of 19!
The years between 1968 and 1970 were some of the most tumultuous for the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – better known as MACV. 1968 kicked off with the now-famous Tet Offensive, a massive, coordinated campaign that struck cities, villages, and military bases all across South Vietnam.
By 1969, President Richard Nixon began the process of Vietnamization, building up the Army of South Vietnam to take over the defense of their own country. As more conventional U.S. troops began to leave Vietnam, it put more pressure on the U.S. Army's covert Studies and Observation Group (SOG).
Dan Thompson was a member of the Special Forces in Vietnam between these turbulent years of the war. SOG members began taking the initiative on the ground, and not just in Vietnam. They undertook secret missions in Laos, Cambodia, and in North Vietnam, taking the fighting to the enemy. Dan Thompson did two tours there.
In his 2018 book "Colors of War & Peace: A Collection of Short Stories," Thompson shares eight short stories about his experiences before leaving to fight the Vietnam War with the Army's Special Forces, his time in-country, and his life after coming home. It starts while Thompson is still in the Army's Officer Candidate School, and from there, readers get the vivid detail of what life was like for soldiers fighting in Vietnam.
He lived rough at first, deploying with the South Vietnamese indigenous Montagnards, fighting diarrhea as much as he did the communists. He provides insight into what it meant to take R&R leave in the middle of a war, leave active duty for the reserve, and remember the war even 20 years later.
"Colors of War & Peace" is clearly a very personal book, and it reads like someone is recalling stories they have never told another human being. Thompson tells his story with all the vivid imagery and intelligence of an Army officer who has seen more than any human being should. It's as inspirational as it is insightful. It's no wonder that another author has written an entire book about Thompson's book.
You can get "Colors of War & Peace: A Collection of Short Stories" by Dan Thompson, which is available now in paperback for $14.99 from Amazon.
He didn't see combat with the New Yorkers. Instead, he waited out that enlistment and joined the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry from his home state as it was forming. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, he marched south and fought two losing battles at Winchester and Cedar Mountain before finally tasting victory at the bloody Battle of Antietam, where he was wounded. 
Fort Wagner would hold out until it was abandoned on September 7, 1863. The battle was a loss for the Union and the 54th. Thirty men from the regiment, including Shaw and his other white officers, were dead. But news of the 54th's bravery under fire spread across the Union, changing public sentiment about Black men serving in the Union Army. Public support led to the creation of more all-Black Union units, and large numbers of new Black recruits lined up to wear the Union blue. 
began hitting targets in Sardinia, Sicily, southern Italy, and Greece to keep the Axis guessing where the next attack would be. Allied forces also bombed and captured small islands with airfields to keep them from being used against the Husky invasion force. 
The wind also worked in favor of the Allied amphibious landings because the island’s defenders didn’t expect anyone to try and invade in winds up to 70 miles per hour. The British 8th Army and 1st Canadian Infantry Division landed in the southeast on the Gulf of Avola. The U.S. 7th Army landed in the southwest, along the Gulf of Gela. The idea was to cut off southern Sicily, then push northward. 
Patton’s next move was sending his II Corps under Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley north toward Palermo. His forces overran the Italian defenders while pushing the Germans back towards the west. On July 22, while Montgomery and his 8th Army were fighting entrenched German positions in the east, Patton’s forces were taking Palermo on the northern coast. 
The panzers from the German Hermann Goring Division managed to attack the U.S. beachhead and wreak havoc on British forces around Mount Etna. Italian anti-aircraft guns also made it impossible to attack the Axis evacuation from the air. 
Those old-timey methods of paying the bills led to more than 100 years of telecommunications excise taxes, including cell phone taxes that some believed were still paying for America's 1898 war with Spain. Congress did originally pass an excise tax to pay for the Spanish-American War, but it was renewed time and again over decades to pay for more wars. 
The phone excise tax stayed gone until tariff revenues dipped at the start of World War I in Europe in 1914. With fewer goods shipping from the war-torn continent, and despite the new income tax, the U.S. needed to make money somehow. So Congress brought back the old phone tax. 
Excise taxes on phone calls fluctuated in the 1950s and 1960s during the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, Congress voted to reduce the tax annually until it disappeared entirely. Unsurprisingly, its repeal was delayed repeatedly throughout the 1980s. In 1991, George H.W. Bush called for the tax to be enacted permanently while raising its rate to a percentage instead of cents on the dollar. 
The Destroyer DD-754 was named for BGen Frank E. Evans (1876-1942), USMC (Ret), who enlisted during the Spanish-American War and was soon commissioned serving aboard Navy warships then and during the Philippine-American War; known as a skilled rifle shot. He was recalled to active duty for WWI service with the AEF, earning the Navy Cross and Meritorious Service Citation for performance during Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, and later at St-Mihiel. He continued in uniform until 1940. His decorations included the Purple Heart, the WWI Victory Medal with two clasps, the Haiti Expeditionary Medal, the French Fourragere of the Croix de Guerre, and the French Legion of Honor. 
staging area. Frank E. Evans opened fire from a range of 14,000 yards, opened to 15,100, and closed to 11,800 before she ceased fire after throwing nine 5-inch variable time nonfragmenting and 171 anti-aircraft common rounds, along with a single white phosphorous shell, toward the enemy." And, when North Korea seized our naval intelligence vessel USS Pueblo that year, the Evans was sent to aid in operations until late March.
The violent impact of the ship against ship was reportedly so immense that an Evans lookout was thrown by it on to the Melbourne's flight deck. For the next fifteen hours, all possible efforts were made by several nearby vessels to render aid and rescue. One hundred ninety-nine survivors were found; Evans's Cmdr Albert McLemore and LtJG Ronald Ramsey, OOD, among them. The remaining ship's company, with immediate assistance from nearby crews, fought hard to keep what was left of the Evans' stern section from sinking. That portion stayed afloat and was towed by the Tawasa AFT-92 back to Subic beyond repair. The greatly damaged HMAS Melbourne was restored to duty until decommissioned in 1982 and scrapped. The seventy-four, including twenty-two Californians, whose lives were lost that morning, with photographs of each one may be found at: https://www.ussfee.org/lost-74/ Included among the casualties were three Sage family brothers, from Niobrara, Nebraska; one of whom was on signal duty as the other two slept at the time of the collision. Despite an outpouring of public sentiment that arose with the 1942 loss of five Iowan Sullivan brothers aboard the USS Juneau, this family had remained together. 
Veterans Affairs officials plan a public awareness blitz over the next five weeks to get as many individuals as possible to sign up for new military toxic exposure benefits ahead of an August deadline for retroactive payouts.
Specifically, his book covers:
The students, many of them children of Navy service members, didn't know it, but a pilot had just sacrificed himself to protect them. Navy pilot Ensign Albert Hickman.
The Navy Pilot's Legacy
The Allies had broken the Japanese on Papua New Guinea, German U-boats were dropping to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Army Air Forces began bombing Italy, Berlin, and Palau. 
If there was one thing the United States definitely had on hand in 1944, it was bombs and planes, so when the governor of Montana heard the call for help, he got the Army Air Corps to work on the best solution they knew: the same solution, only much, much bigger. 
On Saturday, June 23 of 1950, after dinner, having nothing better to do, I went to a movie at the base theater. I don’t remember the name of it, but during the movie, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Come outside.” The person who tapped me had a First Lieutenant’s silver bar on his collar and, therefore, outranked me—I was at this time a lowly Corporal with two little stripes on my sleeve - and, without question, I walked out with him. There were three or four people standing outside, including another officer, a captain, who said to me, “North Korea has just invaded South Korea.” I was thinking (but, of course, not saying) “What the hell does that have to do with me?”
First Visit to San Francisco
The years between 1968 and 1970 were some of the most tumultuous for the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – better known as MACV. 1968 kicked off with the now-famous Tet Offensive, a massive, coordinated campaign that struck cities, villages, and military bases all across South Vietnam.
He lived rough at first, deploying with the South Vietnamese indigenous Montagnards, fighting diarrhea as much as he did the communists. He provides insight into what it meant to take R&R leave in the middle of a war, leave active duty for the reserve, and remember the war even 20 years later.