Browsing: Military

A Brief History On October 12, 1945, Corporal Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor given to only the bravest of our military heroes.  A remarkable aspect of this award was that Doss was a lifelong conscientious objector and refused to bear arms against any other person, enemy or not. Digging Deeper Doss was the nation’s first conscientious objector to be honored by a Medal of Honor, and to make the feat that much less likely, he lived to receive his medal and died at the age of 87 in…

A Brief History On October 11, 1779, Polish cavalry officer and American Brigadier General, Casimir Pulaski, died of wounds incurred during the Battle of Savannah (Georgia) during the American Revolutionary War.  Pulaski, known as “The Father of American Cavalry,” had fought in Poland against the Russians, and was forced to flee his own country, taking his military skills to America where he became a hero of the American Revolution.  Pulaski was not the only major Polish officer to fight for America’s Independence, and of course other foreign born people also served in America during the Revolutionary War.  Here we list…

A Brief History On October 8, 1918, 2nd Lt. Ralph Talbot of Massachusetts earned the coveted Medal of Honor, the highest American military honor.  Talbot was the first US Marine Corps aviator to be so honored. Digging Deeper Born in 1897 in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, Talbot was both an excellent student and a natural athlete.  After high school he attended Mercersburg Academy (Pennsylvania), a college preparatory school, and then went on to Yale University.  While at Yale, Talbot attended flying school in Delaware, and served in the Artillery Training Corps at Yale, somewhat similar to today’s ROTC. A Patriotic American,…

A Brief History On October 7, 1925, baseball great and Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson died of tuberculosis brought on by a weakening of his respiratory system due to accidental exposure to poison gas during World War I. Digging Deeper Born in 1880 in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, Mathewson grew up playing baseball, becoming a semi-pro player at only 14 years old.  He went on to college at Bucknell University, where he was class president as well as playing on the football and baseball teams.  At the age of 19, Mathewson won 21 games and lost only 2 in minor league…

A Brief History Pulse rifle and pulse pistol are often used to mean a raygun. Digging Deeper The terms refer to various science fiction weapons: M41A “Pulse Rifle”, an assault rifle in the motion picture Aliens that uses 10 mm caseless ammunition and is fitted with a pump-action grenade launcher.  In the film’s original script, however, it was described as a plasma weapon.1 This weapon, slightly modified, was also used in the Archer episode “Space Race” from Season 3. Phased plasma rifle as described by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in The Terminator. The pulse rifle and pulse pistol are the primary weapons used by the United Earth Oceans Organization and others on the television series seaQuest DSV.2 Pulse rifles and “pulsers”…