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With political and public attention once again focused on the sacrifices made by our military in Afghanistan, it's more important than ever to remember American heroes who set an example for us all. In this first cradle-to-grave biography of Colonel John W. Ripley, author Norman Fulkerson tells the extraordinary life story of a Marine Corps hero of legendary stature; the selfless leader of combat troops and embodiment of "Semper Fi." "If a young officer or Marine ever asks what is the meaning of Semper Fidelis," Col. Ripley once told a friend, "tell them my story." This is his story!

Until now, however, one plan has remained unknown: an 18th-century plot to invade with an American army during that country’s War of Independence. Drawn up by a French general, the scheme was to bring over an American force of 10,000 that would find a Britain so distracted by the war on the other side of the Atlantic, that victory would seem certain. Just to make sure, however, the general suggested that the force include a corps of Native Americans, or “sauvages”, as he termed them, who would strike such fear in British troops that any resistance would collapse immediately. The...

Aboard a pontoon boat chugging past the marshland of Maryland's upper Patuxent River on a recent Saturday, Ralph Eshelman pointed to the spot where the muddy brown water hides a shipwreck nearly two centuries old, part of the American flotilla that defended the Chesapeake Bay when the British burned Washington during the War of 1812. Nearly 30 years ago, Eshelman helped direct a team of marine researchers who discovered the wreck, one of the war's most significant artifacts. After a limited, month-long excavation of the site east of Upper Marlboro in 1980, the wreck was reburied under four feet of...

MILFORD -- A 1907 catalog of the New Haven County Historical Society listed several rare and odd items, including a necklace from an Egyptian mummy, slave chains, a small block of wood from the Old South Bridge in Concord, Mass., which the British guarded at the start of the Revolutionary War. But lot 23 in the inventory -- "a skull of an American soldier, one of 42 who died of the 200 in a destitute and sickly condition that were brought from a British prison ship ... and suddenly cast upon the shore of the town of Milford on the...

Plaque in Pranjani dedicated to the Halyard Mission on September 12, 2004. The plaque next to it reflects the same inscription in the Serbian language. Photo courtesy of OSS Halyard Mission radioman Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian Serb soldiers in front of the Halyard Mission monument first dedicated in September of 2004,in Pranjani, Serbia August 15, 2009. Photo courtesy of Lt. Col. John Cappello Ohio National Guard troops that are in Serbia doing work on schools in South Serbia. They are working with Serb soldiers, some of which are also in the photo. The older folks are those who participated in assisting...

VFW: Woodstock Wasn't the Only Thing Happening 40 Years Ago By Colleen Raezler (Bio | Archive) August 12, 2009 - 13:47 ET    While some in the media have been dusting off their love beads, bell-bottoms and broomstick skirts in an effort to wax nostalgic about Woodstock, the VFW has reminded its members that the world did not stop for those four days in August 1969. In fact, for 109 American soldiers, the world ended that weekend.VFW Magazine honored those soldiers in the August 2009 cover story, "While Woodstock Rocked, GIs Died." Much has been made over the "half...

\ Photo: Seizo Yamada (7 km northeast of Hiroshima)

British historian Andrew Roberts has claimed in a new book -- The Storm of War -- that wrong clothing and not ghastly wintry conditions led to Germany's defeat in Russia in 1941. In an extract from his new book, Roberts claims that Hitler's troops were fatally ill equipped for the 1941 invasion of Russia. He also blames dictator Adolf Hitler for that defeat, saying the Nazi leader failed to take care of his troops' needs and was more proud of his hardiness in the cold, boasting how "having to change into long trousers was always a misery to me." Prior...

Rather than absolving him of his sins, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s pseudo-mea culpa, “In Retrospect: Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,” is a self-indictment. His lesser crime is self-indulgence. His arrogance and duplicity during the Vietnam conflict is echoed throughout his book as he recounts his mismanagement of the war. If as he admits, ignorance was his guiding light, then, it has grown to be a beacon today, proving that he has learned little about Vietnamese communism in the almost three decades that it took him to write his book. Besides the war, another tragedy is that McNamara seems...

July 1, 1863 The Battle of Gettysburg begins The largest military conflict in North American history begins this day when Union and Confederate forces collide at Gettysburg. The epic battle lasted three days and resulted in a retreat to Virginia by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Two months prior to Gettysburg, Lee had dealt a stunning defeat to the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville. He then made plans for a Northern invasion in order to relieve pressure on war-weary Virginia and to seize the initiative from the Yankees. His army, numbering about 80,000, began moving on June...

On May 6, 1945, Edward Kennedy, chief of the Associated Press western front staff dispatched the scoop of a lifetime. At General Dwight Eisenhower's headquarters at Reims, France, General Gustaf Jodl, German army chief of staff, signed the terms of surrender at 7:41 p.m. central war time. The European Theater of World War II was officially over. Less than 12 hours later, at 8:35 a.m. central war time on May 7, Kennedy's dispatch was released by the New York desk of the Associated Press, and the world went wild with joy. The Minneapolis Morning Tribune ran the headline, "Announcement Due...

A bullet tore through Staff Sgt. Leonard Lomell's right leg as he stepped into the frigid Atlantic at Omaha Beach. "I had stepped in a bomb crater, and went to the bottom," Lomell, of Toms River, N.J., said this week. "As I came up, my guys pulled me [out] and pulled me onto the beach." It was June 6, 1944 -- D-Day. Lomell and his men were among the first American Soldiers to step out of landing craft and into the murderous German gunfire at Normandy. Today, 65 years later, the nation pauses to remember the largest water invasion in...

~ D-DAY June 6, 1944 ~ Encyclopedia Britannica NORMANDY INVASION May 1944 had been chosen at the conference in Washington in May 1943 as the time for the invasion. Difficulties in assembling landing craft forced a postponement until June, but June 5 was fixed as the unalterable date by Eisenhower on May 17. As the day approached and troops began to embark for the crossing, bad weather set in, threatening dangerous landing conditions. After tense debate, Eisenhower and his subordinates decided on a 24-hour delay, requiring the recall of some ships already at sea. Eventually, on the morning of...

NORMANDY, France (Army News Service, June 1, 2009) -- When the time comes Saturday, to honor the servicemen who fought and died supporting the D-Day invasion of Normandy 65 years ago, thousands are expected to flock to the shores of Utah Beach and Omaha Beach to pay homage to the bravery and sacrifice of these heroes. The 18th Military Police Brigade, based in Germany, was designated to plan, coordinate and conduct all U.S. support to the Normandy ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day. For the execution of Task Force Normandy 65, weeks of careful planning and coordination have gone...

D-Day bomb raids were 'close to a war crime' says author The RAF bombing raids in Normandy following the D-Day invasion were 'close to a war crime', a leading British historian has claimed. Antony Beevor has singled out Bomber Command's massive raids on the key city of Caen for particular criticism,... ...made ahead of next week's 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Beevor was accused of trying to generate publicity for his latest book... Caen became a crucible of ferocious fighting during the campaign due to its vital strategic position... Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery hoped his troops would capture Caen...

The Washington Times has partnered with the Internet company Footnote.com on a new project that transforms Washington's Vietnam war memorial wall into an interactive, personal journey on the Web. The Interactive Vietnam Veterans Memorial allows you to search the names on the wall and to drill down into the government's official war records to learn details about each of the 58,000-plus heroes enshrined on the wall. You can also add your own personal stories, remembrances and photographs. (edit) Start by clicking on the "Search the Wall" box, where you can select "Search" or "View." Once you find the name...

NEWPORT NEWS — Jim Kennedy slogged onto Utah Beach in 1944 and saw the bloated bodies of American servicemen in the water. The tide washed them out. The tide washed them back in. It was three weeks after D-Day, June 6, 1944. The drama of the landing had passed, and the grim work of cleaning up the beach had begun. The Allies were pushing inward. And Kennedy's own story was just about to start. He belonged to a unit of U.S. Army deep sea divers who were dispatched to the port city of Cherbourg. The Allies had captured it after...

Army News videos: Historian explains battle of Passchendaele, Part 1Historian explains battle of Passchendaele, Part 2Thursday, April 23, 2009 Ottawa, ON – Norman Leach discusses the bravery and strategy of WWI Canadian soldiers.

America’s Great Betrayal By Humberto Fontova FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, April 17, 2009 "They fought like Tigers," wrote CIA officer Grayston Lynch, who helped train these Cuban freedom-fighters. "But their fight was doomed before the first man hit the beach." Lynch, knew something about fighting – and about long odds. He carried scars from Omaha Beach, the Battle of the Bulge, and Heartbreak Ridge. But in those battles, Lynch and his band of brothers could count on the support of their own chief executive. At the Bay of Pigs, Lynch and his band of Cuban brothers learned – first in speechless...

NORFOLK - Twenty years ago today, a routine exercise turned into disaster aboard the USS Iowa when an explosion in a gun turret killed 47 crewmen. Today, around 250 people whose lives were touched by that day are expected to gather at Naval Station Norfolk to remember the men who perished and, hopefully, to heal some old wounds. They will gather at Iowa Point, where a small memorial at the water's edge pays tribute to the fallen sailors. Crew and family members will speak, and Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim will offer remarks. The names of the dead will be read...

VA Hospital Pulls 'Japs Surrender' Headline from Historical Display Wednesday, March 11, 2009By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor Americans raising flag on Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima (AP photo/Rosenthal) (CNSNews.com) - The director of the VA hospital in Indianapolis has removed a World War II-era newspaper front page from a historical display at the hospital because it contains the headline, “Japs Surrender.”  The hospital has replaced it with another newspaper, whose headline says “Peace.” Linda Jeffrey, the public affairs officer at the Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis, explained the action. “We have a hallway in our outpatient clinics that has a lot...

ARLINGTON, Va. — Sixty-four years ago on Feb. 23, 1945, U.S. Marines stormed the sands of Iwo Jima and raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi. In honor of the 64th anniversary of that historic event, dozens of spectators and Marines, including nine individuals who fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima, gathered at the Marine Corps War Memorial today for a flag-raising ceremony. One of the Iwo Jima veterans present at the event acted as a forward observer during the battle, calling for and guiding indirect artillery fire from the island. “The [flag-raising] brings back so many memories,” said...

US troops have raised the Stars and Stripes over Iwo Jima four days after landing on the Japanese-held volcanic island. The 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division took Mount Suribachi at 1030 local time. The extinct volcano offers a strategic vantage point for the ongoing battle for control of the island. Lying in the north-west Pacific Ocean 650 miles (1,045 kms) from Tokyo, Iwo Jima would serve as a useful base for long-range fighters to cover B-29 Superfortresses in a bombing campaign against the Japan's capital. Although the Stars and Stripes are flying over the island the battle is...

Feb. 15, 1898: A terrific explosion rips through the bow of USS Maine anchored in Havana Harbor, Cuba. Almost everyone in the forward third of the vessel is instantly killed. Black smoke and seawater begin pouring into the remaining spaces. The dying ship, its bulkheads groaning under the stress of collapse, is then rocked by a series of jarring secondary explosions. Capt. Charles Sigsbee, the Maine’s skipper, orders “Abandon ship!” Within minutes, 260 U.S. sailors and Marines are dead. Convinced that the explosion (the cause of which is still being debated) is the result of a mine or the work...

DALLAS — After four years of painstaking labor, artisans of the Vought Aircraft Retirees Club have restored an icon of U.S. aviation history, a World War II-vintage F4U Corsair fighter plane.Working with pieces and parts from several wrecked and scrapped aircraft and building many others themselves from drawings, the retirees have spent thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars re-creating a version of the distinctive, gull-winged plane that Japanese soldiers and sailors dubbed "Whistling Death."Rebuilding the Corsair, one of two great fighter planes — the other was the Grumman F6F Hellcat — that enabled Navy and Marine pilots...

Skillfully crafted from tin cans, matchsticks and off cuts, one can only imagine the satisfaction a prisoner of war derived from finishing this stunning model aircraft as he languished in Stalag Luft III. Constructed almost perfectly to scale, his detailed version of a Lancaster Bomber like the one he flew before his capture even bears what appears to be the skull and crossbones logo of RAF 100 Squadron, famous for its night-time raids.Little is known about its maker, other than that he was an airman named E Taylor.     The model was found during a clearance sale at house...

Washington Crosses the Delaware, 1776 Back | EyeWitnesstoHistory.com Washington Crosses the Delaware, 1776 December 1776 was a desperate time for George Washington and the American Revolution. The ragtag Continental Army was encamped along the Pennsylvania shore of the Delaware River exhausted, demoralized and uncertain of its future. The troubles had begun the previous August when British and Hessian troops invaded Long Island routing the colonial forces, forcing a desperate escape to the island of Manhattan. The British followed up their victory with an attack on Manhattan that compelled the Americans to again retreat, this time across the Hudson River...

Approximately 19,000 Americans were killed and 41,000 wounded during the Battle of the Bulge, the largest land battle ever fought by the U.S. Army. An Allied victory was secured shortly after General George S. Patton's 4th Armored Division broke through the German rear. On December 26, 1944, General George S. Patton’s 4th Armored Division broke through the German rear during the Battle of the Bulge, effectively ensuring an American victory there. The largest land battle fought on the Western Front during World War II – as well as the largest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army – the Bulge...

Japan has launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and has declared war on Britain and the United States. The US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, has mobilised all his forces and is poised to declare war on Japan. Details of the attack in Hawaii are scarce but initial reports say Japanese bombers and torpedo-carrying planes targeted warships, aircraft and military installations in Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, the third largest and chief island of Hawaii. News of the daring raid has shocked members of Congress at a time when Japanese officials in Washington were...

TARAWA, Kiribati — Master Sgt. James M. Fawcett got on his knees and gently mixed his father’s ashes with sand on the Pacific beach where the elder Fawcett fought his way ashore 65 years ago. Maj. James L. Fawcett died in September at the age of 89. He wanted his ashes taken to the spot where half of the men in his 50-man platoon were killed during the first two hours of the Battle of Tarawa, one of World War II’s most brutal battles. "What a great way to end a great life," the younger Fawcett said Thursday after he...

He is the most pilloried military leader in British history, caricatured as a butcher and a bungler who sent hundreds of thousands of men over the top to their deaths. Now a new biography pins a further damning indictment on Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. Late in the final year of the First World War, it argues, he was pushing for a peace that would have left Germany as the real winner of the war. According to Dr J. P. Harris, senior lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Haig was not quite the uncaring monster of...

FORT MORGAN, Ala. – When the waves from Hurricane Ike receded, they left behind a mystery — a ragged shipwreck that archeologists say could be a two-masted Civil War schooner that ran aground in 1862 or another ship from some 70 years later. The wreck, about six miles from Fort Morgan, had already been partially uncovered when Hurricane Camille cleared away sand in 1969. Researchers at the time identified it as the Monticello, a battleship that partially burned when it crashed trying to get past the U.S. Navy and into Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

Nathan G. Gordon, a Navy pilot who received the Medal of Honor for rescuing other aviators in World War II, and who later became Arkansas's longest-serving lieutenant governor, died Sept. 8 at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock. He was 92 and had pneumonia and other ailments.

GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE'S first invasion of the North culminated with the Battle of Antietam, in Maryland (or Sharpsburg, as the South called it). The battle took place on Wednesday, September 17, 1862, just 18 days after the Confederate victory at Second Manassas, 40 miles to the southeast in Virginia. Not only was this the first major Civil War engagement on Northern soil, it was also the bloodiest single day battle in American history. To view the magnitude of the losses, consider that Antietam resulted in nine times as many Americans killed or wounded (23,000 soldiers) as took place on...

SIERRA VISTA — Fon B. Huffman, the last survivor from the international Panay Incident of 1937, died Thursday, his family announced. Huffman, born in 1913, celebrated his 95th birthday on Aug. 19. He died peacefully in his sleep at noon in Hacienda Rehabilitation and Care Center. His daughter, Nancy Ferguson, was by his side. Advertisement Fon Huffman is pictured on Dec. 26, 2007, at his daughter Nancy’s home in Sierra Vista where he lived out his last days. File photo/Mark Levy•Herald/Review The Iowa farm boy who joined the Navy at age 16 was a 24-year-old sailor aboard the USS Panay...

Video Herethe video is not the best quality but the narration is good

Following the withdrawal of the British army from Boston on 17th March 1776, Washington in the expectation that Howe would attack New York which was held for the Congress marched much of his army south to that city. In fact the British had sailed north to Halifax in Nova Scotia. It was not until the summer of 1776 that Howe launched his attack on New York. The British fleet reached the entrance to the Hudson River on 29th June 1776 and Howe landed on Staten Island on 3rd July. The Congress declared independence the next day. Reinforcements began to arrive...

Ever since the document was examined several weeks ago, it's been a mystery. Initially, it appeared to be a reproduction of the terms and conditions of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender in Appomattox, Va., in 1865. But staff members of the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum in Center City - who came upon the document while preparing for the museum's relocation - soon noticed pen indentations in the paper, and darker and lighter ink strokes consistent with handwriting. They also found a notation in a 1935 museum inventory identifying the document as an "original." Could this artifact, crudely...

--Snip-- On this date: In 1863, Federal batteries and ships began bombarding South Carolina's Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on despite several days of pounding.

"Scuba divers searching for hidden treasures at the bottom of the English Channel got more than they bargained for when they stumbled across two massive army tanks on the ocean floor." "Divers found the massive vehicles were relatively well preserved with guns still intact even after more than 64 years under sea. And by painstakingly checking minute details on the sunken vehicles against historical records, investigators managed to identify them as rare British Centaur CS IV tanks. The historic weapons were destined for battle during the D-Day landings but never arrived. Historians discovered the tanks fell overboard when a landing...

Holidaymakers feeling nostalgic for the Cold War can now tour what was once a top secret bunker in the former East Germany. Opened to the public for the first time on Friday, it was meant to house the ruling Communist elite in the event of a nuclear attack.Something some visitors said they were relieved was no longer a concern:“What goes through my mind is that it is quite nice to stand around here, look at the bunker and talk to each other peacefully,” one man said.Close to the size of a football field, the bunker was designed to function...

Three Nazi bunkers on a beach have been uncovered by  violent storms off the Danish  coast, providing a store of material  for history buffs and military  archaeologists.   The bunkers were found in  practically the same condition as they were  on the day the last Nazi soldiers left them, down to the tobacco in one trooper‘s pipe and a half-finished bottle of  schnapps. (edit) They were located by two nine-year-old boys on holiday with their parents, who then informed the authorities. Archaeologists were able to carefully force a way, and were astounded at what they found.'What's so fantastic is...

Paris in the month of May was in full aphrodisiac bloom. The girls were swinging along the boulevards in their short, flowery skirts, their hair flowing loose behind them. On the radio, the singer Tino Rossi - France's answer to Rudolph Valentino - belted out his latest romantic favourite. But a few short weeks later, on June, 14, 1940, the German army marched into the capital and occupied it for four years. France has never forgotten its humiliation - or its bewilderment - in having to adjust to a life of close proximity to the old enemy, with all the...

A mentor to the generation of American generals who led the U.S. Army during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and George S. Patton.

July 2, 1863 The morning of July 2 found the two armies facing each other from two nearly parallel ridges separated by a plain of open farmland. Overnight, Longstreet had arrived with the divisions of McLaws and Hood, bringing the strength of the Confederate Army to 50,000. As of this morning, Pickett's division had not arrived. The Union Army had also received reinforcements during the night, bringing their numbers to over 60,000. While Meade's attention was directed towards Ewell's corps on Culp's Hill to the north, Lee decided to attack from the south. In the afternoon, Hood's division encountered Federal...

SEOUL : Fifty-eight years ago, a war broke out on the Korean peninsula, and today, the two sides - South and North Korea - remain technically at war and divided. Although it has been more than five decades, there are still South Koreans - who were soldiers at the time - being kept against their will in North Korea. One of the prisoners of war (POW), Kim Jin Soo, recently escaped the North. The 74-year-old POW fought in the Korean War at the age of 17 and was captured by the North Koreans in 1953. All these years, he had...

Early in the morning of June 6, 1944, Americans heard on their radios that thousands of American and British soldiers had landed on the beaches of northern France. They were fighting German soldiers. This day marked the beginning of the end of one of the bloodiest wars ever: World War II. The American and British invasion of France was a top-secret mission called "Operation Overlord." When they landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, the goal of every soldier was to drive the German military back. Thousands of men died during that effort, either in the churning...

ON THE ROAD TO BERLIN OWING to a last-minute alteration in the arrangements, I didn't arrive on the beachhead until the morning after D-day, after our first wave of assault troops had hit the shore. By the time we got there the beaches had been taken and the fighting had moved a couple of miles inland. All that remained on the beach was some sniping and artillery fire, and the occasional startling blast of a mine geysering brown sand into the air. That plus a gigantic and pitiful litter of wreckage along miles of shore line. Submerged tanks and overturned...

Victor Davis Hanson, a former classics professor, is a renowned conservative scholar of ancient history and military affairs who's recently become a nationally syndicated columnist and blogger. The author of 17 books with titles like "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War," "An Autumn of War" and "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming," he is the senior fellow in residence in classics and military history at the Hoover Institution on the Stanford University campus. Hanson, whose scholarship and interest in individual freedom recently earned him a 2008 Bradley Prize worth $250,000 from the Bradley...