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Posted on 12/11/2004 10:59:45 PM PST by snippy_about_it
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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 Canteens Greet GIs After Pearl Harbor, millions of new recruits needed to be trained. Old military bases were filled to capacity and beyond. New bases were built. Millions of young men had to be moved from one region to another, and almost all of them moved by train. Troop trains became a common sight. Inside, soldiers were crammed onto the train with no sleeping quarters, no showers and few rest rooms. Many were homesick, tired and maybe a little scared. The steam engines of the day had to stop every 50 miles or so to take on more water and fuel. At these stops, the soldiers only had time to eat quickly or stretch their legs. Then the whistle sounded, and they ran back to the train. North Platte, Nebraska, was one of the major rail yards and junction points on the transcontinental Union Pacific line. It still is (a fact that is not lost on modern authors). Within the first month of the war, a rumor swept through North Platte. The Nebraska National Guard was coming through town on Christmas day on their way to the West Coast and the war, according to the rumor. But no one knew for sure because troop train schedules weren't published. Someone got the idea of greeting the train with home-cooked food, fruit, gifts and coffee – all for our home state boys.  Everyone was surprised when the train turned out to be carrying the Kansas National Guard. The greeters decided to give them the goodies anyway. Rae Wilson was one of the greeters that day, and she was so moved by the joy and gratitude expressed by the troops that she wrote a letter to the local newspaper. "We should help keep this soldier morale at its highest peak," Rae wrote. "We can do our part... Why can't we, the people of North Platte and the other towns surrounding our community, start a fund and open a Canteen now?" Within days they organized the North Platte Canteen. For more than four years, day and night, volunteers met the troops, gave out food, coffee, candy and companionship. On the train platform, young women handed out fruit or decks of cards. For wounded men on the hospital trains who couldn't come inside the Canteen, volunteers went on the cars and delivered food and "care baskets" of toothbrushes and razors. Soldiers celebrating a birthday received a birthday cake to a chorus of "Happy Birthday." Volunteers sewed on buttons. They wrote cards and letters for servicemen of every color and creed. They mailed packages back home to family or sweethearts.  They also kept track of the effort. Troop trains ran from early in the morning until late at night. Volunteers served 2,000 to 5,000 servicemen and women each day. During a period of 51 months, almost 55,0000 volunteers served 6 million soldiers. More than 125 communities in three states (some as far away as 200 miles) joined in this miraculous volunteer effort. Volunteers from more than 300 organizations helped fix sandwiches, bake cakes and cookies, pour coffee, wash dishes and hand out candy and magazines, and helped soldiers send letters and packages home during their brief stop over. To raise money for the Canteen, North Platte citizens held scrap drives, collecting and selling metal, paper and rubber. They held benefit dances and pie socials. Businesses donated appliances to help store food. At least one young man went to the weekly stockyard auctions and auctioned off the shirt off his back – then got it back and auctioned it off the next week. No government money was used, and no federal agency organized the volunteers. While North Platte saw more troop trains and was a highly organized effort, wherever troops moved through they were met with warmth and support. Sedfield Hill was a young Air Corps trainee traveling from St. Paul, Minnesota, to the airbase outside Fairmont, Nebraska. He remembers local people greeting the trains delivering new recruits to the Fairmont Air Base. "They wouldn't let go of us," he says. "As a result, a lot of us call this place home." Written by Claudia Reinhardt and Bill Ganzel, the Ganzel Group.      |
Bump for The Foxho;e!
Wonder if we'll ever see that on such a large scale again.
Evening CholeraJoe.
Good morning Snippy.
Good morning, snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.
Great story with which to start the day.
During the early 80's in Germany when the dollar had fallen real low, the German civilians were taking up collections to help feed non sponsored US military dependents. These military dependents were the families who had been taken to Germany without the Army's permission, therefore received no benefits. Since there were no base quarters available for them they lived on the economy. Local German civic groups banned together to help them out. It finally embarrassed the Army so much, that they started allowing these dependent families to eat at the mess halls. This situation was brought to you by none other than Jimmy Carter.
Wonder if we'll ever see that on such a large scale again.
I sure hope we don't have to, eh.
Sunday Christmas cartoon, btw it's bentfeathers fault,hehe
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
bmp
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on December 12:
1673 Ahmed III 23rd sultan (Turkey, 1703-30)
1745 John Jay (statesman: 1st Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court [1789-1795])
1805 Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
1805 Henry Wells, founder (American Express and Wells Fargo)
1806 Stand Watie Brigadier-General (Confederate Army), died in 1871
1821 Gustave Flaubert (author: Madame Bovary)
1863 Edvard Munch, Norway, painter/print maker (The Scream)
1875 Karl R G von Rundstedt, German fieldmarshal
1893 Edward G. Robinson (Emmanuel Goldberg) (actor: Little Caesar, Key Largo, Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street)
1913 Jesse Owens US, track star (4 golds 1936), spoiled Hitler's Olympics
1915 Francis Albert Sinatra "Chairman of the Board" Hoboken, vocalist/actor
1918 Joe Williams (jazz singer: with Count Basie; actor: The Bill Cosby Show)
1923 Bob Barker TV game show host
1924 Edward I Koch, NYC, (Mayor-D-NYC, 1977-89)/judge (People's Court)
1932 Bob Pettit (basketball: St. Louis Hawks: MVP Award [1956, 1959])
1938 Connie Francis (Franconero) (singer)
1940 Dionne Warwick (Grammy Award-winning singer)
1941 Tim Hauser jazz singer (Manhattan Transfer-(Java Jive)
1943 Dickie Betts (musician: guitar: group: The Allman Brothers)
1950 Danny Bouchard (hockey)
1951 Talk show host Rush Limbaugh
1952 Cathy Rigby (gymnast, actress, TV commercials)
1959 Musician Sheila E
Born on this day:
1806 Stand Watie Brigadier-General (Confederate Army), died in 1871
Stand Watie
(1806-1871)
Born at Oothcaloga in the Cherokee Nation, Georgia (near present day Rome, Georgia) on December 12, 1806, Stand Watie's Cherokee name was De-ga-ta-ga, or "he stands." He also was known as Isaac S. Watie. He attended Moravian Mission School at Springplace Georgia, and served as a clerk of the Cherokee Supreme Court and Speaker of the Cherokee National Council prior to removal.
As a member of the Ridge-Watie-boundinot faction of the Cherokee Nation, Watie supported removal to the Cherokee Nation, West, and signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, in defiance of Principal Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokees. Watie moved to the Cherokee Nation, West (present-day Oklahoma), in 1837 and settled at Honey Creek. Following the murders of his uncle Major Ridge, cousin John Ridge, and brother Elias Boundinot (Buck Watie) in 1839, and his brother Thomas Watie in 1845, Stand Watie assumed the leadership of the Ridge-Watie-Boundinot faction and was involved in a long-running blood feud with the followers of John Ross. He also was a leader of the Knights of the Golden Circle, which bitterly opposed abolitionism.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Watie quickly joined the Southern cause. He was commissioned a colonel on July 12, 1861, and raised a regiment of Cherokees for service with teh Confederate army. Later, when Chief John Ross signed an alliance with the South, Watie's men were organized as the Cherokee Regiment of Mounted Rifles. After Ross fled Indian Territory, Watie was elected principal chief of the Confederate Cherokees in August 1862.
A portion of Watie's command saw action at Oak Hills (August 10, 1861) in a battle that assured the South's hold on Indian Territory and made Watie a Confederate military hero. Afterward, Watie helped drive the pro-Northern Indians out of Indian Territory, and following the Battle of Chustenahlah (December 26, 1861) he commanded the pursuit of hte fleeing Federals, led by Opothleyahola, and drove them into exile in Kansas. Although Watie's men were exempt from service outside Indian Territory, he led his troops into Arkansas in the spring of 1861 to stem a Federal invasion of the region. Joining with Maj. GEn. Earl Van Dorn's command, Watie took part in the bAttle of Elkhorn Tavern (March 5-6, 1861). On the first day of fighting, the Southern Cherokees, which were on the left flank of the Confederate line, captured a battery of Union artillery before being forced to abandon it. Following the Federal victory, Watie's command screened the southern withdrawal.
Watie, or troops in his command, participated in eighteen battles and major skirmishes with Federal troop during the Civil War, including Cowskin Prairie (April 1862), Old Fort Wayne (October 1862), Webber's Falls (April 1863), Fort Gibson (May 1863), Cabin Creek (July 1863), and Gunter's Prairie (August 1864). In addition, his men were engaged in a multitude of smaller skirmishes and meeting engagements in Indian Territory and neighboring states. Because of his wide-ranging raids behind Union lines, Watie tied down thousands of Federal troops that were badly needed in the East.
Watie's two greatest victories were the capture of the federal steam boat J.R. Williams on June 15, 1864, and the seizure of $1.5 million worth of supplies in a federal wagon supply train a the Second battle of Cabin Creek on September 19, 1864. Watie was promoted to brigadier general on May 6, 1864, and given command of the first Indian Brigade. He was the only Indian to achieve the rank of general in the Civil War. Watie surrendered on June 23, 1865, the last Confederate general to lay down his arms.
After the war, Watie served as a member of the Southern Cherokee delegation during the negotiation of the Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty of 1866. He then abandoned public life and returned to his old home along Honey Creek. He died on September 9, 1871.
Source: Macmillan Information Now Encyclopedia, "The Confederacy", article by Kenny A. Franks
the GENERAL would be PLEASED to be REMEMBERED!
free dixie,sw
Morning Aeronaut.
Morning E.G.C.
High winds all night and this morning. Gonna have to check how many branches came down.
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