“…I Believe it is Peace for our Time.”

It’s one of the most recognizable quotes in history.  Neville Chamberlain’s statement, made outside Number 10 Downing Street, has gone down in history as one of the most unprophetic utterances ever made.  The British Prime Minister had just returned from Munich, Germany, where he believed he had finally put a halt to Germany’s aggressive expansion [...]

Read Full Post »

Hoff: The KITT’s Meow

The early 80s saw a plethora of action shows that my younger brother and I watched regularly, and it seems that many of them were centered around a really cool vehicle.  The A-Team had that van that Mr. T and that Hannibal (who was wanted for a crime he did not commit) always doctored up.  240 [...]

Read Full Post »

Benedict Arnold’s British Defect

On September 25, 1780, Benedict Arnold was in a bad state.  But truthfully, being on the wrong side of right was nothing new to the General. Arnold had enjoyed a pretty lavish lifestyle among Philadelphians, a choice which saddled the General with a sizeable debt.  He began looking for ways to supplement his income, and [...]

Read Full Post »

Major John André: Behind Bars in the Bar

The trip out here to Colorado was really good.  A snafu at the car rental place meant we lost about 3 hours of sleep Tuesday night, but gained a brand-new 2010 Caravan Town and Country for our trouble.  The dash lighting is ugly, though the interior lighting is super-cool.  It was pretty comfortable, but didn’t have enough [...]

Read Full Post »

Fire has New York City Citizens Seeing Red

It seems like every major city has, at some point, a major fire to go with it.  London had one, Chicago had one, and Washington, D.C. had one.  San Francisco had one, but that that more to do with the big earthquake that preceded it.  Still, fire is fire, and when it rages uncontrolled, it’s [...]

Read Full Post »

President Washington’s Goodbye

There is little doubt that President George Washington could have held his position as Commander-in-Chief longer than he did.  The people, to some degree, revered him.  It’s true that, during his second term in office, the gloves of his political opponents had come off and a significant amount of venom had been spit at “His [...]

Read Full Post »

Constitutional Framers Put it in Writing

In May of 1787, men from all over the United States (it probably still sounded a little strange to them) gathered in Philadelphia to discuss the Articles of Confederation.  As the country’s first constitution, it had met a need as the Revolution was winding down.  But there were weaknesses.  Issues like foreign and inter-state commerce, tax [...]

Read Full Post »

MiG-31 Foxhound: The Foxbat’s Big Little Brother

Let’s talk airplanes, and let’s be brief about it. War, whether it’s hot or Cold, seems to make for really rapid advances in technology.  We’ve seen that in our discussions of the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and General Dynamics (now Lockheed) F-16 Fighting Falcon.  I think it’s been interesting to discover how each mark sort [...]

Read Full Post »

Fort McHenry, By the Dawn’s Early Light

Fort McHenry was still standing when the sun peeked over Baltimore’s horizon on September 14, 1814.  And that was something of a surprise in light of the relatively large array of firepower that was stacked against it the night before.  As you recall, British ships of the line had set up camp just beyond a line [...]

Read Full Post »

Fort McHenry, At the Twilight’s Last Gleaming

As summer turned to autumn in 1814, things weren’t looking too good for the United States in its war with Britain.  Having begun more than two years earlier, the early flush of exchanging musket and cannon fire war with the former homeland had given way to the realization that the British were a very tough [...]

Read Full Post »

Continental Army Not (Chadds) Ford Tough

The trip from Cooch’s Bridge in northern Delaware to Chadds Ford spans but 30 miles, give or take.  But in 1777, General Washington certainly wished that distance had at least one more zero at the end.  He needed space between himself and the British army coming at him. The loss of Cooch’s Bridge the week [...]

Read Full Post »

Bombing of America Fails to Nudge Fujita Scale

On June 21st of 1942, the Japanese carried out a daring raid on Fort Stevens.  Situated at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon, the fort put up a desperate fight in this evening encounter, but was overwhelmed by the superior Japanese firepower.  Fort Stevens was largely destroyed with a large number of the garrison killed.  The [...]

Read Full Post »

“Follow the Leader, He’s on a Honda”

For anyone that watched TV in the early 80′s, that slogan is as recognizable as any.  Honda’s motorcycle division used it for years.  But our story today has nothing to do with Hondas…at least, not with cars, or minivans, or cycles, or generators, or any of the 3,000 other things Honda makes. On September 8, [...]

Read Full Post »

German Coach Opens Playbook and Calls for Blitz

The fall of France in June of 1940 gave the British a new next-door neighbor.  And without a doubt, the Germans that moved in to the French countryside were most unpleasant.  Within weeks, the Germans were knocking on British doors, but they weren’t asking for tea and crumpets or Yorkshire pudding or even those delicious doughnuts that I [...]

Read Full Post »

The Battle of the Chesapeake

The Battle of the Chesapeake was an incredibly important naval engagement late in the American Revolution.  But it wasn’t the battle itself that was so important, as it essentially was a draw. When we think of modern-day naval battles, we envision long-range standoff platforms like Aegis-class cruisers acting as vanguards for massive aircraft carriers that [...]

Read Full Post »

Leaving Pavavu: Out of the Frying Pan…

When the 1st Marine Division saw their “R and R” destination in the distance, they saw an island paradise.  And that was just fine with them.  After the tough fighting on New Britain, they needed rest, they needed to recover, and they needed to refill their ranks with new recruits.  And there on the horizon, [...]

Read Full Post »

Despite Loss, a Banner Day at Cooch’s Bridge

I’m doing a little finalization work on the project car I have and, while it’s not terribly difficult work, I’m a relative novice.  So I’m taking my time, which means it takes a long time to get each step accomplished.  But it’s going reasonably well…well enough that, with continued success, it may get done this [...]

Read Full Post »

Treasury Island

As you might know, I’ve been working through Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton.  At my current pace, I probably won’t have it finished before the end of the year.  But if I speed it up, I might have it done…by the end of the year.  At better than 700 pages, it’s a bit daunting, [...]

Read Full Post »