7620
Good Sunday morning August 9, 2026 ... It is clearing now and heating up
again this morning to 89 by noon and then staying there until 2 before it
starts dropping off from there.
I wish you are all having a great weekend.
Regards,
Skip
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/. Go here
to see the director’s corner for all 100 H-Grams (99 is still in work)
August 9
1842 The Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed. In the treaty, the United
States and Great Britain agree to cooperate in suppressing the slave trade.
1867 One officer and 46 Marines and Seamen from the steamer, USS Wachusett,
land at Shanghai, China, to assist in fighting a fire.
1942 A Japanese force runs through the Allied forces guarding Savo Sound,
sinking three American heavy cruisers, USS Quincy (CA 39), USS Vincennes (CA
44), and USS Astoria (CA 34), along with other damaged Allied vessels. As a
result of the loss, the sound gains the nickname, Iron Bottom Sound.
1943 TBF aircraft from Composite Squadron One (VC 1) based onboard USS Card
(CVE 11) sink German submarine U 664, 570 miles west of Fayal, Azores.
1945 Following the Aug. 6 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a second atom bomb is
dropped on Japan at Nagasaki, eventually resulting in Japan's unconditional
surrender.
2008 USS Sterett (DDG 104) is commissioned at Baltimore, Md., the birthplace
of the ships namesake: Master Commandant Andrew Sterett, who fought in the
Quasi-War and Barbary Wars for the Navy.
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Today in World History
August 9
480 BC The Persian army defeats Leonidas and his Spartan army at the
Battle Thermopylae, Persia.
48 BC Julius Caesar defeats Gnaius Pompey at Pharsalus.
1483 Pope Sixtus IV celebrates the first mass in the Sistine Chapel,
which is named in his honor.
1549 England declares war on France.
1645 Settlers in New Amsterdam gain peace with the Indians after
conducting talks with the Mohawks.
1805 Austria joins Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of
Piedmont-Sardinia in the third coalition against France.
1814 Andrew Jackson and the Creek Indians sign the Treaty of Fort
Jackson, giving the whites 23 million acres of Creek territory.
1842 The Webster-Ashburton treaty fixes the border between Maine and
Canada's New Brunswick.
1859 The escalator is patented. However, the first working escalator
appeared in 1900. Manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company for the Paris
Exposition, it was installed in a Philadelphia office building the following
year.
1862 At Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson
repels an attack by Union forces.
1910 The first complete, self-contained electric washing machine is
patented.
1930 First appearance of the animated character Betty Boop ("Dizzy
Dishes").
1936 Jesse Owens wins four gold medals in track and field events at the
Berlin Olympics.
1941 President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill
meet at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. The meeting produces the Atlantic
Charter, an agreement between the two countries on war aims, even though the
United States is still a neutral country.
1944 Fictional character Smokey Bear ("Only you can prevent forest
fires") created by US Forest Service and the Ad Council.
1945 The B-29 bomber Bock's Car drops a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki,
Japan.
1965 Singapore expelled from Malaysia following economic disagreements
and racial tensions; becomes independent republic.
1969 Charles Manson's followers kill actress Sharon Tate and her three
guests in her Beverly Hills home.
1971 Le Roy (Satchel) Paige inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame.
1974 Gerald Ford is sworn in as president of the United States after the
resignation of President Richard Nixon.
1975 First NFL game in Louisiana Superdome; Houston Oilers defeat New
Orleans Saints 13-7.
1979 England's first major nude beach established, at the seaside resort
of Brighton.
1992 Twenty-fifth Olympic Summer Games closes in Barcelona, Spain.
1999 Russian president Boris Yeltsin fires his prime minister and, for
the fourth time, fires the entire cabinet.
1999 The Diet of Japan establishes the country's official national flag,
the Hinomaru, and national anthem, "Kimi Ga Yo.".
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Rollingthunderremembered.com .
August 9
Thanks to Dan Heller and the Bear
Links to all content can now be found right on the homepage
http://www.rollingthunderremembered.com. If you scroll down from the banner
and featured content you will find "Today in Rolling Thunder Remembered
History" which highlights events in the Vietnam war that occurred on the
date the page is visited. Below that are links to browse or search all
content. You may search by keyword(s), date, or date range.
An item of importance is the recent incorporation of Task Force Omega
(TFO) MIA summaries. There is a link on the homepage and you can also visit
directly via https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/task-force-omega/.
There are 60 summaries posted thus far, with about 940 to go (not a typo—TFO
has over 1,000 individual case files).
Thanks to Micro
From Vietnam Air Losses site for ..August 9
Vietnam Air Losses Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady’s work at:
https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
MOAA - Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in
the Vietnam War
(This site was sent by a friend . The site works, find anyone you knew in
“search" feature. https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/ )
articles/wall-of-faces-now-includes-photos-of-all-servicemembers-killed-in-t
he-vietnam-war/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TMNsend&
utm_content=Y84UVhi4Z1MAMHJh1eJHNA==+MD+AFHRM+1+Ret+L+NC
By: Kipp Hanley
.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed
by last name and has other info https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
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From the archives…Truly amazing
Thanks to Carl N
The Man Who Survived Two Atomic Bombs
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was preparing to leave Hiroshima when the atomic bomb
fell. The 29-year-old naval engineer was on a three-month-long business trip
for his employer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and August 6, 1945, was
supposed to be his last day in the city. He and his colleagues had spent the
summer working long hours on the design for a new oil tanker, and he was
looking forward to finally returning home to his wife, Hisako, and their
infant son, Katsutoshi.
Around 8:15 that morning, Yamaguchi was walking to Mitsubishi’s shipyard a
final time when he heard the drone of an aircraft overhead. Looking skyward,
he saw an American B-29 bomber soar over the city and drop a small object
connected to a parachute. Suddenly, the sky erupted in a blaze of light,
which Yamaguchi later described as resembling the “the lightning of a huge
magnesium flare.” He had just enough time to dive into a ditch before an
ear-splitting boom rang out. The shock wave that accompanied it sucked
Yamaguchi from the ground, spun him in the air like a tornado and sent him
hurtling into a nearby potato patch. He’d been less than two miles from
ground zero.
“I didn’t know what had happened,” he later told the British newspaper The
Times. “I think I fainted for a while. When I opened my eyes, everything was
dark, and I couldn’t see much. It was like the start of a film at the
cinema, before the picture has begun when the blank frames are just flashing
up without any sound.” The atomic blast had kicked up enough dust and debris
to nearly blot out the morning sun. Yamaguchi was surrounded by torrents of
falling ash, and he could see a mushroom cloud of fire rising in the sky
over Hiroshima. His face and forearms had been badly burned, and both his
eardrums were ruptured.
Yamaguchi wandered in a daze toward what remained of the Mitsubishi
shipyard. There, he found his coworkers Akira Iwanaga and Kuniyoshi Sato,
both of whom had survived the blast. After spending a restless night in an
air raid shelter, the men awoke on August 7 and made their way toward the
train station, which they had heard was somehow still operating. The journey
took them through a nightmarish landscape of still-flickering fires,
shattered buildings and charred and melted corpses lining the streets. Many
of the city’s bridges had been turned into twisted wreckage, and at one
river crossing, Yamaguchi was forced to swim through a layer of floating
dead bodies. Upon reaching the station, he boarded a train full of burned
and bewildered passengers and settled in for the overnight ride to his
hometown of Nagasaki.
Yamaguchi arrived in Nagasaki early in the morning on August 8 and limped to
the hospital. The doctor who treated him was a former school classmate, but
the blackened burns on Yamaguchi’s hands and face were so severe the man
didn’t recognize him at first. Neither did his family. When he returned home
afterwards, feverish and swaddled in bandages, his mother accused him of
being a ghost.
Despite being on the verge of collapse, Yamaguchi dragged himself out of bed
on the morning of August 9 and reported for work at Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki
office. Around 11 a.m., he found himself in a meeting with a company
director who demanded a full report on Hiroshima. The engineer recounted the
scattered events of August 6—the blinding light, the deafening boom—but his
superior accused him of being mad. How could a single bomb destroy an entire
city? Yamaguchi was trying to explain himself when the landscape outside
suddenly exploded with another iridescent white flash. Yamaguchi dropped to
the ground just seconds before the shock wave shattered the office windows
and sent broken glass and debris careening through the room. “I thought the
mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima,” he later told the newspaper
The Independent.
The atom bomb that hit Nagasaki was even more powerful than the one dropped
on Hiroshima, but as Yamaguchi would later learn, the city’s hilly landscape
and a reinforced stairwell had combined to muffle the blast inside the
office. His bandages were blown off, and he was hit by yet another surge of
cancer-causing radiation, but he emerged relatively unhurt. For the second
time in three days, he’d had the misfortune of being within two miles of a
nuclear explosion. For the second time, he’d been fortunate enough to
survive.
After fleeing from the skeleton of the Mitsubishi building, Yamaguchi rushed
through a bomb-ravaged Nagasaki to check on his wife and son. He feared the
worst when he saw a section of his house had been reduced to rubble, but he
soon found both had sustained only superficial injuries. His wife had been
out looking for burn ointment for her husband, and when the explosion came,
she and the baby had taken refuge in a tunnel. It was yet another strange
twist of fate. If Yamaguchi hadn’t been hurt at Hiroshima, his family might
have been killed at Nagasaki.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi wasn’t the only person to endure two atomic blasts. His
coworkers Akira Iwanaga and Kuniyoshi Sato were also in Nagasaki when the
second bomb fell, as was Shigeyoshi Morimoto, a kite maker who had
miraculously survived Hiroshima despite being only a half-mile from ground
zero.
All told, some 165 people may have experienced both attacks, yet Yamaguchi
was the only person officially recognized by the Japanese government as a
“nijyuu hibakusha,” or “twice-bombed person.” He finally won the
distinction in 2009, only a year before he died at the age of 93.
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Thanks to Bob Z. ..and Dr. Rich a fellow old Fart skip.
From one to some others
Old Farts
I never really liked the terminology "Old Farts"....but this makes me feel
better about it.
And if you ain't one, I bet ya, you know one!
I got this from an "Old Fart" friend of mine!
OLD FART PRIDE
I'm passing this on as I did not want to be the only old fart receiving it.
Actually, it's not a bad thing to be called, as you will see.
1. Old Farts are easy to spot at sporting events; during the playing of the
National Anthem. Old Farts remove their caps and stand at attention and sing
without embarrassment. They know the words and believe in them.
2. Old Farts remember World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Normandy and
Hitler. They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean War, The Cold War, the Jet
Age and the Moon Landing. They remember the 50 plus Peacekeeping Missions
from 1945 to 2005, not to mention Vietnam.
3. If you bump into an Old Fart on the sidewalk he will apologize. If you
pass an Old Fart on the street, he will nod or tip his cap to a lady. Old
Farts trust strangers and are courtly to women.
4. Old Farts hold the door for the next person and always, when walking,
make certain the lady is on the inside for protection.
5. Old Farts get embarrassed if someone curses in front of women and
children and they don' t like any filth or dirty language on TV or in
movies.
6. Old Farts have moral courage and personal integrity. They seldom brag
unless it's about their children or grandchildren.
7. It's the Old Farts who know our great country is protected, not by
politicians, but by the young men and women in the military serving their
country.
This country needs Old Farts with their work ethic, sense of responsibility,
pride in their country and decent values.
We need them now more than ever.
Thank God for Old Farts!
Pass this on to all the "Old Farts" you know.
I was taught to respect my elders.
It's just getting harder to find them.
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The USS Pueblo….A bit of history
by Sebastien Roblin
July 21, 2020
Here's What to Remember: The capture of the Pueblo marked a worst-case
disaster scenario for U.S. intelligence, as the ship had carried a dozen
top-secret encryption machines and coding cards.
A U.S. Army light freighter launched during World War II, the
fifty-four-meter-long Pueblo had been recommissioned by the Navy in 1966s to
serve as an “environmental research ship,” with two civilian oceanographers
on board. This was a flimsy cover for the truth: the Pueblo was a spy ship,
charged with intercepting and recording wireless transmissions and
monitoring electronic emissions. Periodically, the Pueblo would transmit its
findings using a sixteen-foot parabolic antenna on its deck to beam a signal
towards the moon, where it would reflect back to the Earth for reception by
Navy antennas in Hawaii and Maryland.
The lightly armed and ponderous Pueblo—capable of a maximum speed of only
thirteen knots (fifteen miles per hour)—was not supposed to place itself in
real danger, however. Like other “technical research ships,” it could sail
safely within international waters—no closer than twelve nautical miles from
shore—and still listen in. The Soviet Union had its own spy ships, and so
both sides of the Cold War had to tolerate the presence of the others’
electronic spies.
Today, signals intelligence remains a common form of espionage—and a
basically legal one, so long as the ships involved do not stray into
territorial waters and aircraft stick to international airspace. Recently,
the Russian spy ship Viktor Leonov was observed thirty miles off the U.S.
East Coast. U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft routinely intercept
signal traffic from North Korea and other nations. However, these electronic
spies can only operate so long as the nations they are spying on respect the
norms of international law—a risky proposition when tensions are high and
the nation in question is governed by a capricious regime.
That January, the Pueblo was assigned by the NSA to intercept signal traffic
from Soviet ships in the Tsushima Strait between Japan and Korea, and gather
intel on North Korean coastal radars and radio stations. Her mission
proceeded uneventfully until it encountered a North Korean subchaser (a
corvette-sized vessel) on January 20. Two days later, it was spotted by two
North Korean fishing trawlers, which passed within thirty meters of it. The
Pueblo’s captain, Lt. Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher, informed the U.S. Navy and
proceeded with the final phase of his mission.
Bucher was left unaware, however, that tensions between the two Koreas had
just escalated dramatically. Near midnight on January 21, thirty-one
disguised North Korean infiltrators came within one hundred meters of the
South Korean presidential residence, the Blue House, in an attempt to
assassinate President Park Chung-hee before being confronted and dispersed
in a blaze of gunfire and exploding hand grenades. A shaken President Park
put his troops on high alert and pressed for the United States to retaliate.
At noon on January 23, the Pueblo once again encountered another SO-1–class
subchaser. The cannon-armed vessel closed on the Pueblo at high speed and
challenged its nationality, to which Bucher raised the American flag. Next,
the smaller boat transmitted: HEAVE TO OR I WILL FIRE. Bucher replied I AM
IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS. In fact, the U.S. Navy stipulated that he keep his
vessel several miles outside the boundary.
The subchaser’s captain was not satisfied, and continued to close on the
Pueblo. Soon afterwards, two North Korean MiG-21 fighters swooped low over
the 890-ton spy ship, and three P-4 torpedo boats joined the subchaser to
surround the American vessel. Bucher turned the ponderous Pueblo around and
made full speed eastward, managing to worm his ship away from a torpedo boat
that attempted to land a boarding party toting AK-47s. The North Korean
boats began raking the Pueblo with heavy machine-gun fire and blasting at it
with the fifty-seven-millimeter cannon on the subchaser. Shrapnel sprayed
across the bridge, wounding Bucher.
The Pueblo’s only weapons were two unloaded .50 caliber machine guns wrapped
up in ice-coated tarps. (The spy ships were supposed to keep their defensive
weaponry discrete.) The machine guns lacked gun shields and only one
crewmember had been trained in their use. Bucher judged that any crew
members attempting to load and fire the weapons would be massacred by the
nearby boats, and that a few .50 caliber machine guns would not be of much
use against an adversary armed with torpedoes and cannons.
Bucher was in radio contact with the U.S. Navy, but it had no forces ready
to come to his ship’s aid. The four F-4 Phantom fighters on alert on the
carrier USS Enterprise, roughly six hundred miles away, were not loaded with
antiship weapons and would take an hour to rearm. Eventually, the U.S. Air
Force scrambled a dozen F-105 fighter bombers from Okinawa. “Some birds
winging your way” was the last message Bucher received. The aircraft never
arrived, however; it turned around while over South Korea.
Meanwhile, a second subchaser and a fourth torpedo boat had joined the
assault on the Pueblo. Reluctantly, Bucher ordered his crew to begin
destroying the classified documents and encryption gear on his ship, and
signaled the North Korean ships that he would comply with their
instructions. He turned the Pueblo back towards North Korean waters, but
proceeded at only four knots to buy his crew—and the promised air
support—more time.
But progress was slow. The crew had only two paper shredders and a single
incinerator purchased by Bucher before the mission, using money from the
crew’s recreational fund after the U.S. Navy refused his request for a
rapid-destruction device. The crew tried its best anyway, tossing top-secret
documents into the water, bashing sophisticated encryption machines with
fire axes and sledgehammers, and attempting to create a bonfire out of yet
more classified material.
There were simply too many documents. Bucher halted the Pueblo just before
entering North Korean waters in an attempt to delay. The North Korean
vessels promptly opened fire again, and a fifty-seven-millimeter shell
nearly tore the leg off of fireman Duane Hodges, causing him to bleed to
death. Ultimately, Bucher turned the ship back on course. At 3 p.m., North
Korean sailors finally boarded the ship, blindfolding and beating the crew
and piloting the Pueblo into Wonsan harbor. The crew was then paraded
through a mob of enraged civilians into captivity.
The North Korean attack came at the worst possible moment. Seoul feared
renewed attacks across the demilitarized zone, and threatened to withdraw
South Korean troops from Vietnam. The war in Vietnam was heating up, as a
North Vietnamese forces embarked on a series of preliminary attacks
culminating in the epic Tet Offensive. A CIA A-12 spy plane from Project
Blackshield located the Pueblo in Wonsan harbor on January 28. CIA director
Richard Helms thought the North Koreans had launched the attack as part of a
Soviet plot to relieve pressure on Vietnam.
Declassified documents reveal that President Johnson considered options
ranging from mining Wonsan harbor or organizing a naval blockade, to
launching a battalion-sized ground attack on part of the demilitarized zone
and air strikes. Ultimately, however, he chose to go with a show force,
deploying hundreds of combat aircraft and three aircraft carriers to South
Korea, and mobilizing fourteen thousand Air Force and Navy reservists. Soon
the Soviet Union offered to aid in securing the release of the Pueblo’s crew
if the United States drew its forces back down. Not wanting to get drawn
into a second Korean War just as fighting was intensifying throughout South
Vietnam, Johnson decided to draw down his forces, and offered Seoul
additional military aid on the condition that it did not instigate a clash
with North Korea.
Pyongyang, for its part, trumpeted its capture of the Pueblo, which it
falsely claimed had intruded in North Korean waters. (North Korea defines
“international waters” as beginning fifty nautical miles, rather than
twelve, from its shores.) In time, North Korea began issuing photos of the
captured American crew and a signed confession from Captain Bucher, causing
the CIA to assemble a psychological profile of the Pueblo’s commander in an
attempt to gauge his loyalty. The crew’s plight evoked an outpouring of
sympathy in the United States, and even inspired a Star Trek episode.
In truth, the Pueblo’s crew was being brutally tormented, subject to daily
beatings and undergoing hours of interrogation. Captain Bucher in particular
was battered until he urinated blood, made to sit through his own mock
execution, and shown a mutilated alleged South Korean spy as a warning of
the consequences of not cooperating. At one point he went on a five-day
hunger strike to protest the wretched food provided to his crew, which was
so inadequate that one petty officer lost 40 percent of his bodyweight and
nearly went blind. Finally, a North Korean interrogator threatened to
execute the Pueblo’s youngest crewmember, nineteen-year-old Howard Bland, in
front of Bucher if he did not sign a confession, to be followed by the rest
of his crew. This threat finally moved Bucher to sign the confession.
The American crew was eventually moved to a better facility, where they were
inundated with propaganda videos. The sailors attempted to clandestinely
resist by formulating oddly worded confessions and flipping their middle
fingers when posing for photos, which they explained was a “Hawaiian Good
Luck” sign to their interrogators. Unfortunately, a Time magazine article
eventually gave this ploy away to their captors, who subjected the prisoners
to a week of brutal torture as a punishment.
Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats were slogging through months of negotiations at
the border village of Panmunjom—talks slowed down by the North Korean
negotiator being forced to read his points from cards, lacking the
permission to formulate his own replies to American offers. Pyongyang was
completely unwilling to return the Pueblo, and would only return the crew in
exchange for a signed apology, a confession of guilt from the U.S.
government, and a promise never to spy on North Korea again.
U.S. negotiator Gen. Gilbert Woodward struck on a way of making this demand
palatable: in a gesture of mutual bad faith agreed upon in advance, the
United States told the North Koreans it would sign such a document with the
understanding it would retract the confession as soon as the crew of the
Pueblo was returned. Kim Il-sung’s negotiator found this acceptable.
The eighty-two surviving crew members and one body were bussed down to the
border crossing at the Bridge of No Return on December 23, 1968, exactly
eleven months after the North Korean attack, where they walked back into
American hands. As promised, Washington promptly rescinded its apology.
The crew was given a jubilant reception upon their return to the United
States, but Captain Bucher was made to sit before a Navy court of inquiry.
“Don’t give up the ship!” is an unofficial rallying cry of the U.S. Navy,
and to the admirals of the court, Bucher had committed a cardinal sin when
he surrendered his nominally armed vessel—even though attempting to shoot
back would simply have led to the slaughter of the Pueblo’s crew. The
admirals recommended a court martial, perhaps unmindful of an earlier
classified report that found the U.S. Navy leadership culpable for sending
the Pueblo, unprepared and unsupported, into a dangerous situation. Navy
Secretary John Chafee, however, declined to press charges, telling the press
that “they have suffered enough.”
The capture of the Pueblo marked a worst-case disaster scenario for U.S.
intelligence, as the ship had carried a dozen top-secret encryption machines
and coding cards. North Korea is believed to have flown eight hundred pounds
of equipment from the Pueblo to Moscow, where it was reverse engineered,
allowing the Soviets to tap into U.S. naval communications. The U.S. Navy
was erroneously comforted by the belief that the Soviets lacked the new
codes necessary to decrypt those signals, not realizing that the John Walker
spy ring had just begun to furnish these to Moscow. This left U.S. naval
communications compromised for nearly two decades.
The assumption that the Pueblo incident was orchestrated by Moscow was ill
founded, however. Though the Soviet Union was committed by treaty to come to
North Korea’s defense, the Brezhnev government made clear it would not enter
into war with the United States over a provocation from Pyongyang.
Diplomatic communiqués released after the end of the Cold War reveal that
Moscow was upset by the North Korean attack, which may have been egged on by
promises of support from China, which was attempting to secure Pyongyang’s
loyalty in the bitterly divided Eastern Bloc. A week after the Pueblo was
captured, Kim Il-sung demanded additional economic aid from Moscow—a request
which was reciprocated in a bid to pay off the North Korean leader into
deescalating tensions with the United States.
Although Pyongyang profited from playing one patron against the other, its
attack on the Pueblo was probably primarily motivated by the failure of its
assassination plot in South Korea. Anticipating possible attacks from South
Korea or the United, it may have seen taking the Pueblo as a preemptive move
in an imminent conflict, or as a means to gain leverage over Washington and
sow dissension between the United States and South Korea.
Many of the Pueblo’s crew went on to suffer from post-traumatic stress
disorder and lifelong physical injuries. Over time, however, the crewmembers
put up their own website testifying to their experiences, successfully
lobbied for status as prisoners of war after it was initially denied to
them, and sued North Korea in U.S. court for their treatment. As for the
Pueblo itself, technically the second oldest ship still commissioned in the
U.S. Navy, it remains in North Korean custody to this day. It is currently
moored off the Potong River in Pyongyang, where it serve as an exhibition of
the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum.
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From the archives
. Some humor for today Thanks to Nordo
Cheers
Nordo
I took my suit to the cleaners, who wanted to charge me $40, so I gave it to
the charity shop next door. They cleaned and pressed it and put it in the
window. I bought it back for $15.
My wife and I decided to never go to bed angry. We've been awake since
Tuesday.
Someone just gave me half a peace sign. Weird.
Growing up, we knew Dad had had enough when we heard the recliner slam down.
Kids these days will never know that fear.
My wife said: "That's the 4th time you've gone back for dessert! Doesn't it
embarrass you?" I said: "No, I keep telling them it's for you."
She said she missed me. Normally that would be good but she's reloading.
When I was in elementary school we learned about a shape called a rhombus
and that was the last time I ever heard about that shape.
My wife and I started role-playing in the bedroom. Her favorite is The Sexy
Librarian where I have to sit quietly while she reads a book.
Being old is when you don't care where your spouse goes, just as long as you
don't have to go too.
I now know how it will all end for me, one of my kids will unplug my life
support to charge their phone.
At a wedding reception, someone yelled: "All married people please stand
next to the one person that has made your life worth living." The bartender
was almost crushed to death.
I met my wife at a singles night. I was surprised because I thought she was
home with the kids.
I want someone I can share my entire life with who will leave me alone most
of the time.
Yesterday I bought a world map, gave my wife a dart, and said, "Throw this
and wherever it lands, I will take you on vacation." We're spending 3 weeks
behind the fridge.
As I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death, I remind myself that
you can't always trust Google Maps.
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Thanks to Interesting Facts
People breathe roughly 20,000 times every day.
If we could track our breaths the way many people do steps or exercise, the
results would be astonishing. While there’s no app for that, scientists
estimate that an average person takes 20,000 to 25,000 breaths over the
course of 24 hours. That breaks down to between 12 and 18 breaths per minute
for an adult. Children typically breathe more quickly, up to 60 breaths per
minute, which tapers down to the adult rate by their teenage years. All
those inhales and exhales add up, and by age 50, the average human has taken
at least 400 million breaths. Each one helps fuel our bodies; oxygen is a
crucial component needed for our most basic functions, like moving muscles,
digesting food, and even thinking.
Breathing tends to be an automatic process, but some scientists say that not
everyone does it right. Mouth breathing isn’t just annoying when you’re sick
or to those around you — it’s actually inefficient for your body. Inhaling
through the nose helps heat and pressurize air so that the lungs can extract
oxygen efficiently, and the cilia (aka nose hairs) are able to stop
particles like pollen and pollution from entering the lungs; neither job can
be done by the mouth. Mouth breathing can also cause sleep apnea, snoring,
and even asthma. Amazingly, it can change the structure of your face over
time; children who primarily breathe through their mouths have a higher
chance of having narrow mouths and misaligned teeth.
Your left lung is smaller than your right lung.
Most images of lungs show the organ as being symmetrical, but that’s not
true. The left lung has two internal chambers (called lobes, which fill with
air when we breathe), while the right side has three. The left lung is also
slightly smaller to make room for the heart.
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Thanks to History Facts
Which president had a famous waffle recipe?
John F. Kennedy’s political legacy is still felt today, but the 35th U.S.
president also made a lasting culinary impact. Though he delegated the
actual cooking to others, JFK’s favorite waffle recipe was widely requested
and shared during his time in office, and is now stored in the National
Archives. The dish includes standard ingredients such as butter, sugar, and
eggs, but mixes sifted cake flour with whipped egg whites to produce a light
and fluffy texture that Kennedy enjoyed. The president, who was also fond of
orange juice, poached eggs, and broiled bacon at breakfast, topped the
waffles with hot maple syrup and melted butter to finish off the decadent
treat.
JFK’s waffle recipe is likely the most famous of any president’s, but Thomas
Jefferson may have played a key role in waffles being popularized stateside.
Culinary lore suggests it was Jefferson who helped ignite the waffle craze
in the 1790s upon his return from France, when he arrived with four waffle
irons in his luggage. Jefferson even reportedly served waffles to explorer
Meriwether Lewis at the White House prior to the Lewis and Clark expedition,
though some historians at Jefferson’s Monticello estate claim the founding
father’s impact on colonial waffle culture was minimal. President William
Howard Taft also openly expressed a love for waffles during his presidency,
though was known to detest eggs and enjoyed a steak for breakfast almost
every morning.
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This Day in U S Military History
August 9
1813 – After reports that British naval vessels were nearing St. Michaels,
Md., to attack the shipbuilding town that night, the county militia placed
lanterns on the tops of the tallest trees and on the masts of vessels in the
harbor; and had all other lights extinguished. When the British attacked,
they directed their fire too high and overshot the town.
1942 – After the removal of the American aircraft carriers, a Japanese
cruiser force, commanded by Admiral Mikawa enters the Sealark Channel south
of Savo Island. The remaining American naval defenses, lead by Admiral
Crutchley, have little experience of, or the equipment needed for, night
fighting. The Americans lose four cruisers and sink none of the Japanese
ships. Sealark Channel is later renamed Iron bottom Sound. The American
transports unloading at Lunga Point are not attacked, however they are
ordered to withdraw due to the threat and the 1st Marine Division is left
short of heavy equipment and with only one half of their supplies. The Coast
Guard-manned transport USS Hunter Liggett rescued the survivors of three U.
S. Navy and one Australian cruiser that had been sunk the preceding night by
Imperial Japanese Navy during the Battle of Savo Island. The night battle,
also known as the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, was one of the worst
defeats ever suffered by the Navy.
1942 – With the Guadalcanal airstrip secure after heavy fighting with the
Japanese, the 1st Engineer Battalion commenced work on the runway using
captured equipment. Three days later, on 12 August, the first plane landed
on Henderson Field, a Navy PBY which evacuated two wounded Marines. Nearly
3,000 wounded Marines would be evacuated from Henderson Field during the
battle
1945 – A second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at
Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan’s unconditional surrender. The
devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese
War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional
surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their second atom
bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” on August 11 in the event of such recalcitrance,
but bad weather expected for that day pushed the date up to August 9th. So
at 1:56 a.m., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, called “Bock’s Car,” after
its usual commander, Frederick Bock, took off from Tinian Island under the
command of Maj. Charles W. Sweeney. Nagasaki was a shipbuilding center, the
very industry intended for destruction. The bomb was dropped at 11:02 a.m.,
1,650 feet above the city. The explosion unleashed the equivalent force of
22,000 tons of TNT. The hills that surrounded the city did a better job of
containing the destructive force, but the number killed is estimated at
anywhere between 60,000 and 80,000 (exact figures are impossible, the blast
having obliterated bodies and disintegrated records). General Leslie R.
Groves, the man responsible for organizing the Manhattan Project, which
solved the problem of producing and delivering the nuclear explosion,
estimated that another atom bomb would be ready to use against Japan by
August 17 or 18-but it was not necessary. Even though the War Council still
remained divided (“It is far too early to say that the war is lost,” opined
the Minister of War), Emperor Hirohito, by request of two War Council
members eager to end the war, met with the Council and declared that
“continuing the war can only result in the annihilation of the Japanese
people….” The Emperor of Japan gave his permission for unconditional
surrender. Major Sweeney, the pilot, would in 1956, at age 37, become the
youngest brigadier general in the entire peacetime Air Force when he was
appointed by the governor of Massachusetts to command the 102nd Tactical
Fighter Wing, Massachusetts Air National Guard.
1985 – Arthur Walker, a retired U.S. Navy officer, is found guilty of
espionage for passing top-secret documents to his brother, who then passed
them to Soviet agents. Walker was part of one of the most significant Cold
War spy rings in the United States. The arrest of Arthur Walker on May 29,
1985, came just one day after the arrest of his brother, John, and John’s
son, Michael. All three were charged with conducting espionage for the
Soviet Union. John Walker, also a Navy veteran, was the ringleader, and
government officials charged that he had been involved in spying for the
Soviets since 1968. He recruited his son, who was serving in the U.S. Navy,
a short time later. Arthur Walker was drawn into the scheme in 1980 when, at
his brother’s suggestion, he took a job with VSE, a Virginia defense
contractor. Over the next two years, the government charged, Arthur Walker
provided John with a number of highly classified documents dealing with the
construction of naval vessels. For his services, Arthur Walker received
about $12,000. A nasty divorce between John Walker and his wife eventually
brought the spy ring to light when his wife, angry after their separation,
went to the FBI to inform on her husband. It was revealed at their trials
that the motivation of all the Walker men was the repayment of large debts
they had accrued. Arthur Walker was found guilty of seven counts of
espionage on August 9, 1985. He was sentenced to life in prison and fined
$250,000. John and Michael Walker later pled guilty to espionage charges,
with John receiving two life sentences and Michael receiving 25 years in
prison. A fourth conspirator, Jerry Whitworth, a friend of John Walker’s,
was convicted in 1986 on 12 counts of espionage and sentenced to 365 years
in prison. With the arrests and convictions, the U.S. government claimed
that it had broken one of the most destructive spy rings in the United
States in the history of the Cold War.
1990 – Walking off of the first American C-141 transport to bring in the
first elements what would eventually be more than 527,000 American troops
were two Guardsmen from Headquarters Company, 228th Signal Brigade, South
Carolina Army National Guard. They immediately set up and began operating
their single channel tactical satellite radio link keeping the Saudi Defense
Ministry in communication with the U.S. Army’s Third Army Headquarters, Fort
McPherson, GA. These two men were the first of 37,848 Army Guard personnel
to serve in Saudi Arabia during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Strom
which finally forced the Iraqi army to evacuate Kuwait.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
*LINDSEY, DARRELL R. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Army Air Corps. Place and date: L’Isle
Adam railroad bridge over the Seine in occupied France, 9 August 1944.
Entered service at: Storm Lake, lowa. Birth: Jefferson, lowa. G.O. No.: 43,
30 May 1945. Citation: On 9 August 1944, Capt. Lindsey led a formation of 30
B-26 medium bombers in a hazardous mission to destroy the strategic enemy
held L’lsle Adam railroad bridge over the Seine in occupied France. With
most of the bridges over the Seine destroyed, the heavily fortified L’Isle
Adam bridge was of inestimable value to the enemy in moving troops,
supplies, and equipment to Paris. Capt. Lindsey was fully aware of the
fierce resistance that would be encountered. Shortly after reaching enemy
territory the formation was buffeted with heavy and accurate antiaircraft
fire. By skillful evasive action, Capt. Lindsey was able to elude much of
the enemy flak, but just before entering the bombing run his B-26 was
peppered with holes. During the bombing run the enemy fire was even more
intense, and Capt. Lindsey’s right engine received a direct hit and burst
into flames. Despite the fact that his ship was hurled out of formation by
the violence of the concussion, Capt. Lindsey brilliantly maneuvered back
into the lead position without disrupting the flight. Fully aware that the
gasoline tanks might explode at any moment, Capt. Lindsey gallantly elected
to continue the perilous bombing run. With fire streaming from his right
engine and his right wing half enveloped in flames, he led his formation
over the target upon which the bombs were dropped with telling effect.
Immediately after the objective was attacked, Capt. Lindsey gave the order
for the crew to parachute from the doomed aircraft. With magnificent
coolness and superb pilotage, and without regard for his own life, he held
the swiftly descending airplane in a steady glide until the members of the
crew could jump to safety. With the right wing completely enveloped in
flames and an explosion of the gasoline tank imminent, Capt. Lindsey still
remained unperturbed. The last man to leave the stricken plane was the
bombardier, who offered to lower the wheels so that Capt. Lindsey might
escape from the nose. Realizing that this might throw the aircraft into an
uncontrollable spin and jeopardize the bombardier’s chances to escape, Capt.
Lindsey refused the offer. Immediately after the bombardier had bailed out,
and before Capt. Lindsey was able to follow, the right gasoline tank
exploded. The aircraft sheathed in fire, went into a steep dive and was seen
to explode as it crashed. All who are living today from this plane owe their
lives to the fact that Capt. Lindsey remained cool and showed supreme
courage in this emergency.
LEE, HOWARD V.
Rank and organization: Major, U.S. Marine Corps, Company E, 2d Battalion,
4th Marines, 3d Marine Division (Rein). place and date: Near Cam Lo,
Republic of Vietnam, 8 and 9 August 1966. Entered service at: Dumfries, Va.
Born: 1 August 1933, New York, N.Y. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and
intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. A
platoon of Maj. (then Capt.) Lee’s company, while on an operation deep in
enemy territory, was attacked and surrounded by a large Vietnamese force.
Realizing that the unit had suffered numerous casualties, depriving it of
effective leadership, and fully aware that the platoon was even then under
heavy attack by the enemy, Maj Lee took 7 men and proceeded by helicopter to
reinforce the beleaguered platoon. Maj. Lee disembarked from the helicopter
with 2 of his men and, braving withering enemy fire, led them into the
perimeter, where he fearlessly moved from position to position, directing
and encouraging the overtaxed troops. The enemy then launched a massive
attack with the full might of their forces. Although painfully wounded by
fragments from an enemy grenade in several areas of his body, including his
eye, Maj. Lee continued undauntedly throughout the night to direct the
valiant defense, coordinate supporting fire, and apprise higher headquarters
of the plight of the platoon. The next morning he collapsed from his wounds
and was forced to relinquish command. However the small band of marines had
held their position and repeatedly fought off many vicious enemy attacks for
a grueling 6 hours until their evacuation was effected the following
morning. Maj. Lee’s actions saved his men from capture, minimized the loss
of lives, and dealt the enemy a severe defeat. His indomitable fighting
spirit, superb leadership, and great personal valor in the face of
tremendous odds, reflect great credit upon himself and are in keeping with
the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the U.S. Naval Service.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for August 9, FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT
ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD “PHIL” MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE
INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
9 August
1919: The Secretary of the Navy authorized construction of the Navy’s first
rigid airship ZR-1, the future USS Shenandoah. (24)
1944: MEDAL OF HONOR. While leading 33 B-26 Marauders from the 394 BG
against a railroad bridge on the Seine River in France, Capt Darrell R.
Lindsey's right engine received a direct hit and caught on fire. Even though
his fuel tanks could explode at any moment, Lindsey decided to lead the bomb
run to excellent results. After delivering the bombs, Lindsey ordered the
crew to bail out. Before he jumped, the bombardier offered to lower the
aircraft's wheels so the pilot could escape, but Lindsey refused. The fuel
tanks exploded before Lindsey could leave the controls and the plane
plummeted to the ground. For his courage, the Army awarded Lindsey a Medal
of Honor posthumously. (4)
1945: Maj Charles W. Sweeney, flying the “Bockscar” B-29, dropped a second
atomic bomb, called “Fat Man,” on Nagasaki. Later in his career, Sweeney
became the commander of the Massachusetts ANG. He died on 16 July 2004. (12)
(24) (32) Through 10 August, 95 B-29s from Guam carried a record average
bombload of 20,648 pounds to strike the Nippon Oil Refinery at Amagasaki,
Japan. (24)
1949: While flying in an F2H-1 Banshee at over 500 knots near Walterboro,
S.C., Lt Jack L. “Pappy” Fruin (USN) became the first pilot in the US to use
an ejection seat for an emergency escape. (16) (24)
1952: Bob Faris flew a Mooney Mite, a light personal business plane, from
Wichita to Montpelier, Vt. He covered the 1,400 miles in 11 hours 59 minutes
30 seconds, to set a new nonstop distance record for very light planes. (24)
1960: The first US ICBM base began functioning when SAC declared three Atlas
D launching pads of the 564 SMS at Francis E. Warren AFB operational. (6)
(12)
1962: The USAF first demonstrated a multiple countdown capability when a 389
SMW crew from Francis E. Warren AFB successfully launched two Atlas D
missiles at Cape Canaveral on 5,000-mile flights. (6)
1965: A fire at a Titan II missile site near Searcy, Ark., claimed 53 lives,
making this incident the worst disaster in the history of the US missile
program. The fire broke out while the missile silo was being renovated and
improved; the missile was installed and fueled at the time, although the
nuclear warhead had been removed.
1974: MAC airlifted 160,000 pounds of disaster relief supplies on a C–141
and a C–5 to Cyprus to aid victims of the fighting. (18)
1997: C-141 aircrews from the 446 AW (AFRC) at McChord AFB arrived at Kelly
AFB with four victims from the 5 August Korean Airlines 747 crash in Guam.
Flight nurses and medical technicians from the 349th Aeromedical Evacuation
Squadron, 349 AMW (AFRC) at Travis AFB supported the flight. (22)
1998: A 305 AMW C-141 from McGuire AFB flew 15 seriously injured State
Department employees from Nairobi, Kenya, to Ramstein AB on their way to
Landstuhl Region Medical Center. The 11 Americans and 4 Kenyan patients
received injuries in the 7 August US embassy bombing in Nairobi, which
claimed at least 200 lives and wounded more than 1,000. (22)
2005: The 452 AMW at March ARB received the first C-17 Globemaster III to be
based in California. Called the Spirit of California, the C-17 (tail number
04-4138) flew 65 miles from the Boeing facility in Long Beach, Calif., to
March ARB. It was the USAF’s 138th operational C-17 and the first of 8 for
the 452d to replace its aging fleet of C-141 Starlifters. The 452d was the
first wing in the AFRC to be equipped with Globemaster IIIs. (22)
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