Al Nofi's CIC
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| | Issue #4, August 2, 1999 | |
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This Issue...
- Infinite Wisdom
- la Triviata
- Short Rounds
- Men on Horseback: Some American Generals and their War Horses
- Royal POW
- Misplaced Priorities
- “God Bless the Russians”
- Si non e vero, e buon trovato
- Old Soldier's Stories
- Briefing
- The Airplane/Battleship Debate
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Infinite Wisdom
"We will start the war from here."
Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., on Utah Beach, D-Day, June 6, 1944,
upon being informed that he and his troops had landed about two thousand
yards from where they were supposed to be.
La Triviata
- The last surviving veteran of the
Revolutionary War was Samuel Downey, who, born on November 31, 1761, served in
the 2nd New Hampshire of the Continental Line from 1775 to 1783, and
did not cross the river until February 19, 1867, aged 105 years, two months, and
19 days.
- Nearly 98% of all military cargo landed in support of American operations in Viet Nam arrived by sea.
- In his old age Hiram Maxim, inventor of
the first practical machine gun, was deaf, largely because he had staged test
firings of his devilish little device over 200,000 times.
- In 1789 the German princely state of
Mainz maintained an army of about 2,400 officers and men, which was commanded by one field marshal and a dozen
generals, who were supervised by a seven member supreme war council, for a
general-to-other rank ratio of 1:120, did not posses a single cannon ball
appropriate for use with the available artillery.
- James Van Allen, the physicist after
whom the Van Allen Belts are named, was a Lt. (j.g.) in the Navy during World
War II, and played an important role in the development of the proximity fuze.
- During World War I the United States
"recruited'" some 56,000 pigeons for military service.
- By some one estimate the cost of
killing one North Korean soldier or Chinese Communist "Volunteer"
during the Korean War was about $1,000,000.
- Despite the loss of six million gross
registered tons to enemy action, during the Second World War the American
Merchant Marine grew from nine million g.r.t. to 38 million.
- The oldest continuously operational
military post in the United States is West Point, which was declared a place of
critical importance by George Washington himself during the American Revolution.
More...
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