Armchair General and Weider History Group received this appeal from USMC Colonel (Ret) Warren Wiedhahn, executive vice president of the Iwo Jima Association of America. Two Iwo Jima veterans need help to attend the March Reunion of Honor there. Readers who would like to assist them are urged to contact the IJAA.

This is the message from Colonel Wiedhahn:

Since the 50th Anniversary of the Battle for Iwo Jima, we have coordinated the annual Reunion of Honor with the American and Japanese survivors, and their families, on Iwo Jima. For those of you that have participated, you know what a moving experience this is for the veterans of this savage battle as they set foot on the Black Sands for the first time in over sixty (60) years.

Every year we receive requests from veterans asking if the Iwo Jima Association of America (IJAA) can subsidize their return since they are living on fixed incomes, often only Social Security, and they simply can’t afford it. We do what we can.



I have just received a request from two combat veterans requesting financial assistance to make the March trip.

We have exhausted our 2012 funds and ask if you can please help?



Your check or donation would be made to the Iwo Jima Association of America, which is an IRS 501 (c) (3), tax exempt association.

Warren Wiedhahn, Colonel USMC (Ret)
Executive Vice President, Iwo Jima Association of America (IJAA)
PO Box 680, Quantico, VA 22134

Students of the US Naval Academy at Annapolis take note: Retired US Army Major General David Zabecki, Ph.D., will hold the Leo A. Shifrin Chair in Naval and Military History at the Naval Academy History Department during the spring 2012 semester. The Shifrin Chair is an endowed, rotating, visiting professorshiip established "to create and maintain an endowed Distinguished Professorship in Naval and Military History at the United States Naval Academy."

A Vietnam War veteran and the author of seven books, Major General Zabecki is well-known to Armchair General and the Weider History Group. He is senior historian of WHG and the former editor of one of Armchair General‘s partner publications, Vietnam magazine. His most recent article for ACG magazine appeared in our Hard Choices section of the January 2009 issue, "Marshal Foch, 1918." (He will be returning to our pages in the Battle Studies section of Armchair General‘s September 2012 edition, on newsstands in July.)

More recently, Major General Zabecki authored the foreword for D-Day: The Campaign Across France, the second book in Weider’s War Stories series that combines historic narrative with veterans’ interviews to provide fox-hole views within the context of larger operations.

Click here to download a pdf with more information about David Zabecki and the Naval Academy’s Leo A. Shifrin Chair.

[Editor’s Note: The March 2012 issue of Armchair General magazine features the Bonus Article, “Killing Hitler’s Hangman,” about the 1942 assassination in Nazi-occupied Prague of notorious SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich by British-trained Czech commandos. This photo essay of military heritage sites in Prague by Peter Suciu includes several photographs of historic sites related to that action.]

Today the Czech Republic capital city of Prague is a pleasant cosmopolitan center, and while not quite as “Bohemian” as one might expect given that it is in the center of old Bohemia, the city has a rich yet tragic history. Prague is known for its dozens upon dozens of towers, some of which are remnants of the old city wall, but it is a city with a long military heritage – one marred by conquest, occupation, war and yet fierce independence in its residents. It was an imperial capital of the King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor during the reign of Charles IV in the 14th century, site of one of the many revolutions in 1848, a center of Austro-Hungarian military production prior to World War I, and later arguably the first “occupied capital” by Nazi Germany. And while the city endured – as much as survived – War World II with little cosmetic damage compared to nearby Vienna or Budapest, Prague suffered under the Nazi reign of Reinhard Heydrich, whose brutality earned him the nickname “Butcher of Prague.” In 1942, Heydrich was assassinated in the Prague suburbs by Czech commandos and patriots. Following World War II the city further endured and even lashed out during Soviet rule during the Cold War, to finally see its renaissance in the post-Soviet era. And for these reasons, Prague is so very rich with military history, rivaling even London and Paris in what history buffs can expect.

(With assistance from All-American Games Staffers Ashley Allen and Michael Bittman)

SAN ANTONIO, TX (Jan. 5, 2012) – The “Best of the Best” in both prep football and the U.S. Army met and bonded last night during a Player/Hero Challenge in advance of this Saturday’s U.S. Army All American Bowl in San Antonio, Texas.

The nation’s top 90 high school football ‘heroes’ had the opportunity of a lifetime in sharing dinner — after working up a Texas-sized hunger during a spirited push-up/sit-up/eating competition — with real-life Army ‘heroes,’ who were chosen by obtaining a specific rank, while receiving a Silver Star, Bronze Star, or Purple Heart in Operation New Dawn, Operation Iraqi Freedom, or Operation Enduring Freedom (among other distinctions).

The game will be played this Saturday, January 7, 2012, at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. The annual East vs. West match-up will be televised live on NBC at 1:00 p.m. EST and will be presented by American Family Insurance.

For more than 11 years, the U.S. Army All-American Bowl has been the nation’s premier high school football game, serving as the preeminent launching pad for America’s future college and NFL stars. Adrian Peterson, Mark Sanchez, Tim Tebow, Ndamukong Suh, Marcus Lattimore, and Andrew Luck all made their national debuts as U.S. Army All-Americans. The 2011 U.S. Army All-American Bowl drew a crowd of nearly 38,000 to the Alamodome, and was the most-watched sporting event on television over the weekend, excluding the NFL playoffs.

The U.S. Army All-American Bowl is owned and produced by All American Games, a New Jersey-based sport marketing and event management company. The U.S. Army is the title sponsor of the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, and American Family Insurance is the lead national sponsor and presenting sponsor of the telecast on NBC. Other national sponsors include Rivals.com, San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau, Russell Athletic, adidas, Gatorade, Schutt Sports, NCSA, TapouT, Oakley, NewTek and Football University. National sponsors of the All-American Marching Band include NAfME: The National Association for Music Education, Drum Corps International, Jupiter Band Instruments and DeMoulin Uniforms.



For more information on the U.S. Army All-American Bowl and its related events visit usarmyallamericanbowl.com and goarmy.com/events/aab or the official Facebook and Twitter pages located at facebook.com/USArmyAllAmericanBowl and twitter.com/armyallamerican.

BLOG BELOW from All-American Games Staffer Corey Brown on Player/Hero Challenge

Last night, the football All-Americans teamed up with many U.S. Army heroes to compete in the Player/Hero Challenge. These Army soldiers have been distinguished as “heroes” by obtaining a specific rank, while receiving a Silver Star, Bronze Star, or Purple Heart in Operation New Dawn, Operation Iraqi Freedom, or Operation Enduring Freedom (among other distinctions). So, while all of San Antonio has been idolizing our All-Americans for the last few days, it became time for the players to idolize the REAL heroes of our nation. Together, the players and heroes competed in sit-up, pushup, and eating contests, with the East team edging out the West in the eating competition by about half a chicken wing (visit our Facebook page and youtube.com/goarmy to see video clips of all of the contests and much more footage throughout Bowl Week).

FAVORITE PART OF THE DAY: Watching the football players and U.S. Army heroes mingling at the Player/Hero Challenge was truly inspirational. Each individual player was paired up for the entire night with one Army hero. They bonded, cheered during the contests, and enjoyed dinner together. The feedback we received afterwards from the All-Americans was extremely positive. The Bowl’s partnership with the U.S. Army brings an incredibly real aspect to the game and the players. From a social media perspective, we saw an amazing number of Facebook status updates and tweets from the players tonight about how inspired they were by their Army heroes. Quite candidly, this is what makes the U.S. Army All-American Bowl so special.

As an observer of the world as it exists at the end of 2011, I sometimes reminisce on the subject of leaders and what a difference someone like Winston Churchill might make in dealing with these difficult times.

Having spent nearly six years literally “living” with Churchill I often wonder, were he alive today, what he would have done and how he would have reacted to the wars America has chosen to fight.

The war in Iraq has finally ended after more than eight years, the loss of some 4,500 lives, a cost estimated by some to be as high as four trillion dollars, and a less than stable Middle East. We invaded Iraq in 2003 with our proverbial head in the clouds believing in “Veni, vidi, vici” and that we would quickly go home victorious, leaving behind a democratic Iraq. Instead, we created a quagmire the legacy of which has yet to be determined. Hawks like Sen. John McCain argue we should have left a residual force in Iraq.

But the question remains: how long is long enough? We’ve been in Korea for over half a century and given the historical enmity between the Sunnis and Shiites, who have warred with one another for well over a thousand years, we might never leave Iraq.

The war may be over but as a recent article in the NY Times noted, “the heartbreak isn’t … Statistics are surely important, but they tell only part of the story about a decade of war. Behind each number there is a face. Behind each face there is heartbreak. You look at the faces of the dead staring straight ahead for the cameras, and you realize as if for the first time how achingly young they were, many not old enough to buy a drink legally, a few barely eligible to vote.” (Clyde Haberman, “The War Is Over, The Heartbreak Isn’t,” NY Times, December 15, 2011)

Churchill, I believe, would have been unlikely to have gone into Iraq in the first place. Indeed, his own experience with Iraq suggests he not only would have asked the hard questions about invading Iraq that were never asked by the Bush administration but would have concluded that waging a war there would have been sheer folly.

There is a precedent for this belief. In 1920, Churchill served in a dual capacity as the Secretary of State for War and the Secretary of State for Air, and from February 1921 to October 1922, as Britain’s Colonial Secretary. Among his areas of responsibility was the Middle East and a region and a new nation that the British created after World War I.

In 2006, columnist Joe Klein wrote in Time magazine about Churchill and Iraq. “’There is something very sinister to my mind in this Mesopotamian entanglement,’ Winston Churchill wrote his Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, in August 1920. ‘Week after week and month after month for a long time we shall have a continuance of this miserable, wasteful, sporadic warfare marked from time to time certainly by minor disasters and cuttings off of troops and agents, and very possibly attended by some very grave occurrence.’"

However, as Klein reminds us, “the British had created the problem, cobbling ‘Iraq’ from three disparate Ottoman provinces. They chose sides, picking the Sunni minority to run the country.” (“Even Churchill Couldn’t Figure out Iraq,” Time, July 30, 2006)

It did not take Churchill long to grasp that Iraq was a losing proposition, and that at a time when Britain was still recovering from the enormous cost of World War I, investing some eight million pounds a year was not worth it. Yet, despite his objections and concerns the British stubbornly stayed there until 1932 before finally realizing that (in a time before oil was of such great strategic importance) it was time to cut its ties.

What they created and left behind was a huge mistake: a Sunni minority in control of the new nation of Iraq that eventually resulted from 1979 to 2003 in Saddam Hussein’s reign of brutality and terror over the Shiite majority.

That unhappy result was none of Churchill’s doing: by the 1930s he was a backbencher in Parliament with no active role in governing Britain.

There are some eerie similarities between Churchill’s concerns over Iraq and the failure of his prime minister, David Lloyd George, to heed those concerns, and the blindness and ignorance displayed by the Bush administration, and their decision to invade Iraq without sufficient thought and consideration of the consequences. It was a mistake I believe that Churchill would not have made.

And while it is quite true that Churchill was often adamant, even obsessive, in pursuing his beliefs, and would have despised Saddam Hussein and all he stood for, it is equally true that he was not guilty of the arrogance and hubris that guided America’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Much has been made of Churchill’s suggested use of poison gas in Iraq. The Middle East in the1920s was a mélange of conflict and rebellion that threatened stability and British interests in the wake of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. In 1920, the region was in a rebellion that was rapidly spreading. With British military assets spread thinly, there were insufficient troops available for Gen. Aylmer Haldane, the commander-in-chief of British forces in Mesopotamia to suppress the rebellion.

The greatly downsized post-World War I British army was spread too thin across the Empire and in dealing with the rebellion in Ireland. “We are at our wits’ end to find a single soldier,” Churchill wrote to Lloyd George on August 23, 1920. “It seems to me so gratuitous that after all the struggles of the war, just when we want to get together our slender military resources . . . we should be compelled to go on pouring armies and treasures into these thankless deserts.”

Churchill and Hugh Trenchard, the Chief of the Air Staff and the father of the concept of strategic bombing, discussed the employment of air power to help quell the revolt. Britain had a huge stock of poison gas left over from World War I and in late August 1920 Churchill wrote to Trenchard that he wanted the RAF to “certainly proceed with the experimental work on gas bombs, especially mustard gas, which would inflict punishment on recalcitrant natives without inflicting grave injury upon them.”

Churchill’s rationale was benign, and rather naïve, a belief that a sort of death-less form of warfare could be waged and “asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause disablement of some kind but not death” could be employed to quell the rebellious tribes. In recent years print and broadcast media have had a field day citing and speculating upon this regrettably worded missive that Churchill wanted the rebels killed and would have used poison gas to do it.

In this age of deplorable and often sensationalist journalism, most of the numerous television documentaries unfailingly point out Churchill’s proposed use of poison gas but conspicuously fail to mention that he did not want anyone killed as a result. In the end, this suggestion proved to be no more than one of the innumerable ideas that emanated from Churchill’s fertile mind on a daily basis.

Overall, a wealth of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence strongly suggests what Churchill would have done. Although Joe Klein argues that, “even Churchill couldn’t figure out Iraq,” it is equally true that Churchill would not have gone to war there without having explored in great detail every aspect of the pros and cons of invading Iraq. Moreover, unlike Bush and Rumsfeld in 2003, he also would have paid close attention to history and, I believe, come to a far different conclusion.

Happy New Year! And grateful thanks to the men and women of our Armed Forces for all they do.

Next month: a look at what Churchill might have thought about the war in Afghanistan.

Carlo D’Este is author of the acclaimed biographies Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, Patton: A Genius for War and Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945.

Join ACG Editor in Chief Jerry Morelock, Advisory Board Members Carlo D’Este and Robert J. Dalessandro, ACG authors Rob Havers and Robert Baumann, other leading historians, as well as multi-decorated WWII veterans and authors Hal Baumgarten and Ed Bearss at the 7th Annual Sarasota World War II Conference January 25–28, 2012 at the Helmsley Sandcastle Hotel on Lido Beach, Sarasota, Florida. This year’s conference is very special since it begins January 25 with a separate National Conference on World War I featuring insightful and revealing presentations on the 1914-18 Great War (NOTE: the World War I Conference requires separate registration and fee). The World War II Conference begins the evening of January 25 with a gala “World War II Memories Reception” featuring WWII films, music, reenactors, hors d’ouvres and a cash bar, and continues January 26-28 with acclaimed presentations by some of today’s top historians.

• Talks
• Panel Discussions
• Receptions
• Book Sales & Author Signings
• Beach Time
• Shopping at St. Armand’s Circle
• 25% Discount for Armchair General subscribers!!!

Attend All or Any Part. To sign up for the National World War I Conference and the 7th Annual Sarasota World War II Conference, contact:

• Call 800-298-1861
• e-mail cwea@earthlink.net
• or visit www.cwea.net

 

Eric Weider, founder and publisher of Armchair General and president of the Weider History Group, talks about history, publishing, and the people and historic personages who have influenced his life in a two-part interview on American History at Suite101.com. Click here to read part 1 and part 2 of the interview.

I live in the small New England town of Mashpee, Massachusetts, a place with a patriotic heart. The town’s high school first opened in 1996 and now has about seven hundred students but at one time had a great many more before the economy of the region caused a number of families to move out of the area.

As a small school their football team is undermanned at only about thirty-five players and about half the team play both offense and defense. One of the players is female. What they lack in numbers they more than make up for in hard work and dedication. For the first time ever the team is undefeated this year, and will soon participate in the state championships held at Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots.

At their recent homecoming game, which my wife and I attended, there was a genuine sense of community. It seems everyone connected with the school — students, faculty, and school administrators, even returning grads — all come out to root for the home team. There is interaction between students and their teachers. It’s a real-life “Friday Night Lights.” Pro football players are huge by comparison with these young men but none are lacking in enthusiasm and effort. And while high school football is taken seriously, particularly in places like Texas, in our town football and local sports possesses a certain innocence that is absent in big-time college and professional football.

Mashpee has also paid a high price for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: to date four Mashpee members of the armed forces have been killed, several of them graduates of the high school. One had been a Boy Scout, another a poet. Another of those killed in action was a Marine aviator.

In October, I received an invitation to deliver the keynote address at their annual Veteran’s Day ceremony. Because Veteran’s Day is a national holiday the school holds its ceremony on November 10. Everyone attends: the faculty, the entire student body, even the superintendent of schools. It is a well-organized and well-run event. Also participating is a color guard from the local VFW, veterans, and invited guests. In addition to posting the colors, the national anthem was sung by one of the students, who was ardently cheered by her fellow students. There followed a tribute to the four local soldiers and marines killed in the current wars and their families were each presented with a bouquet of flowers.

This was followed by video interviews with three members of the school faculty who are veterans. They told their stories of service to the nation with a sense of gratitude and patriotism. These videos received a strong reception from the students and served as a great teaching tool.

After my keynote speech the ceremony ended with the singing of “America the Beautiful” by the school a cappella choir. What struck me about this ceremony was that it was clearly much more than just mandatory attendance by the students. They were interested, engaged, respectful and attentive.

What is impressive is the total commitment by the school to treat Veteran’s Day as a very special event. They do this every year as a civic duty. The superintendent of schools told my wife and I that not every town in our area has such an event. Some high schools do not because they cannot trust their students to behave properly in an assembly.

Here is what I said to the assembly:

From the time of our birth as a nation more than two hundred years ago there is one lesson we have learned over and over again: freedom is not free. It comes at a cost.

Veteran’s Day 2011 is one of those special times when Americans join together in towns and cities to honor our veterans. Americans have fought on the banks of the Delaware, on San Juan Hill, in the Argonne Forest in 1918, at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and later on Guadalcanal, on the sands of Iwo Jima and on numerous other long forgotten islands in the Pacific, in North Africa, Italy, Burma, in Normandy and during the Battle of the Bulge – in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and, more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As you will now hear, a significant number of American servicemen and women have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Here are some numbers to ponder: some 8,000 American soldiers died serving in the Revolutionary War, 20,000 in the War of 1812, and 13,000 in the Mexican War of 1846 to 1848.

In the Civil War, the Union lost approximately 364,000 in action and from disease and the Confederacy 260,000.

Losses in the Spanish-American War were over 2,400.

In World War I, 4,272,500 were mobilized, 116,500 killed and 204,000 wounded.

During the Second World War 12,354,000 men and women served in the Armed Forces of the United States. 292,557 of them were killed in action, 671,000 were wounded and 11,324 Merchant mariners were also killed. According to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command there are still over 74,000 Americans unaccounted for from World War II. If you ever visit one of the twenty-four American military cemeteries overseas you will find the names of the missing inscribed on a wall of honor. Those with rosettes next to them indicate that their remains have since been recovered and identified.

During the Korean War more than 36,000 died in combat, over 92,000 were wounded and over 8,100 missing in action. In Vietnam, 58,261 Americans were killed or MIA.

Over 42 million Americans have participated in wars from the Revolution to 1998, with more than 1,000,000 listed as having died in the service of the nation.

Losses in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now exceed 6,100 killed. Of those more than 33 are female.

As Gen. Colin Powell recently noted: “Over the years, Americans have chosen to serve for many reasons – during the Revolutionary War, to create a nation; in World War II, to save humanity from destruction; at various times to help pay for college. Still, no matter the motivation once our men and women joined up, they’ve given their all for our country.”

We officially commemorate Veteran’s Day on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the moment when an armistice was signed ending World War I, also known as the Great War. After World War I the red poppy, which grew in great profusion on the battlefields and military cemeteries of Flanders, became the symbol of remembrance.

In Britain and the British Commonwealth they call Veteran’s Day Remembrance Day, a time when both living veterans and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice are honored. It is traditional in Remembrance Day ceremonies to read a poem written in 1915 by a Canadian combat surgeon, Lt. Col. John McCrae. It is called “In Flanders Fields” and I believe it is one of the many ways that we can honor our own veterans. It goes like this: 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.


We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

That torch is now ours to carry. For many in America, Veteran’s Day is just another holiday, a long weekend in November. Thankfully, there are a great many people across this vast land of ours that never forget.

Although we sometimes take it for granted, the most precious thing we have is our freedom. However, from veterans we often hear this question: in the future will anyone even remember our extraordinary sacrifices? To this I reply: There can be but one answer, which rests upon future generations – yours and mine – to continue to carry the torch of remembrance.

As Gen. Powell points out, as veterans we too can give back by teaching “our children that we must all take care of each other, on the battlefield and in life.”

In this age of senseless terrorism and unrest on an international scale, the sacrifice made by our veterans looms larger than ever. At our peril, we as a nation must never forget the sacrifices of the men and women who have answered the call of duty.

Those who fought in World War II have been called the Greatest Generation. That they were great and what they accomplished is beyond question. There are – in fact – a number of “greatest generations” including the current one. We have been blessed with generations of Americans, both prior to and since that momentous war, that have also answered the call of duty.

A few years ago my son, Chris, who lives in Arizona began doing something that makes me particularly proud of him. He began going up to service men and women in uniform and thanking them for their service. He feels it is the least he can do to show his appreciation for all they do. So, the next time you see someone wearing the uniform of a member of the armed forces take a moment to thank them. The reward for such a small gesture will be like that MasterCard saying: “Priceless!”

I expect that some you in this room today will one day serve as members of the armed forces. I wish you well and am confident that your training and your patriotism will see you through challenging times.

I’d like to conclude my presentation today by showing you a short video. It speaks for itself.

http://youtu.be/r2RwRi2TjA0

Note: A short advert has been recently been added that precedes the video.

Also worth noting is that there is always room for debate about statistics. In more than thirty-years as a military historian, the most difficult challenge has been to accurately document casualties. Figures vary, even from the best of sources, and even the official histories don’t always get it right. The sources cited herein are considered reliable but some are still little more than estimates. For example, losses in the Revolutionary War are, at best, only reasonable estimates. The original government report of losses stated that the totals were too low and too incomplete. Then there are such statistics as non-battle losses. They are hardly ever counted except separately, yet a soldier, sailor, marine or airmen who dies of a disease acquired in the line of duty is just as much a casualty of war as one who is killed in action. And so it goes.

Here it is, folks—Armchair General‘s annual recommendations to help you find the right gift for that person on your list who sits glued to a game, lost in a book, or absorbed in a documentary. And, of course, if you are that person, these lists will help you answer that eternal question, "What do you want this year?"

Bestselling PC games
You’ve probably heard of all of these, but their popularity definitely makes them worth a look.

PC wargames
Perhaps they’re not as well-known as the Battlefield or Modern Warfare franchises, but these games will challenge any computer gamer’s skills and bring hours and hours of enjoyment.

Boardgames
Sometimes you just want to switch off the computer and indulge in some old-school cardboard, cards and miniatures mayhem with friends. Here are a few boardgames you ought to take a look at.

Books
Need we say more? Anyone interested in history is also interested in adding to an already extensive library, and these titles deserve shelf room (or memory space on your e-reader).

Military history DVDs
This year saw the release of some excellent television documentaries and the re-release of a couple of classics. Check out these recommendations, in case you missed them when they aired.

Tanks and turkey—two things we can’t get enough of at Armchair General, especially on the week of Thanksgiving. Many of us will be using the long weekend to drive tanks into battle on our computers or consoles. Others will set up boardgames and invite friends over to digest new armor tactics and leftover turkey, while still others will be revving their Shermans’ engines in miniatures games with the clubs at the game store or at local conventions. Or maybe we’ll just kick back and read about some clash of armor.

To help you get in an appropriately t’ankful mood (Sorry; we couldn’t resist.), we’re running a series of three tank-game articles this week. Check back each day to see what new has been posted. You’ll also find a number of links to articles about tanks and tank battles that have been published on ACG and our partner site, HistoryNet.com.

Flames of War at the Local Game Store, or My Tigers are Burning!

Tanking in Battlefield 3 and Red Orchestra 2

Tank on Tank: Boardgame Review

Recommended Reading
Tanks and Tankers in Korea, 1950

Yom Kippur War: Embattled Israeli Bridgehead at Chinese Farm

Tet with Tanks: The NVA Easter Offensive, 1972

Polish Cavalry Charges Tanks! The Myth That Will Not Die.

Kursk 1943

And if you’ve never visited this Website, check it out to find out what you’ve been missing!
Achtung Panzer! Website

Renowned historical artist Keith Rocco dropped a note to ACG telling us about a new collection of his work to be published in late summer of 2012. Napoleon’s First Italian Campaign (1796–1797) will include 55 paintings that range from well-known incidents that occurred during battles of that campaign to images of representative individual soldiers.

In March 2010 we reported on the artist’s work for the Marengo Museum in the Province of Alessandria, Italy. A preview of some of the images from Napoleon’s First Italian Campaign can be viewed on Rocco’s Website.

 

 

Since the recession began in 2008 America has suffered. The economy has tanked, millions have lost their homes to foreclosure, unemployment has hit record highs not seen since the great depression of the 1930s; one in four Americans don’t get enough to eat, and homelessness is on the rise. The avarice exhibited by Wall Street financiers and the big banks are objects of public scorn and protest. Nearly four years into this recession, there is as yet no end in sight to America’s economic woes.

To make matters worse, no one in Washington seems to get it. Congress has an approval rating hovering around 10%, which makes one wonder why it shouldn’t be zero. There is no vision, no sense of a national responsibility, no leadership – our political system roils in chaos. It’s a dark time in our history. The ordinary American wants compromise and solutions, not endless squabbling and finger pointing.

A recent trip to Vermont at the end of September restored my faith in the American way. I was there for a reunion at my alma mater, Norwich University, during its annual Homecoming celebration. A month earlier Tropical Storm Irene hammered the state. Rainfall that routinely exceeded ten inches in places produced the worst devastation since the great storm of 1927. A Norwich geology professor, whose own home was flooded, has called it a 500-year event. Southern Vermont was hit the worst but areas elsewhere in the state were also badly damaged.

Normally placid creeks and rivers turned into raging torrents that swept away everything in their path, flooded homes and businesses and turned highways into rubble. Trees were uprooted and in places the Amtrak line was undermined so badly that rails hung in space after everything underneath was torn away as if by a giant hand.

Our bed and breakfast inn, which is situated in a valley, became an island as water cascaded down a mountain and swept away a great deal of the [dirt] road that runs past their house, tearing great chunks of rock from the roadbed. In a matter of hours the rain turned the valley into a lake, left a gaping hole in nearby Vermont Route 12A, destroyed a century old fish hatchery, and left a number of homes damaged and isolated. The power went out for five days and as people were cut off, the situation became quite grim.

In Northfield, a small town in central Vermont where Norwich University is located, a low-lying area was badly flooded when the Dog River tore from its banks and angrily and relentlessly swept through this vulnerable part of town. Some sixty homes were damaged, many beyond repair.

Before the waters had receded the call went out for assistance. Among the first responders was Norwich University. The school went into action and within a few hours the first of what became nearly 500 cadets, students, staff and faculty began coming to the aid of stricken Northfield homeowners and in so doing gave new meaning to the term public service.

During the period from 28 August to 26 September Norwich volunteers logged 3,865 hours of assistance to storm victims. It came in many forms. Help with the clean up – often under oppressive conditions of water, mud, silt and debris – could only occur after others organized and coordinated the relief effort. Volunteers had to be briefed, given assignments, and furnished with facemasks and protective gloves. It literally became a race against time.

Teams of volunteers began removing the water soaked contents of the flooded homes. Debris began piling up, some of which was burned in newly lit bonfires. What had only a few hours earlier been their possessions, many of them priceless, were reduced to waterlogged, moldy flotsam and jetsam. To make matters worse, a great many homeowners either had no insurance at all or not nearly enough to cover the damage.

And yet, through many truly trying days in their lives, there was an almost stoic acceptance of what had befallen them combined with an admirable attitude of “we’ll get through this.”

The volunteers from Norwich were joined by others from Northfield and from other towns who came to help. The Burlington Free Press called it a “Labor of Love in Northfield.” The newspaper quoted one homeowner marveling “as strangers who had only just met his family would sweat, strain and work in such mucky conditions. ‘These people are wonderful. The corps of cadets – what a blessing they have been. Vermonters, we make good neighbors.”

Said one junior student: “We have to help out wherever we can. Northfield is our home. They support us. We feel like it is an obligation.”

A hastily organized university relief fund received donations of more than $116,000 in amounts that ranged from $25 to $50,000. Among those working in Northfield was university president Richard W. Schneider. Norwich also partnered with the American Red Cross to provide hundreds of lunches and dinners and opened their shower facilities for the benefit of flood victims.

At Norwich considerable credit goes to Nicole DiDomenico, the university’s director of Civic Engagement, a young woman with a huge heart and superb organizational ability who quickly and efficiently masterminded the University’s response.

Norwich students and faculty worked not only in Northfield but also in other towns, some as far away as hard-hit Waterbury, in a mobile home park, staffing a childcare center, and cleaning debris from the Dog River.

As soon as the storm had passed neighbor began helping neighbor. Our B&B hosts, Debra and Jim Rogler, logged many hours assisting others. Even though they had no power and had to deal with a severely flooded basement, both thought only of helping their neighbors. This sense of community was repeated time and again in hundreds of other Vermont communities.

FEMA was soon present in Northfield but it was the volunteers who were there first and foremost.

What happened in Vermont and no doubt in a great many other places was a superb example of people selflessly doing the right thing: of responding to a crisis in any way they could, of caring for others and their neighbors.

Our spoiled Washington politicians with their exorbitant perks, gold-plated health plans, and fancy suits could learn a thing or two from the ordinary citizens like these hardy Vermonters, Norwich University students, faculty and staff, and many, many other ordinary Americans who selflessly rose to the occasion.

The motto of Norwich University is “I Will Try” and at no time in its history has this been more in evidence than in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene. Another motto might well be: “Do the right thing.” And did they ever! It made me proud to be a graduate.

I am also proud of Vermonters and those who came from out of state, some from as far away as North Carolina to assist. From tragedy came compassion and in its wake it has reminded us all of everything that is good about America.

Carlo D’Este is a 1958 graduate of Norwich University.

Quotes are from the Burlington Free Press, September 4, 2011.

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Ben-Hur! Time magazine called it, "The biggest and the best of Hollywood’s super-spectacles." The chariot race scenes alone guaranteed it a place in the Hollywood pantheon.

Now you can win your own 50th Anniversary edition DVD of this film classic! All you have to do is sign up with an account on our forums (if you’re not already a member). Then send an email to benhur@armchairgeneral.com with the subject line "Sign me up to win Ben-Hur!" and include your forum username. Twenty lucky entrants will receive a copy of the 50th Anniversary edition DVD. Forum sign-up is simple, and we don’t spam our members.

Ben Hur © 1959, 2011 Turner Entertainment Co. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.  All rights reserved. http://www.benhurmovie.com

Own it today on Blu-ray^TM and DVD! Experience the visual splendor and towering drama of William Wyler’s record-setting winner of 11 Academy Awards®* including Best Picture now on Blu-ray for the very first time. Limited and numbered, each set includes more than 4 hours of Bonus Content including an all new hi-def documentary chronicling Heston’s life through filming, a 128-page reproduction of Heston’s personal and never-before-seen diary; and an 64-page hardbound Commemorative photo book.

The $100,000 2011 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing, sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation, was presented October 22 during the Library’s annual Liberty Gala at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in Chicago. The award recognizes a living author for a body of work that has profoundly enriched the public understanding of American military history.

This year’s winner was Carlo D’Este, who established himself as an authoritative voice in the field of World War II scholarship with books that include the acclaimed biographies Patton: A Genius for War (1995); Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 1890-1945 (2002); and Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945 (2008). A retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel with service in Vietnam, D’Este has received the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star with Oak Leaf cluster, Meritorious Service Medal, and Commendation Medal for his military service. He is a co-founder of the William E. Colby Military Writers’ Symposium, based at Norwich University, and currently serves as its executive director.He also serves as Consulting Historian and Advisory Board Member for Armchair General magazine.

Award Presenter James N. Pritzker, founder of the Pritzker Military Library and a retired Colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard, said that “Carlo D’Este has made a tremendous collective contribution to the literary community at large. He has spent as much time in the field, with his boots on the ground, as he has seeing to it that scholars of the next generation are carefully mentored while progressing along their own paths. It’s clear that Carlo’s literary legacy is deeply rooted in all the areas that embody the foundation of this esteemed award, most especially that of increasing the understanding of military history and the role of the Citizen Soldier.”

The host for the evening was Rob Stafford of NBC Chicago. Members of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company provided an original dramatic performance.

The Colby Award, which recognizes first works of fiction or non-fiction that have made significant contributions to the public’s understanding of intelligence operations, military history, or international affairs, was presented to Marine Corps veteran Marlantes his novel Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War. The $500 award is Named for the late Ambassador and former CIA Director William E. Colby.

“Matterhorn is a powerful first work that defines the tragic cost of the Vietnam War in human terms,” said Colby co-founder and New York Times best-selling author W.E.B. Griffin in a greeting read at the ceremony. “Marlantes’ breakneck writing style is both passionate and haunting, thrusting the reader into alternating moments of chaos and courage reflecting the fragility of our Marines on the ground – and their leadership – in combat.”

This year’s Gala chairs were Audrey and Albert Ratner, Mayari and Robert Pritzker, Alan Kravets, and Caroline and Dave Linden.

The Pritzker Military Library is a non-partisan, non-profit research institution located at 104 S. Michigan Ave., in Chicago’s historic Monroe Building. Admission is open to the public.

Since opening in October 2003, the Pritzker Military Library has produced over 300 programs including events with award-winning authors, interviews with Medal of Honor recipients, and Emmy-nominated panel discussions on military issues. All programs are presented in front of a live audience, webcast live on the Internet, and recorded for later broadcast on WYCC-TV/Channel 20, a PBS affiliate. Programs are also available for download as audio podcasts.

Winner of the 2009 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the Pritzker Military Library features a collection of books and films on subjects covering the full spectrum of American military history, along with military-themed posters, photographs, medals, uniforms, and other artifacts from private donors and the collection of the Library’s founder, Colonel (IL) J.N. Pritzker, IL ARNG (Retired).

The Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing was established in 2007. The recipient’s contributions may be academic, non-fiction, fiction, or a combination of any of the three, and his or her work should embody the values of the Pritzker Military Library. Previous recipients include James M. McPherson, Allan R. Millett, Gerhard L. Weinberg, and Rick Atkinson.

To learn more about the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award or to submit a 2012 nomination, visit tawanifoundation.org/LTA or write: Lisa M. Lanz, Executive Director, Tawani Foundation, 104 South Michigan Avenue, Suite 525, Chicago, IL 60603.

For more information on the Liberty Gala visit pmlgala.org.

Fort Knox, KY, October 19, 2011 – The U.S. Army’s famous Patton Museum is undergoing a multi-year transformation that is changing its focus from cavalry and armor history to one that features the story of Army leadership, duty and sacrifice since 1775.

The new General George Patton Museum of Leadership will use immersive and interactive exhibits to introduce visitors to timeless stories of leaders at all levels from corporal to general. The staff is creating interim interior exhibits to give visitors a taste of what is to come. Outdoor exhibits will include a restored WWII barracks and key armored vehicles that have been such an important part of our Army’s past.

In its final form, the Museum will not only tell the enduring story of General Patton’s life-long study of history and human character; it will also tell visitors about the importance of the human element in war and peace ― and how leadership makes the crucial difference between success and failure.

Museum Director Chris Kolakowski notes, "We are open for business, but on a limited scale for now. There’s a very bright future here, and Army leadership is committed to making it a showcase museum. We will have state-of-the-art exhibits and facilities for education and training that will appeal to a very wide audience."

"Significant transformations take time," he added. "Meanwhile, visitors can still see the famous Patton collection, including the pistols, but our other exhibits are temporary. Full reopening with permanent exhibits is planned for mid-2014. As part of the change, we recently completed a $2 million facility renovation that will add another 20 years of life to the current museum building.This included a state-of-the-art auditorium."

From its beginning in 1949 until September 2010, the Patton Museum housed a world-famous collection of tank and armored warfare exhibits. Now it is rebuilding its collection around the stirring story of Army leadership, inspired by the museum’s famous namesake.

For more information about the General George Patton Museum of Leadership, visit facebook.com/PattonMuseum.

–Submitted by Ed Miller

Editor’s Note: This article is the eleventh installment from Carlo D’Este’s A Journey to World War II Battlefields. Please click on the following links to read Carlo’s other articles from this series: Tunisia; Kasserine Pass; Malta; Sicily; Biazza Ridge; Messina; Salerno; San Pietro Infine; Cassino and Monte Cassino.

The final stop on our tour of Mediterranean battlefields was Anzio. A two-hour bus ride from Gaeta brought us to the site of one of the most savage series of battles fought in all of World War II.

The Allied landings at the port cities of Anzio and Nettuno on January 22, 1944 were borne from the failure to advance rapidly on Rome after the invasion of Italy the previous September. Designed as both a diversion, a dagger in the German rear, and a threat to capture Rome, the invasion of Anzio turned instead into a bloody stalemate when the Germans rapidly brought thousands of reinforcements that nearly resulted in the Allies being defeated.

After a visit to an Anzio war museum our two buses traveled to one of the U.S. 3d Infantry Division landing beaches in Nettuno that was in an area off limits to the public and only accessible with a police escort. It proved to a very windy, unprepossessing and rather unpleasant place.

The various sites where so many of the Anzio battles were fought are now largely gone, replaced by commercial buildings or houses. A sad sign of the times is that the plaque in a stone wall commemorating the desperate battle fought at what was known as The Flyover is now obscured by a newsagent’s kiosk. (The battle for The Flyover will be the subject of a future article).

Our final stop was at the American military cemetery in Nettuno. It was first established on January 24, 1944 as a temporary cemetery in what is now seventy-seven acres covering an immense field that contains the graves of 7,861 American war dead set among rows of stately Roman pines. There is a large pool with an island and a cenotaph. In addition to the graves the cemetery has a memorial consisting of a chapel, a museum and two gardens.

There were formerly American military cemeteries in both Salerno and Sicily that were eventually closed and the graves moved and consolidated at the new site in Nettuno, now called the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial.

Most of those buried here died in Sicily, at Salerno, Cassino, Anzio, and in air and naval operations in the Mediterranean. On the while marble walls of the chapel are the names of 3,095 of the missing – and as is the case in all American Battle Monuments Commission cemeteries, there are rosettes to mark the names of those since recovered and identified.

There is also a large map room containing a bronze relief map depicting military operations in both Sicily and Italy.

At each end of the Memorial are ornamental Italian gardens. In the center of the Memorial is a brothers-in-arms statue depicting an American soldier & sailor each with an arm around the other’s shoulder.

 On the east façade of the museum is a panel symbolizing Resurrection that portrays a dead soldier being borne to his reward by a guardian angel. 

Some facts about the cemetery: One plot contains many of Audie Murphy’s platoon (Co B, 1st Bn, 15th Inf. Regt, 3d Inf. Div.) A complete bomber crew is buried side by side; several nurses buried here were killed by an exploding shell at what is now the entrance to the cemetery; twenty-three sets of brothers are buried side by side, and Medal of Honor winner, 1st Lt. Robert T. Waugh of the 85th Inf. Div. is buried here. Lt. Waugh won the Medal of Honor on May 14, 1944 for personally taking out six enemy pillboxes.

Perhaps the most unusual ceremony ever recorded occurred here on Memorial Day 1945. The cemetery was still a raw, unfinished place with wooden grave markers. The principal speaker was Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott, the U.S. Fifth Army commander, who commanded Allied troops at Anzio the year before.

The cemetery was filled with visitors and VIPs that included several American senators, and a military honor guard. Also present that day was famed G.I. cartoonist, Bill Mauldin and as he later related, there was a very different kind of ceremony held that day. 

When Truscott spoke, he turned away from the visitors and addressed himself to the corpses he had commanded there. It was the most moving gesture I ever saw. It came from a hard-boiled old man who was incapable of planned dramatics. The general’s remarks were brief and extemporaneous. He apologized to the dead men for their presence here. He said everybody tells leaders it is not their fault that men get killed in war, but that every leader knows in his heart this is not altogether true. He said he hoped anybody here through any mistake of his would forgive him, but he realized that was asking a hell of a lot under the circumstances. One of the senator’s cigars went out; he bent over to relight it, then thought better of it.

Truscott said he would not speak of the glorious dead because he didn’t see much glory in getting killed in your late teens or early twenties. He promised that if in the future he ran into anybody, especially old men, who thought that death in battle was glorious, he would straighten them out. He said he thought it was the least he could do.

Even today, Truscott’s words are as moving as they were fifty-six years ago when he spoke of what the loss of these men and women meant to him. They are unique in the annals of Memorial Day speeches.

Back aboard ship late that afternoon we began saying our good byes as we got ready to debark early the following morning to begin the long journey home. Our tour of a number of Mediterranean battlefields was enlightening and educational. It was also poignant, as several of the participants had relatives who were lost during World War II. Cemeteries like those at Nettuno that are so magnificently maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission are moving testimonials to the terrible price that war extracts.

Like others on the tour, I spent time alone wandering among the graves, stopping occasionally to read the names, and to ponder on the enormity of their sacrifice.

Lest we forget!

Source for descriptions of the cemetery are from the ABMC website: http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/sr.php