There are many families who don’t have closure… Many have no graves to decorate, as their loved one had an anonymous foreign grave, or a ship or submarine lost at sea, or an aircraft that ‘disappeared’ for their final rest.
Know they truly are with the Angels.
It’s NOT about those of us that came back, it’s about those who didn’t make it home…
Take a moment, say a prayer for your freedoms and the military men and women who gave their lives that you may enjoy those freedoms.
A little history most people will never know.
Interesting Veterans Statistics off the Vietnam Memorial Wall “Carved on these walls is the story of America, of a continuing quest to preserve both Democracy and decency, and to protect a national treasure that we call the American dream.” ~President George Bush
SOMETHING to think about – Most of the parents of these men are now deceased.
There are 58,385 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added through 2020.
The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.
Beginning at the apex on panel 1E and going out to the end of the East wall, appearing to recede into the earth (numbered 70E – May 25, 1968), then resuming at the end of the West wall, as the wall emerges from the earth (numbered 70W – continuing May 25, 1968) and ending with a date in 1975. Thus the war’s beginning and end meet. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angle’s open side and contained within the earth itself.
The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth , Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.
There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.
39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger.
8,283 were just 19 years old.
The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.
12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.
5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.
One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.
997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam .
1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam .
43 sets of brothers are on the Wall.
Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons.
54 soldiers on the Wall attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia . I wonder why so many from one school.
8 Women are on the Wall. Nursing the wounded.
244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall.
Beallsville , Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.
West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.
The Marines of Morenci – They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest . And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci’s mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home.
The Buddies of Midvale – LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam . In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.
The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.
The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 – 2,415 casualties were incurred.
Just…wow…
House Democrats unanimously rebelled against legislation Thursday directing the construction of a new women’s history museum on the National Mall.
Democrats sought to defeat the bill after Republicans limited the institution to biological women and excluded transgender individuals.
<snip>
The female lawmakers argued the anticipated museum is long overdue, but said they could not support the legislation with the biological women language added, which many characterized as a “poison pill.”
Full article, HERE from Fox News.
I really don’t understand this. The left can’t really be ‘that’ crazy, can they???
We’re doing another library anthology this year!!!
The Roaring Library
Theme: 1920’s Texas – the Roaring Twenties
Length: 5000-8000 words long
Send us your stories! They need to be set in the 1920s in Texas, not
necessarily in a library, although that’s a strong element to include.
The anthology supports the Tom Burnett Memorial Library and the
children’s program there, and all proceeds go to the library.
Submissions are due no later than September 7, 2026
Please send submissions to oldnfo (at) gmail (dot) com
Target publication date is November 13, 2026
And for your information so you know who the team is-
Editors: J.L. Curtis and Amie Schultz
Copy-Editor: Laura Begley
Design (cover and formatting): Cedar Sanderson
Thanks in advance, folks!
Gah… scheduler didn’t schedule… Sorry folks!
For the win! There is a ‘new’ Skyraider in the military inventory!!!
In recent weeks, in the skies over Iran, we saw the value of high-tech as a force multiplier. American stealth aircraft and smart weapons dealt staggering damage to Iran’s armed forces, to the point that all they have left are a few boats that are essentially water skiing speedboats with machine guns, and a few hundred goblins with AK-47s.
Low-tech played a significant part in this, too. Once air dominance over Iran was established, which took the USA and Israel about six minutes, our A-10 and B-52s were operating with impunity in Iranian airspace, doing what they do best: Dealing with a problem by the suitable application of high explosives.
Speaking of low-tech, the United States Air Force has now taken possession of 18 of their latest low-and-slow close air support birds: The OA-1K Skyraider II.
Full article, HERE from Red State.
While the article gives credit for the new Skyraider to L3Harris, they are actually crop dusters developed by Leland Snow at Air Tractor in Olney, TX about 1 1/2 hours south of us. It’s actually a 2 seat AT-802A crop duster with ‘toys’ added.
Mr. Snow is a legend in the crop dusting world dating to the 1950s, and has also built firefighting birds there, both of initial attack fire fighting, and also dumpers that scoop using floats for more water. Regular crop dusters can operate from rough fields, roads, or anything ‘close’ to where they are spraying, and have very simple spring loaded landing gear.
L3Harris originally developed the ‘toys’ and put them together with an AT-802 to become the Sky Warden, an airborne intelligence platform with a wide array of sensors.
This is a completely different airframe/direction from the Super Tucano by Embraer, HERE. It was originally designed as a basic trainer for Brazil, so it operates from hard surface runways only.
I just wish Mr. Snow and Air Tractor had gotten a little more publicity for what they’ve done. It is truly an inspiring story!
To start the week…
I don’t write ’em, I just pass ’em along on recycled electrons…
-If I had a dollar for every girl that found me unattractive, they’d eventually find me attractive.
-I find it ironic that the colors red, white, and blue stand for freedom, until they’re flashing behind you.
-Never tell your problems to anyone, because 20 percent don’t care and the other 80 percent are glad you have them.
-Television may insult your intelligence, but nothing rubs it in like a computer.
-I bought a vacuum cleaner six months ago and so far all it’s been doing is gathering dust.
-Every time someone comes up with a foolproof solution, along comes a more-talented fool.
-I’ll bet you $4,567 you can’t guess how much I owe my bookie.
-Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.
-If you keep your feet firmly on the ground, you’ll have trouble putting on your pants.
-A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
-My wife got 8 out 10 on her driver’s test–the other two guys managed to jump out of her way.
-Women spend more time wondering what men are thinking than men spend thinking.
-Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
-He who laughs last thinks slowest.
-Is it wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly?
-Women sometimes make fools of men, but most guys are the do-it-yourself type.
-I was going to give him a nasty look, but he already had one.
-The grass may be greener on the other side but at least you don’t have to mow it.
-If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
-If tomatoes are technically a fruit, is ketchup a smoothie?
-Money is the root of all wealth.
-No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
There is security (Kabuki) theater, and then there is SECURITY…
US staff and press members accompanying President Donald Trump reportedly discarded materials from given by the Chinese officials before boarding Air Force One on Friday. The report highlights the deep mistrust that continues to define the US-China ties. The American officials and White House reporters threw away various items collected during the trip, including staff burner phones, credential badges, and lapel pins issued by China. The materials were reportedly dumped into a bin placed near the aircraft stairs shortly before departure from Beijing Capital Airport, according to a journalist in the White House Pool. The move comes as Donald Trump concluded his high-profile two-day visit to Beijing after meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Full article, HERE from the Economic Times of India.
The US delegation went into the trip with tight security, no personal phones, computers, or any electronic devices. Only burner phones and selected ‘clean’ computers were allowed, and they were not connected to the Internet. Also, only secure, verified charging stations were used.
All Chinese gifts, badges, pins, and commemorative items were all dumped into a trash bin at the base of the ladder, including burner phones.
A friend who has been there on business always carries a burner phone and a ‘clean’ laptop that is locked down tighter than a…well, you get the idea. And when he comes back the phone is disposed of, and the computer wiped clean and reloaded for the next trip.
This is the difference between this administration and the last one. As if people aren’t already aware of the prosecutions of leakers under this administration…
And no, security is not perfect, and never will be as long as humans are involved, but at least they are trying…
And I’m SO glad I’m out of that mess these days…
Nuff said…
h/t Steve
Getting down low…
It was part of our job, especially during rigging operations- That was getting the upright sequences of the ships, the names off them, and anything ‘strange’ that the crew might notice.
This wasn’t us, he’s probably right at 100 feet… We were ‘supposed’ to stay at least 200 feet…
But occasionally the weather wasn’t real good, and you had a mission to do… It did usually get real quiet when you got down low, as you didn’t want to distract the pilots… 🙂
But these guys,,,
Gave a whole new meaning to the word low… I got one flight with them out of Hachinohe, Japan back in the day. and they got down in the WEEDS…
There is a seat in the nose, which was the magnetic anomaly detector was, along with being the camera station. You can slide that seat forward until you’re looking straight out and dang near straight up or down. They were rigging some ships north of Hokkaido, and asked if I’l like to go up to the nose. I’d been sitting in the back with the operators, and ‘thought’ we were low on a couple of passes…
So I climb over the wing, weave my way down into the seat, and grabbed the camera as I saw we were inbound to another “Rust Maru”… It was probably a coastal freighter, so not real big…
Normal rig was down one side, 270 turn, stern pass, 270 turn and up the other side. I thought we were pretty low on the first pass, as I got a good shot of the name plate on the bridge wing, but when we did the 270 and came by the stern, I KNEW we were low, because I was looking straight out at the name on the stern…
Probably 50 feet off the water… Sigh… and we rolled into a 270 turn to the right.
At about 40 degrees angle of bank…
And I’m trying to remember what the wingspan is (it is 103 feet)…
And hoping we didn’t get a big wave…
Sigh… Fun times…
And the hair on the back of my neck just stood up remembering that flight…