We all remember – if we’re old enough – the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, particularly the image of that helicopter trying to evacuate people from a rooftop. The next day, May Day, the triumphant North Vietnamese declared the formation of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Millions of... read more →
Apr
17
Apr
03
You know about the Doolittle Raid – or at least, you should. On April 18, 1942 – just over four months after the Pearl Harbor attack – sixteen B-25B Mitchell medium bombers took off from an American aircraft carrier, and bombed Tokyo. They did this without any fighter escort, and... read more →
Mar
28
The eight-shot, semiautomatic M1 Garand rifle got the American infantryman through both the Second World War and Korea. General George S. Patton called it "the greatest battle implement ever devised.” But times change, and so do standard-issue rifles. Next, the military tried something that at a distance looked a lot... read more →
Mar
19
You’ve heard of John Paul Jones, the first great hero of the United States Navy. But remember that in his heyday, there was no “U.S. Navy” as we think of it. All we had was the prequel, the Continental Navy. And we had yet to build a single warship. At... read more →
Mar
14
When did our country make itself independent from British rule? Was it when the “shot heard ’round the world” was fired at Lexington? Was it when John Hancock and 55 other patriots signed the Declaration in Philadelphia? Was it at Yorktown? Or did it take until 1783, when the Treaty... read more →
Feb
26
“A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government,” said George Washington. And how well do you think we’re doing with that right now? Not so well. In fact, if we look around at the political turmoil around us, we might assume we’ve failed... read more →
Feb
26
(In photo above, Myron Harrington uses a radio during the assault on Dong Ba tower during the Battle of Huế in 1968.) The Relic Room lost a friend, and the whole country lost a hero – a great American – on Feb. 19, when Col. Myron Harrington, USMC-Ret., passed away... read more →
Feb
04
Few of us are experts on the Vietnam War, but most of us have heard that perhaps the greatest flaw in the way the United States conducted it was that military higher-ups in Saigon collected, believed and passed to Washington information that indicated the fight was going better than it... read more →
Jan
11
If you’re of a certain age, you may recall a silly comedy film from 1965 called “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.” It made slapstick fun of man’s often improbable early attempts to conquer the skies. But in real life, there were men in the first part of the... read more →
Jan
08
Folks who are not historians tend to think of warfare in terms of things that go bang – rifles, machine guns and bombs. But for most of human history, certainly since the start of the Iron Age, combat was all about the cold, sharp, naked blade. Especially the sword. That’s... read more →