Lieutenant Commander Michael G. Hoff was a pilot in the U.S. Navy. On Jan. 7, 1970, in the midst of the Vietnam War, he was on a reconnaissance mission over Laos. A fire warning light illuminated in the Sidewinder A7A Corsair aircraft he was ...
Today is the anniversary of when the U.S. Army Air Corps transitioned into the U.S. Air Force 72 years ago on Sept. 18, 1947. The recent video of Medal of Honor recipient John Chapman, a combat controller who risked his life to save his teammates on ...
gathering of soldiers waited for the bus on a cloudy and chilly late-August morning at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. As members of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division’s 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team — the Arctic Wolves — they are trained to fight in ...
Today the U.S. Air Force chief of staff presented the Air Force Cross to Technical Sergeant Daniel Keller, a combat controller in the Kentucky Air Guard’s 123rd Special Tactics Squadron, for his actions on the battlefield in Afghanistan during the ...
s the sun sank behind the hills just a few hours outside of Budapest, Hungary, a ragtag group of militiamen milled around a dilapidated building in a small clearing amid the Hungarian forest. With AK-47s slung on their shoulder, they played cards ...
Sweat was pouring from LD Ryan’s head as he checked and rechecked the gauges. It was 1952 and the Korean War was in full swing, but that was happening outside the metal skin of this U.S. Navy boat. Inside, Ryan's head was spinning as he made his way ...
In the early weeks of April 1940, the first combat air assault in history saw German paratroopers, or Fallschirmjägers, leap from Junkers Ju-52s onto Aalborg Airport in Denmark and the Sola Air Station in Norway. Nazi Germany launched Operation ...
From infrared lasers fixed to rifles and night vision devices mounted to helmets to the precision bombs they can rain down on their enemies within seconds of calling for them, the modern warrior has never been so effective (or deadly) thanks to the ...
Gather ’round, take a knee, and listen up — it’s story time. For as long as humans have been around, they have used stories as a means to entertain, to remember, to share history, and to process what is happening in the world around them. From cave ...
Have you ever had to make a decision that puts your life in danger? For 39-year-old Polish Home Army Captain Witold Pilecki (pronounced Vee-told Pee-lets-kee), a choice made at dawn on Sept. 19, 1940, put his fate directly in the hands of Nazis. ...
For 11 weeks, protesters have been taking to the streets in Hong Kong, a region in Southern China with an estimated population of 7.4 million people. They wear masks to hide their faces and use laser pointers to fool surveillance systems while waving ...
When the Syrian revolution began, Ali Kilzy was a student teacher in Manbij, Syria. He was passionate about teaching people and about the pursuit of knowledge. The Arab Spring inspired many Syrians to take to the streets and demand that Syrian ...
On Aug. 14, 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied forces, marking the end of World War II (it was Aug. 15 in Japan due to the time difference). Known as V-J Day, or Victory over Japan Day, the surrender was secured after the United ...
If you're in military circles for more than a couple of minutes, you'll probably hear the term "operator" thrown around. In general, it's used to refer to a member of Special Operations Forces (SOF) — particularly a trained shooter, medic, forward ...
The following passage is an excerpt from “Violence of Action: The Untold Stories of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the War on Terror.” It has been edited for clarity.On the night of Aug. 5 through Aug. 6, 2011, one of the worst tragedies in modern ...
“Even right now they are burning the fields,” said General Zirean Shex Wesahni as he points to several burning fields in the distance. “Most of them belong to Kurds, but there may be some that belong to Arabs, too. From here, it’s hard to be ...
Before the U.S. Coast Guard was hunting down narco-drug traffickers in submersible submarines and using advanced Search And Rescue (SAR) technology like high-frequency coastal radar and Sikorski helicopters, the early heroes of the U.S. Life-Saving ...
Time Magazine reported on the Korean War Armistice agreement in August 1953, a week after its signing on July 27. “A correspondent asked a British officer whether the Commonwealth Division would celebrate with the traditional fireworks,” the author ...
The sun hovers above the old terminal like a melting coin, veining the sky with variegated shades of red and vermillion. In the east, the light has already begun to fade toward an inky purple. Looking across the massive expanse of Tempelhofer Feld, ...
The temperature soared into triple digits, and the few clouds overhead offered almost no relief from the blistering sun that was punishing civilians and sailors alike on the beaches of Little Creek, Virginia. The heat was brutal, but that wasn’t ...
A recent viral video showed the United States Coast Guard crew from the Legend-class cutter Munro intercepting a drug smuggling submarine in the Pacific. Switching between two camera angles, crew members from the Coast Guard leap onboard, slam down ...
The U.S. Army's Special Forces, sometimes known as “Green Berets,” are an elite special operations force (SOF) tasked with many types of missions, from direct-action raids to complex reconnaissance and gathering human intelligence on the ...
Zdzisław Jeziorański, Jan Kwiatkowski, codename “Janek,” codename “Zych,” Jan Nowak — these were a handful of noms de guerre used by the famed Courier of Warsaw while working for the Polish Underground during World War II. His journeys took him ...
perating undercover as an Allied spy was stressful work. They disguised themselves as ordinary citizens, developing false identities, documents, and cover stories while building trust amongst networks forged in secrecy through shared misery and ...
U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant John A. Chapman was killed in action on March 4, 2002. He fought with courage and ferocity on the cold, snow-laden mountaintop of Takur Ghar, now known as Roberts Ridge. Chapman was posthumously awarded the Medal ...
It was the Fourth of July, 1826, precisely 50 years after the United States of America had declared its independence. Two elderly men lay in two beds — one in Massachusetts, the other in Virginia — and the life in their bones began to wane. One ...
Survival was a long shot for the 600 remaining soldiers of 2nd Battalion, 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional). Codename Galahad, the famed Merrill's Marauders were the first American troops to fight the Japanese in Asia, and are the predecessors of ...
In the early hours of June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered the Nazi Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa would end up being the largest invasion in history. The operation's name was peculiar. "Barbarossa" was a medieval Germanic ...
Wars are as culturally defining for a nation as its pop culture and politics. Each generation of war veterans breeds a new generation of writers who are willing to expose their scars and bleed them onto the page. The act itself violates a ...
Both Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, June 13, escalating maritime tensions in the Middle East. The Gulf of Oman connects to the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow channel where an estimated 20 percent of the ...
