Review

Last night I finished reading We Were Soldiers Once…and Young by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway

It’s a novel about the battle in the Ia Drang Valley during the Vietnam War. I wouldn’t say it was the best novel on the Vietnam War, but is the most detailed. Moore seemed to actually care about the men he led and didn’t just throw them into the meat grinder

The book also shed a new light on then Sectary of Defense, Robert McNamera. I originally thought this guy was an idiot because of the way he advised President LBJ on the war. Now I think more of him (less of an idiot) and even less of President LBJ

At the end of the book it had a list of all the soldiers that were at Ia Drang, and what they are up to these days. It also had stories about the families of the soldiers that were killed in action, and how they dealt with the news. Did you know that in 1965, the U.S Army just sent taxicab drivers to deliver the telegrams informing families of the death or missing soldiers?

It was a good book. If you’re looking for a detailed account of a battle during the Vietnam War, this is a great book. It was a little too detailed in tactical terms for me, but still good. I give it 4/5 stars

It Happened On #61

Sorry for the late post. I hope all my valued readers don’t mind such a late post – better late than never, right? It was a busy morning that carried through to afternoon

It happened on November 28 1964…President Lyndon Johnson’s top advisers–Maxwell Taylor, Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, and other members of the National Security Council–agree to recommend that the president adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam

The purpose of this bombing was three-fold: to boost South Vietnamese morale, to cut down infiltration of Communist troops from the north, and to force Hanoi to stop its support of the insurgency in South Vietnam. The bombing campaign, code-named Rolling Thunder, began in March 1965 and lasted through October 1968

Also on November 28 1979, a New Zealander sightseeing plane traveling over Antarctica crashes, killing all 257 people on board, on this day in 1979. It was the worst airplane accident in New Zealand’s history

It Happened On #3

Gather around kids! It’s time for another edition of It Happened On

On September 30 1994… a 22-year-old student named Ronald Shamburger killed his ex-girlfriend, Lori Ann Baker. He broke into her room and shot her while she slept. He left but returned to remove the bullet from Baker’s head. He then proceeded to set fire to her house in an attempt to destroy the evidence, but realized that he had left his car keys inside. He surrendered to police outside the burning home. He was sentenced to death. Shamburger was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, on Sept. 18, 2002.

Also, on September 30 1955, 24-year-old actor James Dean was killed when his Porsche hit a Ford Tudor sedan. The driver of the other car, 23-year-old Donald Turnupseed, was dazed but mostly uninjured.

As a special treat, also on September 30 1964 the first large-scale antiwar demonstration in the USA was  staged at Berkeley by students and faculty opposed to the war. Pointless since polls showed that a majority of Americans supported President Lyndon Johnson’s policy on the war.

Reminds me of Bush…