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This one is going to be a passion project. It is going to take a while to complete.
I served. My family served.
There is more history there than it might sound like on face value. My great grandfather literally came over from Spain and served in the Navy during World War One, World War Two, Korean and Vietnam. He came from an era where people worked a job until they died. It would be a common thing until just before WW2, when FDR was encouraging people not to do so with the Social Security Trust Fund to free up jobs for younger workers.
One has to keep in mind that Ulysses S. Grant had been the Commanding General of the U.S. Army and later the 18th President of the United States. He received no retirement from either office, before Congress restored his Army title in 1885 after learning of the national hero's health and financial woes, but Grant died of cancer only 4 months later.
Before that, Grant had to scrap by, while suffering with throat cancer, writing his memoirs to provide for his family after death. It would be his friend, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who was famously pen named Mark Twain, that would publish said book with an unheard of 70% royalty offer. Julia Grant would receive $450,000 in royalties or about $16 million today.
Needless to say, my great grandfather wasn't one to trust leaving his job. He kept at it until the rules were changed to remove older people that refused to leave like himself. He still hung on in the Navy reserves. A Navigator by trade, my great grandfather was qualified to Navigate any body of water, anywhere in the world.
All that service was after surviving the attack on Pearl Harbor, by refusing to eat powdered eggs on the battleship Arizona. It was a galley breakfast on shore that morning that saved his life. His brother that was still on the ship has his remains sealed in that steel grave to this very day.
My Grandfather on my mother's side was a Marine in WW2. He and my Grandmother divorced so I don't know his full fate or stories.
My Grandfather on my father's side was a Navy pilot in WW2. He was once unlucky enough to be tasked with flying a unexploded, but armed fully kamikaze bomb back to the states through the pacific theater, in a storm, so scientists could see how it was made. He did it on a wing and a prayer with that ship killing bomb in the back shaking as if it would go off any second.
My father served in the USAF during the Vietnam Conflict. As a field communications equipment experts, he was a favorite target of the Viet Cong, thus his life expectancy was measured in seconds should he have ever gone to the field.
My stepfather was Navy in Vietnam. He was an Aircraft Technician on a Navy Aircraft Carrier for 7 years of it.
My cousin was Army in the Gulf War and after, first as a Security specialist, later as a Warrant Officer for an Attack Helicopter. I was Navy Aircraft Ordnance in the same era and later did six years as USAFR as electronic warfare specialist and munitions. My son is currently in the USAF, he was line maintenance and currently works computer security.
My mother's side of the family has military ancestors that stretch back further than that. It is the same on my father's side.
Thus, I just wanted to share a little history. It is simply told by song and a few facts from the era that this music was popular. That is for more of this country's history than you might think.
I'll be using my Youtube playlist as the base:
This may never get more than 10 views, but for those few that wish too look, here comes an adventure. It will also tell the story of a few real life heroes that earned the nation's highest Honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Welcome to the tales of those that have serve since the nation's founding. This was one facet of the American Experience no longer taught in schools...
Note: This is a high data thread. Due to pictures, videos, links, and pictures, many pages will load slightly slower than the normal two seconds many people are used too.
**added 15 new pages and decompressed to help reduce thread load time 7/28/25**
from songofamerica.net
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
by Julia Ward HoweMine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.Chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.Chorus
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”Chorus
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.Chorus
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.Chorus
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.Chorus
The American Revolutionary War (1775-1781)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War
“Join, or Die” – Benjamin Franklin, 1754
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry, 1775
“Don’t tread on me” – from the Gadsten Flag, 1775
“Stand your ground; don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.” – Captain John Parker, 1775
“Every post is honourable in which a man can serve his country.” -George Washington, Letter to Benedict Arnold, September 14, 1775
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” – Thomas Paine, 1776
“The British are coming.” - PAUL REVERE, the night of April 18, 1775
“Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes.” - WILLIAM PRESCOTT, The Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” – Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, 1776
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” – Nathan Hale, 1776
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”– Benjamin Franklin, 1776
“Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.” -George Washington, General Orders from his Headquarters, New York, July 2, 1776
“I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than the means.” -John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776
“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore to resolve to conquer or die.” -George Washington, Address to the Continental Army before the battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776
“I have not yet begun to fight!” – John Paul Jones, 1779
On December 23, 1783, Washington strode into the Maryland State House in Annapolis and surrendered his military commission to Congress—thereby affirming the principle of civilian control of the military. When King George III heard that Washington would surrender his commission, he reportedly said that if "He did [this] He would be the greatest man in the world." As president, in a time when there were no term limits and many would have supported a lifetime role, Washington stepped down after the end of his second term—setting an important precedent that lasted until the middle of the 20th century.
“As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar perhaps singular. What do we mean by the revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.” -John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, August 24, 1815
The American Revolutionary War
Yankee Doodle (current version 1776)
On yeah of the internet, this is a fun one. Originally, a British Army trolling on Colonists, this became the earliest lyrical American Meme and became a source of pride all the way back to the Revolutionary War.
from: en.wikipedia.org
The song was a pre-Revolutionary War song originally sung by British military officers to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial "Yankees" with whom they served in the French and Indian War. It was written at Fort Crailo around 1755 by British Army surgeon Richard Shuckburgh while campaigning in Rensselaer, New York.[15] The British troops sang it to make fun of their stereotype of the American soldier as a Yankee simpleton who thought that he was stylish if he simply stuck a feather in his cap.[1] It was also popular among the Americans as a song of defiance,[1] and they added verses to it that mocked the British and hailed George Washington as the Commander of the Continental army. By 1781, "Yankee Doodle" had turned from being an insult to being a song of national pride.[16][17]
LyricsYankee Doodle went to townA-riding on a ponyStuck a feather in his hatAnd called it macaroniYankee Doodle, keep it upYankee Doodle dandyMind the music and the stepAnd with the girls be handyFather and I went down to campAlong with Captain GoodingAnd there we saw the men and boysAs thick as hasty puddingYankee Doodle, keep it upYankee Doodle dandyMind the music and the stepAnd with the girls be handyThere was Captain WashingtonUpon a slapping stallionA-giving orders to his menI guess there was a million.Yankee Doodle, keep it upYankee Doodle dandyMind the music and the stepAnd with the girls be handy
