Soldiers

The Guadalcanal Mafia

By Alan Rems

Undertaken in haste and with slim resources, the Guadalcanal Campaign (Operation Watchtower) was America’s first offensive of World War II and it presented a unique set of challenges. Read more

Soldiers

Major General John Shirley Wood

By Kelly Bell

When little John Shirley Wood was delivered on January 11, 1888, in Monticello, Arkansas, one of the Free World’s greatest defenders greeted his first dawn as eagerly as everything else he confronted and overcame in a lifetime of soldiering. Read more

Soldiers

Lucian K. Truscott: The Soldier’s General

By Nathan N. Prefer

In his Maxims of War, Napoleon Bonaparte wrote, “It is exceptional and difficult to find in one man all the qualities necessary for a great general. Read more

Soldiers

Union General August Willich

By Frank Jastrzembski

“A soldier in every phrase of the term, able and skillful, on many a bloody field he demonstrated his ability and courage,” Brig. Read more

Soldiers

Profiles: ROTC Success

By Bruce Petty

More than 16 million Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II, but as fluid as the situation was in the Pacific, and considering the priority given to the European Theater, it is difficult to obtain an accurate count of how many served in the Pacific at any one time during World War II. Read more

Soldiers

The Real Story of General George Patton, Jr’s Death & Final Days

By Major General Michael Reynolds

The commander of the U.S. Third Army, General George Patton, Jr., took no great pleasure in the end of the war in Europe; he already knew that despite his lobbying of many influential figures in Washington, D.C., Read more

Soldiers

Soldiers: General Peter Bagration

By Victor Kamenir

Russian General Peter Ivanovich Bagration was one of those rare commanders who received near-universal praise from his contemporaries outside of Russia. Read more

Soldiers

The Brief Empire of King Tigranes II of Armenia

By Alexander Zakrzewski

It is said that hard times create strong men. The first and second centuries bc were certainly a hard time for the diverse peoples of the ancient Near East. Read more

Soldiers

Kansas Brigadier James Henry Lane

By David A. Norris

At dawn on August 21, 1863, 450 Confederate Irregulars under William C. Quantrill descended on the town of Lawrence, Kansas. Read more

Soldiers

Bertrand du Guesclin

By William E. Welsh

One month after the disastrous French defeat at Poitiers in September 1356, a large English army besieged Rennes in eastern Brittany. Read more

Soldiers

Narses the Eunuch

By Peter L. Boorn

On January 18, ad 532, a 54-year-old eunuch by the name of Narses, described by Agathias, a contemporary chronicler, as “small in stature and of abnormal thinness,” entered alone into the Hippodrome of Constantinople carrying a bag of gold. Read more

Soldiers

King Pepin the Short

By William E. Welsh

An event of great significance in early medieval Europe occurred in 753, when newly ensconced Pope Stephen II decided to journey north to Metz to confer with Frankish King Pepin III (known as “The Short”). Read more

Soldiers

Boer General Jacobus De La Rey

By William E. Welsh

In the early weeks of the Second Boer War, General Jacobus Hercules De La Rey suggested a way to overhaul the tactics of his fellow Boers in a way that would prove devastating to his British opponents. Read more

Soldiers

American Tank Ace Lafayette Pool

By Christopher Miskimon

A column of American M-4 Sherman medium tanks moved through Dison, Belgium, in late summer 1944, near the city of Liege. Read more

Soldiers

World War II’s Most Daring U-boat Attack

By Alexander Zakrzewski

On the evening of October 13, 1939, sailors aboard the British battleship HMS Royal Oak had no reason to believe they were in danger of anything other than cold and boredom. Read more

Soldiers

Outnumbered Green Berets Defend Camp Nam Dong

By William E. Welsh

Special Forces Team A-726 had been out on patrol far from the unit’s camp at Nam Dong on the night of Friday, July 3, 1964, when radiomen back at the A team camp received an ominous warning from the field. Read more

Soldiers

Colonel William O. Darby and the U.S. Army Rangers

By William E. Welsh

On the morning of Friday, February 18, 1944, fresh groups of German panzergrenadiers backed by tanks swept south from their defensive positions at Anzio and overran American forward positions at Aprilia, eight miles north of the landing beaches. Read more

Soldiers

Marine Sergeant Mitchell Paige: Valor on Guadalcanal

By William E. Welsh

As the 33 men of his machine-gun platoon set up their four s along the ridge facing south toward a jungle-shrouded ravine on Guadalcanal where the Japanese were massing for an attack on the evening of October 25, 1942, Marine Sergeant Mitchell Paige crawled in front of their position and rigged a makeshift trip wire designed to alert his troops should Japanese forces approach their line. Read more

Soldiers

Jimmy Doolittle: The Warrior from Shangri-La

By Michael D. Hull

Shortly after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked that he would like to bomb the enemy homeland in revenge as soon as possible. Read more

Soldiers

Ancient Greek General Epaminondas

By Tim Miller

Astounding news swept through Greece in the summer of 371 bc. In Boeotia, a crossroads for armies that was usually littered with the dead of its own citizens, the invading Spartans had been beaten, and one of their two kings had been slain in battle. Read more