WHAT YOU MUST KNOW

How much training is needed to be a good soldier? It varies. Who are you receiving training from, what are you training for, and what equipment are you training with? Private Milton L. Cook fires his M-60 machine gun into an area where a Viet Cong sniper was spotted during Operation Cedar Falls. 8 January 1967. If you’re a rifleman, and you cut out all D&C, and learning how to properly make a bed and shine your boots, I’m sure you can get it done in about 3 weeks. Maybe 4, if you’re with a hard-to-maintain weapon, or if you’re a fucking dumbass. That’s definitely enough to teach you the basics: being able to hit a man-sized target at 300 meters, learning how to basically clean and repair your weapon, simple squad formations and battle tactics, how to lay booby-traps, military language, discipline, and physical fitness. The rest, you’ll learn from on-the-job training, or refine your current skills in real combat, as Roman Bartetzko said. If you’re something more “complicated” ...

What were the alleged reasons for the pogroms which took place in Poland in 1946? The pogroms that took place in Poland in 1946 were some of the worst anti-Jewish violence after the Holocaust. They were sparked by false accusations that Jews were kidnapping Christian children for ritual murder, also known as blood libel. This was an old and nasty lie that had been used to justify killing Jews for centuries. One of the most brutal pogroms happened in Kielce, a city in southeastern Poland, on July 4, 1946. A mob of Polish soldiers, police officers, and civilians attacked a building where about 180 Jewish refugees lived. They killed 42 Jews, raped some women, and wounded more than 40 others, while no one tried to stop them. The violence lasted for hours and shocked the world. The Kielce pogrom was not an isolated incident. It was part of a wave of anti-Jewish hostility that swept across Poland after the war. Many Poles resented the return of Jewish survivors who had lost eve...

What happens if you leave your army platoon during combat and run away? We had a guy in our unit who did that. I met him in his position during a firefight and he told me: “Man, I’m so scared!” Then he was gone. The funny thing is that nobody noticed his absence. We had been fighting from the early morning hours, our unit got mixed up with other units, and people constantly got lost. During WWII, approximately 50,000 US soldiers deserted from the battlefields. (Photo: NPR). I only found out that he had disappeared because he told me about it. In the evening, he confessed to me. He said that he suddenly got scared from all the artillery shelling and the bullets zipping over his head and had run away. After several kilometers, he had calmed down and realized what he had done. As it was late, he hadn’t tried to rejoin the fighting but had gone straight to our guerrilla base where I met him. What can you do with such a guy? First of all, I don't blame him too much. Soldiers...

In 1980, a woman named Jean Hilliard in rural north western Minnesota, was involved in a car accident which resulted in car failure in sub-zero temperatures. She walked to a friend's house 2 miles away and collapsed 15 feet outside of the door. Temperatures dropped to −22 °F (−30 °C) and she was found "frozen stiff" at 7 a.m. after six hours in the cold. She was transported to Fosston Hospital where doctors said her skin was too hard to pierce with a hypodermic needle and her body temperature was too low to register on a thermometer. Her face was ashen and her eyes were solid with no response to light. Her pulse was slowed to approximately 12 beats per minute. She was wrapped in an electric blanket. The miraculous thing that happened was, 49 days after she was admitted, she was discharged from the hospital with no permanent damage to the brain or body besides frostbite. Some people might be wondering how this was possible, but scientists explained this : There'...

Why was there little to no crime in Nazi Germany? Discussing the crime rate at home while millions were deported and killed in the name of Germany is absolutely ridiculous. But this issue is brought up by so many Nazi-Admirers, that it’s time to take a closer look. Let me put two things first: The Nazis used to pride themselves on their “zero tolerance” regarding crime, particularly "no questions asked and short work done". You may catch and imprison more “bad guys”, but you also wrongly imprison many "The good guys" which are never mentioned in crime statistics. Subtract the “false positives” from the “positives” (the rightfully incarcerated minus the innocent incarcerated), to get an idea of the quality of law enforcement. Going on a hunt: An Ss- or SA-member (“Stormtrooper”) was added to every police patrol to make sure, political opponents received the right treatment. The Incarceration-Rate skyrocketed. The Nazis expanded the grounds for imprisoning pe...

Recent videos of an abandoned leopard 2a4 in robotyne, Ukraine clearly showed charred remains of the crew members while the tank appeared undamaged from the outside. What is the explanation for this kind of destruction? That's not unusual. A penetrating hit can sometimes be quite unimpresive on the outside, but the effects inside can be devastating. This is especially common for shaped charge warheads. The actual hole on the outside could be as small as your finger with a distinctive star shaped splash pattern around it: Impacts of a 57mm RCL on an M113, showing the distinctive pattern of a shaped charge. The hit which penetrated the vehicle could have been somewhere you couldn't see, such as on top or underneath the tank.. They already are for millions of people. There are no major changes required, just incremental improvements like we've seen the last ten years or so. Lower cost and longer range won't hurt. I find where I live there are plenty of chargers, ...

Why do soldiers still learn to march even though that it’s not practical in actual combat? Because you still need to be able to move large bodies of troops quickly and efficiently: Try moving a bunch of civilians from point A to point B some time. People will dawdle, wander off, get lost, etc.  It'll take ages and they'll need herding and lots of shouting. I'm constantly amazed what a shit show getting 50 civilians to move even 100m can be. If you've got a body of military personnel a single leader can move hundreds of people any distance you like quickly and easily.  The military need to do this all the time. It's actually by far the most useful thing you learn drill for. It may not be used in battle, but it's a super practical military skill. No. NASA and the military are SpaceXs biggest customers.  It's been NASA and military launch contracts which built SpaceX into what it is today. Without those contacts SpaceX world have failed years ago. NASA are not ...

Human Chimney Sweeps: Did you know that there’s a terrible chapter in the history of chimney sweeps? Children were widely used as human chimney sweeps in England for about 200 years, and the lives of these little ones who were forced to climb chimneys were the stuff of nightmares. The prominence of using small children as chimney sweeps began after the Great Fire of London, which occurred September 2nd through 5th, 1666. The medieval City of London was gutted in the fire; and afterwards, new building regulations designed to keep the city safer were put in place. Fireplaces had to be built a certain way, with narrower chimneys; and it became more important to ensure that the chimneys were free of obstruction after a liberal amount of usage. This is when the shocking use and abuse of children as chimney sweeps became widespread. A young boy was traditionally purchased from his poverty-stricken parents by a master sweep, who would so-called “apprentice” the child; but what actually...

Could Russia easily subdue Britain if it wanted? Even if you put both countries next to each other with a land only border ie removed the sea and the fact the UK Navy would sink the Russian Navy in days or maybe hours, you then removed nuclear weapons and any outside help what would happen? There would be a numerically superior Russian army which would be annihilated by the better equipped, trained, more powerful air force, better moral, logistics, tactics, spirit, intelligence, leadership, etc of the UK forces. Add to this they would probably have to come through Scotland and the North of England whose people would be a huge challenge on top of the military. No the Russians could not defeat the UK in any conflict. Edit update: I assume due to the number of responses / likes this answer has been flagged up to some of the Russian / Trolls groups. I am receiving many stupid troll answers that are rude, incorrect or sinister. Additionally some people obviously do not read well or hav...

How do soldiers cope with the poor quality food while being deployed in combat zones for long periods of time? In my day in the field and combat zones like War Zone C Tay Ninh Province or War Zone D Long Khanh Province in III Corps, Vietnam, food was in cans called C Rations. There were breakfasts, lunches, dinners, cakes, fruit, crackers jam and cheese; all in cans you had to open up with a small can opener called a P-38 that was carried on your dog tag chain. There was no coping. You either ate what there was or went hungry. Some of the c rations were good, some were bad. The cans of fruit were like gold. You ate the can of rations you liked. Today, they are in stores called Chef Boy R Dee spaghetti and meatballs, Dinty Moore Stew, chopped ham, and fruit cocktail, peach halves or pears. Tankers never touched the canned apricots though; bad luck. They were not poor quality, they weren’t great either but hey, when your hungry, you have to eat right? As I said, some were very good an...

On this day 4th November 1943, German POW, Johannes Kunze was murdered at Camp Tonkawa, Oklahoma, USA. Johannes Kunze (March 5, 1904 - November 4, 1943) was a German World War II prisoner of warq (POW) held at Camp Tonkawa, Oklahoma. He was a Gefreiter in the Afrika Korps. Following a trial before a kangaroo court on November 4, 1943, he was beaten to death by fellow POWs for being a traitor. There was evidence that Kunze had indeed been spying for the Americans. According to the POWs who killed Kunze, The discovery of Kunze happened by accident: he had been in the habit of passing notes to the American doctor at the camp during sick call. Who would then turn them over to the camp authorities. These notes provided his captors with useful information regarding the activities of various POWs in the camp, some of whom were loyal Nazis and therefore could create problems for the Americans. One day a new American doctor was on duty who did not know about Kunze's role as spy and who cou...

On this day 12th May 1945:Australian Corporal John Mackey destroyed three machine gun nests at Tarakan, Borneo, that had been holding up his comrades. Many Japanese were killed or forced to retreat, but Corporal Mackey would pay the ultimate price for his bravery. Posthumously he was awarded the Victoria Cross. Corporal Mackey was in charge of a section of the 2/3rd Australian Pioneer Battalion in the attack on the feature known as Helen, east of Tarakan town. Led by Corporal Mackey the section moved along a narrow spur with scarcely width for more than one man when it came under fire from three well-sited positions near the top of a very steep, razor-backed ridge. The ground fell away almost sheer on each side of the track making it almost impossible to move to a flank so Corporal Mackey led his men forward. He charged the first Light Machine-Gun position but slipped and after wrestling with one enemy, bayoneted him, and charged straight on to the Heavy Machine-Gun which was firi...

What is the coolest obscure historical fact you know? Though it wasn't written law but rather a norm that British officers serving in India were not given public office. Responsibility upon their return to England. The logic was that they ruled a slave nation, which must have made a difference in their attitude and behavior.  If they are given such a responsibility here, he will treat free British citizens in the same way. To understand this, read the sentence given below: A British woman whose husband was a civil service officer in Pakistan and India during British rule.  The woman spent many years of her life in different parts of India. On his return she wrote a beautiful book based on her memoirs. The woman wrote that when my husband was the deputy commissioner of a district, my son was about four years old and my daughter was one year old.  We lived in a mansion built on several acres, which was owned by the Deputy Collector. Hundreds of people were engaged in the se...

This is the last photo ever taken of Belgian multimillionaire Alfred Loewenstein, once the third-richest man in the world. After boarding his private plane at England's Croydon Airport on July 4, 1928, he simply vanished in the middle of the flight. While the plane was cruising 4,000 feet above the English Channel, Loewenstein's crew suddenly noticed that he was missing and quickly discovered that he had apparently opened the rear door of the plane and simply walked right through it. After making an emergency landing, the whole crew was questioned by French authorities and insisted that Loewenstein was in no way śuiciᶁal — and that he must have mistaken the exit of his own plane for the bathroom door. However, aviation authorities concluded that such an accident would have been impossible. For one thing, the powerful winds at Loewenstein's altitude would have made the door immediately slam shut behind him, yet it had not. Still, his dḛath was ruled an accident. But to t...

Before a judge took pity on him and suspended his sentence 20 year-old Nick Nolte was convicted for selling counterfeit draft cards and sentenced to 45 years, 1961 Nintendo's original headquarters, Kyoto Japan, 1889. Nintendo, originally known as Marufuku Nintendo Card Co., was founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi in 1889. Yamauchi initially ran a company called Haiko, which specialized in cement. He was adopted as an adult by his boss Naoshichi Yamauchi, a common practice in Japan to ensure family businesses could continue even without a biological son. Nintendo remained a family business until the retirement of Fusajiro's great-grandson Hiroshi Yamauchi in 2002. The company began by producing traditional Japanese playing cards called 'hanafuda,' with each card being hand-crafted and painted. Nintendo later expanded to include Western playing cards as well. The company became the first Japanese company to successfully manufacture and sell Western-style playing cards. In...

“During World War 2, U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Maynard "Snuffy" Smith was so undisciplined as a soldier that he was late for his own Medal of Honor ceremony.....”“ Smith was known to be cantankerous, attitudinal, and did not take well to military discipline, so he was in trouble a lot. But then during a bombing raid over France in 1943, Smith's B-17 (on which he served as ball-turret gunner, so, maybe part of the reason for his attitude, or vice-versa) took several direct hits that ruptured the fuel tanks and cause a massive fireball that blew out pieces of the fuselage. Two crewmen were seriously wounded, and three bailed out of the crippled aircraft (they were never found). While the pilot struggled to keep the plane in the air, Smith was everywhere at once: he tended the badly wounded men WHILE fighting off enemy fighters with the waist-guns WHILE trying to put out the fire. And when all the fire extinguishers on board were empty, Smith finally got the fi...

Meet Captain Billy Moss MC (left), and Major Paddy Fermor DSO (right). Two batshit crazy SOE officers, who dressed up as Germans, snuck onto Crete, kidnapped a general, and escaped by riding mules to the sea because, why not? Billy at the outbreak of war had been  travelling around Latvia. Around the same time, Paddy was a well-read but destitute author who decided to walk from Holland to Istanbul. Yes, walk.  Along the way, he stopped to fight with Macedonian royalists during the 1935 republican coup attempt, and met a Greek noblewoman who became his lover. September 1939 saw both men immediately head back to the motherland. Billy snuck his way up to Sweden, and bumming his way into a ship back to the UK. Paddy immediately set for home, leaving behind the love of his life. Billy enlisted in the Coldstream Guards, and would see significant action as an infantry officer during the North Africa campaign prior to joining the SOE. Paddy joined the Irish Guards, and was quickly com...

#OTD in 1945, 70 years ago, the  #OSS was dissolved.Office of Strategic Services: America’s First Intelligence Agency. Before World War II, the US Government left the business of collecting and disseminating intelligence to American foreign-policy experts and elements of the armed services. America’s entry into the war following the intelligence failure of Pearl Harbor led to the establishment of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on 13 June 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed William J. Donovan, a highly decorated World War I officer, as Director of the OSS. Donovan organized the OSS to reflect his vision of a national intelligence center, uniquely combining research and analysis, covert operations, counterintelligence, espionage, and technical development—core missions of today’s Central Intelligence Agency. Donovan’s Research and Analysis Branch, cornerstone of the OSS, made significant contributions to the Allied victory.  Staffed by some of the best minds ...

Siegfried 'Kongo' Müller, the Wehrmacht man who became a mercenary in the Congo... 36 years ago today in 1983, the former soldier of the Third Reich and officer of Mad Mike Hoare’s mercenary commando in the Congo, Siegfried “Kongo” Müller, died of stomach cancer in Boksburg, Johannesburg.  Though not as successful a mercenary as the likes of Hoare or Denard, Müller became a popular figure of some renown back home in both the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR, the latter using him as the object of propaganda to depict West Germany as a neo-colonial state. (Müller pictured with traditional weaponry and wearing his Iron Cross).  Müller was born in 1920 in Crossen an der Oder, a city on the eastern frontier of Brandenburg and the Weimar Republic.  Though little is known of his childhood days growing up in the Weimar Republic except that at the age of eleven in 1931 he joined the youth branch of the Stahlhelm League, a militarist, monarchist and nationalist organization ...

FROM MONTFORD POINT TO VIETNAM: In honor of #BlackHistoryMonth, the Veterans Legacy Program (VLP) honors the remarkable life and legacy of Edgar R. Huff. The first African American in Marine Corps history to be promoted to the rank of Sergeant Major. Born in Alabama in 1919, Huff joined the Corps in 1942, making him a member of the renowned Montford Point Marines. After service in the Pacific Theater, Huff went on to serve as Gunnery Sergeant with the 1st Marine Division in Korea. He became the first Black Sergeant Major in the history of the US Marine Corps in 1955. Huff later served two tours in Vietnam. During the Tet Offensive, Sergeant Major Huff was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with combat ‘‘V’’ for valor for saving the life of his radio operator. Despite decades of enduring injustice and mistreatment due to his skin color, Huff would later remark: “I never let any of these things make me prejudice right back. Especially in combat. Especially in Vietnam. I am the sergeant ...

A group of shoe shine boys gather around an old Civil War veteran to listen to his war stories, 1935. The Civil War veteran in the photograph is wearing the cap of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), which was the largest Union veterans' organization founded in 1866. The number on his cap indicates that he belonged to Post 139, located in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This prize-winning amateur photograph from the 1935 Newspaper National Snapshot Awards was taken by Mrs. Nathan Klein of Wyoming, Pennsylvania. The caption on the back of the photo reads: "Old soldier talking to bootblacks." Many Civil War veterans lived long lives. In fact, around 1,800 veterans attended the 75th reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1938, with an average age of about 95. According to the National Civil War Museum, the last documented Civil War soldier, Albert H. Woolson from Minnesota, passed away in 1956.

On this day 27th December 1942.The Germans form the Smolensk Committee to persuade Soviet POWs to fight for the Axis powers. From the beginning of the war, the German officer corps, most of whom who did not share Hitler’s racist theories, had plans to recruit Russian soldiers to its cause, and the recruiters were amazed at how easy it was, even after Hitler declared that since Stalin did not recognize the Geneva Convention, Russian soldiers would not be granted POW status. According to Hitler and other top Nazis, they were subhuman anyway. Of the 5,754,000 Russians taken prisoner after 1941, only 1,150,000 survived until 1945. Given the brutality of the Germans, it seems incomprehensible that so many were still ready to don German uniforms, pick up German rifles, and go forth to do battle against Stalin. To call them traitors strains the credibility of even the most prominent statesman. Indeed, they loved their country. It was their government they hated. Just 60 days after the beg...

During World War II, the United States held 400,000 Axis prisoners of war in some 500 POW camps. Some of these camps were located in the Midwest and Great Plains areas, but the majority were in the South and Southwest. Despite the large number of prisoners and the relatively lax security at many of the work sites that employed them, very few of the POWs tried to escape.  Only 2,222 of the Axis POWs, fewer than one percent, ever attempted a breakout, according to Smithsonian — and most who did escape were quickly recaptured. The most notorious escape occurred during the evening of Dec. 23, 1944 when 25 German POWs made their way through a tunnel they had dug out of the Camp Papago Park, a prison compound in a desert park outside of Phoenix, Arizona.  The escape became known as “The Great Papago Escape” — and for a brief moment it captured the American public’s imagination. Camp Papago Park began accepting prisoners in 1943 and eventually housed 3,100 German soldiers and officer...