Anecdote
An interesting historical story.
Anecdote
PTSD in WWII
What we label today as post-traumatic stress disorder was called “nostalgia” during the Civil War because doctors felt the condition was due to homesickness. In WWI, it was called “shell shock”. The disability was first called the “Guadalcanal Disorder” in WWII because in the first campaign of the war, the Read more
Anecdote
AMERICAN MILITARY MEDICINE IN THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE
When the US entered the war, the US Medical Department had only 1,200 doctors, by D-Day it had 50,000, including 83 women. It also ended up with 15,000 dentists and 2,000 veterinarians. Nurses rose from 1,000 to 52,000. Some drafted and enlisted men became medics (known to the troops as Read more
Anecdote
THE SOUP THAT WON THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
Dec. 29 is National Pepper Pot Day. Pepper Pot or Pepper Pot Soup came to colonial America from Africa, the West Indies, and the Caribbean. It was brought by slaves and was particularly associated with blacks in Philadelphia. These cooks made it out of a variety of ingredients. It usually Read more
Anecdote
THE STORY OF “NUTS!”
Bastogne, Belgium was surrounded on Dec. 22, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans had made it a priority to be taken. At 11:30 AM, a group of four Germans approached an American outpost under a white flag. One of them was Maj. Wagner from Gen. von Luttwitz’s Read more
Anecdote
THE WERETH 11
The 333rd Field Artillery Battalion was an African-American (“colored”) unit that landed at Utah Beach in July, 1944. It was commanded by Lt. Col. Harmon Kelsey. Kelsey was not happy with the assignment and was sure the unit would never see combat because it was incompetent blacks. He was Read more
Anecdote
OPERATION GREIF
Otto Skorzeny had a scar on his cheek from dueling while in college. He had participated in 15 duels. In 1931, he became a Nazi. After the conquest of Poland, he enlisted as a 31-year-old private in Hitler’s bodyguard. He rose to be a Lt. Col. in the SS Read more
Anecdote
“BURST OF JOY”
Robert Stirm passed away on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2025. Here is the sad story behind the famous photo of him returning from being a POW in Vietnam. “Burst of Joy” won the Pulitzer Prize for photography because it depicted the joy of a reunion and the promise that Read more
Anecdote
BOOTH SAVES LINCOLN
On a day in either 1863 or 1864, a college student was standing in a crowd on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey trying to get a ticket. He described what happened: “…The platform was about the height of the car Read more
Anecdote
G.I. JOE the PIGEON
One of the most lauded animals in WWII was a homing pigeon named G.I. Joe. He was part of the US Army Pigeon Service. During WWI. commanding general John Pershing had green lit a program to provide message-carrying pigeons to deliver messages during trench warfare. The birds were helpful Read more