Between the two World Wars, America’s Army manned sleepy outposts around the world with few troops, outdated equipment and uncertain missions.
Then a colonel at the service’s Infantry School, George C. Marshall, recognized these problems, but was in no position to fix them. He could, however, make the Army think about them.
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The Russian roulette scene from “The Deer Hunter” film was meant as a metaphor for the war in Vietnam. Its message was that by sending troops to Southeast Asia, the U.S. was playing a “game” just as senseless and fatal. Regardless of what one thinks of the Vietnam War, no one would suggest that a Russian roulette foreign policy makes sense.
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Back then, $1 billion was big money. Yet, the Military Aviation Appropriations Act of 1917 and two subsequent bills passed with almost no debate. It was virtually a blank check to buy an air armada to fight World War I. The New York Times hailed the legislation, predicting that America would have “such an air fleet as the world has never known.” The battlefield skies would be flooded with thousands of American planes.
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Most thought that, if they could just get to the shore alive, the war would be won quickly.
They were wrong. After the successful landing on D-Day, Allied troops were soon bogged down in bloody bocage fighting among the hedgerows and berms lining Normandy’s fields.
Sure, the Army brass knew the hedgerows were there. But they never gave much thought to training or equipping troops for hedgerow fighting.
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America’s only nuclear-powered commercial ship sits in Baltimore harbor. It has not sailed in decades and likely never will again. That is what happens when a president cannot make up his mind.
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Downtown New Orleans teemed with heroes last week.
At the corner of Poydras and O'Keefe, a camera crew filmed a scene for "The Green Lantern." Scheduled for release in 201l, the film chronicles the exploits of the superhero crime fighter whose superpowers derive from a ring energized by an ancient Chinese lantern.
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It's 2021 -- 10 years on, the Kabul Declaration of 2011 isn't looking so good.
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Kenneth Feinberg specializes in tragedy.
In the wake of 9/11, the attorney general asked him to manage the Victim Compensation Fund set up by Congress. He chose who would get compensated, and how much money they would get. His firm did all the work pro bono. Feinberg did not bill anyone.
That alone was a remarkable service. He did so well, in fact, that after the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech, he was called in again.
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Aug. 29, 2005. It was the worst of times.
At 6:10 a.m., Katrina made landfall near Buras-Triumph, La., winds howling at 125 miles an hour. Within hours, it destroyed or degraded most of infrastructure in a 90,000-square-mile area and disrupted the lives of millions.
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John Forbes Nash Jr. had a beautiful mind. Ron Howard said so.
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