Chesty Puller's aide-de-camp, Lt. Norton
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rifleman
I have two in person exposures to guys who worked for up close Chesty Puller.
One was a Marine Corp. Lieut. Norton (cannot reliably recall Norton's first name) who was his aide-de-camp in Korea, after he, Lt. Norton was shot seven times and left for dead at the Yahlu Reservoir. A company of retreating Turks who had run out of ammo picked up still alive body of Lt. Norton and using bayonettes only fought their way through the Chinese surrounding them and saved Lt. Norton's life. Mr. Norton who then earned a law degree from Vanderbilt, was my Nashville, TN Woodmont Baptist Church Sunday School teacher when I was in about the 6th grade as best I can recall.
The other Marine I knew well was retired USMC Major General Big Foot Brown (Wilbert S Brown) who was a legend in the Marine Corp. Dr. Brown (he earned his incomplete from Annapolis, where he was kicked out for blowing up the Admiral's commode) BA, then his MA and PhD, all in History, also my major, at the Univeristy of Alabama where he also taught me history.
One story on General Brown (a USMC artillery school building at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma today is named after Brown). He commanded as a Brigadier General a Marine outfit sent to destroy a RR train full of US weapons and ammo abandoned by the Nationalist Chinese as Communist Chinese Army advanced along the coast of Mainland China. He was told under NO circumstances to engage the Communist Chinese Army.
However...then B/Gen. Brown while blowing up the train full of US weapons saw the approaching Communist Army, turned his men around and chased the Communist troops for miles, killing many of them.
Ordered by to the US to what he was a sure court martial, B/Gen. Brown was met at the DC area USAF base where he landed by his Uncle by Marriage, Senator John Stennis of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Commandant of the US Marine Corp, who promoted Big Foot Brown on the spot to Major General. Brown then retired from Pentagon duty a few years later.
George Singleton
BA in History and Political Science
College of A&S, Univeristy of Alabama, 1962
PS - Excuse spelling and grammar errors. George.
CORRECTION re M/Gen. Wilbert S. Brown, USMC, Ret. Dec.
CORRECTION: Colonel (06) Wilbert S. [Big Foot] Brown, USMC, was spot promoted at the DC Air Base where he landed to 07, Brigadier, following the incident in China. He was tomb stoned as an 08, Major General, USMC. My memory error. Sorry. George.
I must take exception with Steve…
First off we lean more towards dating sheep. :rolleyes:
Second, we can write poetry that has no reference to Nantucket in it. To whit:
Steve Metz, an expert on insurgents
His writing it borders on pure vents
He penned quite a book
It’s sure worth a look
To see the extent of his dissents :D
Anyways, to get back on thread
Just finished:
How Can Man Die Better: The Secrets of Isandlwana Revealed
by Col Mike Snook
Zulu Victory: The Epic of Isandlwana and the Cover-up by Ron Lock
Working through:
The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975 by David Elliott
The Battle of Ap Bac, Vietnam: They Did Everything but Learn from It by David Toczek
Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 by Mark Moyar
Kreker. Sorry, I missed this somehow when you posted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kreker
"Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam" by Mark Bowden, author of "Blackhawk Down." Am lokking for some feedback :)
Best
Read it and passed it to my son (or maybe he passed it to me -- we get confused sometimes). It's pretty good and I think fairly accurate. I was stationed in Tehran for a couple of years, still have some acquaintances from there I swap e-mails with and it seems to be pretty well on the mark. I'd recommend it.
Finished Chechen Jihad a Few Weeks Ago
That was an endurance trial. The suitcase nukes thing was the first flag. Later he briefly mentions a shoe bomber (a la Richard Reid) bringing down American Flight 587 in November of 2001. (NTSB disagrees with Bodansky.) He also glosses over the Nord Ost and Beslan hostage incidents. For a guy that makes a lot of claims about who said what and who's got nukes he doesn't cite too much in the way of sources. It wasn't quite a strategic overview, nor was it a quite a tactical outline. I kind of reminded me of reading the Old Testament: So and So begat So and So, then So and So begat So and So, repeat ad infinitum. I wanted a refund on my time when I finished. Terror at Beslan gave me a better understanding and overview of the Chechen conflict than Bodansky's 300+ page paperweight.
Robert Ludlum's Bourne Ultimatum
Milton Friedman's Free to Choose is in the queue...