ARLINGTON CEMETERY
Fascinating. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

1. How many steps does the guard take during his 
walk across the tomb of the Unknowns 
and why?
 21 steps   :  It alludes to the twenty-one gun salut which is the 
highest honor given any military or foreign dignitary.
 
2.  How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return 
walk and why?
 21  seconds for the same reason as answer number 1
 
3. Why are his gloves wet?
His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the rifle.
 
4.  Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time and ,
if not, why not?
He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb. After his march

across the path, he executes an about face and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder.
 
5. 
How often are the guards changed?
 Guards are changed every thirty minutes, 
twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a 
year.
 
6.   
What are the physical traits of the guard 
limited to?
 For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he  must be 
between 5' 10' and 6' 2' tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30.

They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb,

and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty for the rest of their lives. They cannot swear in public

for the rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform or the tomb in any way.

After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on their lapel signifying they 
served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400 presently worn. The guard must obey 
these rules for the rest of their lives or give up the wreath pin.

The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. 
There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as 
they come to a halt.

There are no  wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty in front of a full-length 
mirror.

The first six months of duty a  guard cannot talk to anyone nor watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery .
A guard must memorize who they are and where they are interred. Among the notables are:

President Taft,  Joe Lewis {the boxer}Medal of Honor winner Audie L. Murphy, the most 
decorated soldier of WWII and of Hollywood fame.

Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniforms ready for guard duty..   
ETERNAL REST GRANT THEM O LORD AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM.

In  2003 as Hurricane Isabelle was approaching Washington ,DC , our 
US Senate/House took 2 days off with anticipation of the storm. On the ABC 
evening news, it was reported that because of the dangers from the hurricane, the military 
members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were given permission 
to suspend the assignment. The respectfully declined the offer, "No way,  Sir!" Soaked to the skin, 
marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they said that guarding the Tomb was not just an assignment,
 it was the highest honor that can be  afforded to a service person. The tomb has been patrolled 
continuously, 24/7, since 1930.

God   
Bless and keep them.
 .

Children of the Greatest Generation

        People born between 1930 and 1945 belong to a very special age group. They belong to the smallest generation of children born since the early 1900s. They belong to the generation and the period in human history of the greatest and the most rapid explosion of human knowledge and change & progress in technology. The greatest number of human inventions and innovations occurred and are the products of people who were born and raised during the so-called “greatest generation”. And since the 1950s up to the present, the world has been enjoying and reaping the benefits of the ingenuity and the work of men and women of the greatest generation.
         They are the last generation of children to climb out of the Great Depression, and who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of daily life in the world for years.
         They are the last generation of children to see the “gold stars” on the front windows of neighborhood houses where a family member [brother, father &/or son] was killed in the war.
         They are the last generation of children to remember ration books for gasoline, shoes, stoves, sugar, etc.
        They are the last generation of children to grow up with NO television.
        They are the last generation of children who were spared the graphic images and pictures of cruelty and ugliness in the world because there was NO television.
        They are the last generation of children who only created mental images in the mind [imagined] what they heard on the radio or read in the newspapers.
         They are the last generation of children whose main entertainment was going to Saturday afternoon movies which consisted of short newsreels sandwiched between cartoons and westerns.
        They are the last generation of children who saw many cars up on blocks because tires were not available.
        They are the last generation of children who remember milk being delivered to and placed in a milk box on the porch of neighborhood houses.
         They are the last generation of children to have only one telephone per house which hung on the wall and was connected to one telephone line for the entire neighborhood and was shared by everyone [party lines], and a live telephone operator had to “dial the number” of the person that one wanted to contact.
         They are the last generation of children when a computer was a hand-cranked “adding machine”, and a keyboard was called “typewriter” which had a “carriage” which had to be manually pushed to the left to start a new line of a text, a “roller” to feed paper and/or to roll the paper up or down, and a “ribbon” reel which had to also be manually changed when it got torn from overuse.
         They are the last generation of children to whom the word(s): Internet and Google did not exist, and the word gay meant “happy” --- NOT a homosexual male.
        They are the last generation of children when the news was originally broadcast on radio in the evening only.
        They are the first generation of children to see the arrival of atomic age, the jet age, and the space age.
        They are the first generation of children to hear of/witness the start of: "Red China" the "Cold War"; the "Iron Curtain"; the spread of Communism/Socialism.
       People born between 1930 and 1945 became: the new adolescents & teenagers of the early and mid-1950s; the new young adults & parents of the late-1950s through the 1970s.
        They are the generation to begin saving tin foil and pouring used or left-over fat/oil into tin cans.
         They are the generation who, in spite of the Great Depression and the wars, threw themselves into exploring opportunities, creating &/or discovering the advantages of the: credit card and installment payment plan; factories and assembly, manufacturing & processing plants which created jobs; freeways and highways which improved mobility and created more jobs; radio/TV network which expanded from 1 television channel and 3 radio stations to hundreds -- if not thousands – of channels & stations.
        The last generation to experience an interlude with no threats to homeland USA.
         The last & only generation to experience and live through life in between: times of abundance, bright promise, prosperity & security; --and-- times of war & strife.
        They are the only generation "to see the boys come home" (dead or alive) from almost all of the world's major wars of: the 20th century -- e.g., World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War; --and-- the 21st century -- e.g., the Kuwait War, the Afghanistan-Iraq War (the War on Terrorism).
        Majority of those born during the greatest generation are now either fully retired or deceased.

GO TO EVENTS TO SEE HOW WE HONORED THE GREATEST GENERATION

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This page is for misc. military  information, jokes and what ever. Feel free to submit what you think may be of interest to your fellow comrades. Use form on the bottom right.

Military Humor

     The USS Constitution (Old Ironsides), as a combat vessel, carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (i.e. fresh water distillers).
     However, let it be noted that according to her ship's log, "On July 27, 1798, the USS Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum."
Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."
     Making Jamaica on October 6, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum.
     Then she headed for the Azores, arriving there November 12. She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.
     On November 18, she set sail for England. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchant ships, salvaging only the rum aboard each.
     By January 26, her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless, although unarmed she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured a whisky distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then she headed home.
     The USS Constitution arrived in Boston on February 20, 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whisky, and 38,600 gallons of water.

GO NAVY!

​The ​Youngest To Serve

In May of 1861, 9 year old John Lincoln "Johnny" Clem ran away from his home in Newark, Ohio, to join the Union Army, but found the Army was not interested in signing on a 9 year old boy when the commander of the 3rd Ohio Regiment told him he "wasn't enlisting infants," and turned him down. Clem tried the 22nd Michigan Regiment next, and its commander told him the same. Determined, Clem tagged after the regiment, acted out the role of a drummer boy, and was allowed to remain. Though still not regularly enrolled, he performed camp duties and received a soldier's pay of $13 a month, a sum collected and donated by the regiment's officers.
The next April, at Shiloh, Clem's drum was smashed by an artillery round and he became a minor news item as "Johnny Shiloh, The Smallest Drummer". A year later, at the Battle Of Chickamauga, he rode an artillery caisson to the front and wielded a musket trimmed to his size. In one of the Union retreats a Confederate officer ran after the cannon Clem rode with, and yelled, "Surrender you damned little Yankee!" Johnny shot him dead. This pluck won for Clem national attention and the name "Drummer Boy of Chickamauga."
Clem stayed with the Army through the war, served as a courier, and was wounded twice. Between Shiloh and Chickamauga he was regularly enrolled in the service, began receiving his own pay, and was soon-after promoted to the rank of Sergeant. He was only 12 years old. After the Civil War he tried to enter West Point but was turned down because of his slim education. A personal appeal to President Ulysses S. Grant, his commanding general at Shiloh, won him a 2nd Lieutenant's appointment in the Regular Army on 18 December 1871, and in 1903 he attained the rank of Colonel and served as Assistant Quartermaster General. He retired from the Army as a Major General in 1916, having served an astounding 55 years.
General Clem died in San Antonio, Texas on 13 May 1937, exactly 3 months shy of his 86th birthday, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

A humble history lesson for all of us!   Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
 
      Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.  
     Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
      Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
      They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
      What kind of men were they?
      Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
     Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships  swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts and died in rags.
     Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
     Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
      At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
      Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
      John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his grist mill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning  home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price the paid.

     Remember freedom is never free! I hope you will show your support by sending this to as many people as you can, please. It's time we get the word out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the  Fourth of July  has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games.  

 

INTERESTING HOW SAVING PRIVATE RYAN WAS MADE
We just witnessed the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.   " Saving Private Ryan” was perhaps the most memorable graphic re-creation and representation of the event.  Here are some interesting facts about the making of the movie….

Steven Spielberg shot "Saving Private Ryan" In chronological order because he wanted it to be a demoralizing experience

By the end of Saving Private Ryan, the cast looks completely physically and mentally drained, and it's not just because they're really good actors. Before Ryan, Spielberg hadn't shot a film in order since E.T. (1982). He explained that he filmed in that unconventional style for E.T. because he wanted the child actors, many of whom had never appeared in a movie before, to understand exactly where they were going in the story. 

For Saving Private Ryan, he decided to once again film the movie in order. Unfortunately, he had no idea just how traumatic it would be for the cast. "I didn't realize how devastating that was going to be for the whole cast to actually start off with Omaha Beach and survive that as a film team, and then move into the hedgerows, move into the next town, as we all began to get whittled down by the storytelling.”

Spielberg required the principle cast of the film to participate in a seven-day boot camp in order to get a true taste for the hardship of military life. Despite what you might think, the actors were not given preferential treatment. The boot camp leader, Captain Dale Dye (an army advisor and war veteran), pushed the actors to the limits of their physical endurance.

Their days were filled with push ups, constantly getting screamed at, six mile runs, and scarce food supplies. This left many of the actors vomiting from exhaustion, shivering from the cold, and on the edge of a mental breakdown. Dye's company Warriors Incorporated also worked on Platoon, Outbreak, and Forrest Gump, in an effort to remove "the phoniness" from war movies. 

The actors who took part in the boot camp included: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Jeremy Davies, Vin Diesel, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg and Giovanni Ribisi. Ed Burns, who called boot camp the worst experience of his life, described the training environment. "We get there, we set up our tents, and it starts raining and it doesn't stop raining for seven days. It is 30 degrees at night and you are in a soaking wet tent, a soaking wet uniform, with a soaking wet blanket wrapped around you."
 
The entire principal cast were required to take part in six days of rigorous army training. That is, everyone except for Matt Damon. In the film, the solders resent Damon's character, Private Ryan, for making them go behind enemy lines to save him. In order to bring that resentment to the big screen, Damon was intentionally left out of training (he did later train with other paratroopers in his "unit”).

"I wasn't invited to the boot camp," Damon explained. "It was a great ploy on Steven's part because what it did, since the film is about these eight guys who are looking for one guy, they are risking their lives for this one guy and a resentment breeds among them for this one guy. The boot camp couldn't help but foster a kernel of resentment, because while they are sleeping face down in the rain they were well aware that I was at home in bed. So, by the time I show up on set and flippantly ask, 'Hey, guys how was boot camp?', that resentment is right there. It created that separation." Honestly, it's kind of a shock that they're not all constantly punching him in the face. 

Actual amputees were used as extras during the opening scene (D-Day) to make all the war injuries as gruesomely realistic as possible. "We had somewhere between 20 and 30 amputees and paraplegics who worked with us, creating very realistic scenes where we could use effects to make it look like soldiers were losing limbs. Some might say it was an insensitive approach, but they all did it with great enthusiasm," said associate producer Mark Huffam. The dismembered limbs were fake. 

The Omaha Beach Sequence Was Filmed In Ireland.  Steven Spielberg and his crew went to incredible lengths to make the beaches of Curracloe in Wexford, Ireland look nearly identical to the beaches in Normandy on D-Day. Wexford was selected because of its white sandy beaches, which resembled the Omaha landing beach. Several local Irish men were granted roles as extras. In order to add to the realism of the film, Spielberg used Irish Army Reservists who knew how to act like solders.
So why travel all the up to Ireland to film, especially considering that other scenes in the movie were actually shot in France? Irish author Annette J. Dunlea, who grew up visiting the white sandy beaches of Curracloe, offers an explanation:
"There were some concerns that recreating the scenes in their original location might be in bad taste. It is clear once you’ve visited the area that this isn’t just a place that people visit for the anniversary of the landings every June 6th. All year-round veterans, descendants, historians and school children visit the area to reflect and pay tribute to the forces who lost their lives there. 
  

​ Media VFW Post 3460