Sgt. Charles H. Coolidge (US Army – ret.), Amercian badass. He was 99.
Sgt. Coolidge was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. He was the oldest living MoH recipient. (The current oldest is now Hershel W. Williams, who is 97.)
Edited to add: throwing some backlinks Lawrence’s way.
I’m just feeling very random today.
“Vintage Tiny Home on Wheels – 1976 GMC Motorhome Tour”.
I really like that form factor in a RV. I also like the fact that it has an internal shower and toilet. They don’t make these any more, but I think if i was going to adopt the RV lifestyle, I’d look for something similar to this.
Random related crankery: the GMC motorhome was also the basis for Mack Bolan’s “War Wagon” in the “Executioner” books.
Bonus #1: We did “Worker and Parasite” earlier. How about the American response?
“It’s Everybody’s Business”, a 1954 film from the US Chamber of Commerce.
Bonus #2: trolling, trolling, trolling, got to keep on trolling…
“Flugzeuge am Haken” from 1969, featuring the favorite plane of Lawrence, RoadRich, and WCD. (Yes, it is dangerously close to military history, and in German. But it’s less than three minutes long.)
Bonus #3: I swear that early in the life of this blog, I posted someone’s blog entry about their purchase of a fire truck, and what to look for when you’re buying a used fire truck. But I can’t find that post now.
“I BOUGHT A Legit FIRETRUCK From The Fire Department”.
You know, $3,000 is almost in my price range, if I wanted to mess around in a used fire truck. Then again, my local gun shop has a nice Colt Combat Commander modified by Clark Custom for $2,500, and I wouldn’t have to worry about parking the .45.
Car talk!
Great and good FotB RoadRich sent this one over: “Master Hands”, a 1936 documentary about the Chevrolet manufacturing line: “from foundry to finished vehicles”.
Not only is this another fine piece of work from the Jam Handy folks, it is also on the Library of Congress National Film Registry.
Bonus #1: “Rare 1970 Plymouth Superbird unrestored”. I was out driving to an appointment a while back, and drove past one of the local auto repair shops. This one has some interesting and exotic stuff from time to time: that day, they had a Superbird in this exact color scheme (but seemingly restored) parked out front. I don’t think it was there for repair or restoration: I think someone was showing it off, and I nearly stopped to ask permission to take a photo. But I was running behind schedule…
As I’ve said before, I’m not a Mopar guy, but there’s something about the Superbird that grabs me.
Bonus #2: I’ve done Plymouth/Chrysler. I’ve done Chevy. How about Ford?
“The Hunt for Little Red”.
Breaking news, by way of Lawrence, and only from two sources at the moment: Alcee Hastings. Miami Herald in readable form.
Gloria Henry, most famous as the mother on the “Dennis the Menace” TV series.
Ritter was best known in the U.K. in recent years for playing the family patriarch in long-running Channel 4 comedy Friday Night Dinner, but was a recognizable face across numerous films, TV shows and stage plays, landing both Olivier and Tony nominations.
After his debut performance on famed police procedural drama The Bill in 1992, Ritter starred in films such as Son of Rambow, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Quantum of Solace. Ritter was recently seen in the Sky/HBO mini-series Chernobyl portraying Anatoly Dyatlov, the supervisor who was blamed for not following safety protocols leading to the nuclear disaster, and is set to appear in upcoming WWII drama Operation Mincemeat.
Arthur Kopit, playwright. Noted here because of his most famous work: “Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad”. Among his many other works: the book for “Nine”.
Malcolm Cecil, synthesizer guy.
Military History Monday strikes again! And today I’ve got two kind of odd ones for you.
“The Small Boat Navy”, a 1968 Navy propaganda film about shallow water Navy ops in Vietnam. The odd part? This is narrated by Steve Martin Perry Mason Chief Ironside Raymond Burr.
Bonus: this is a little on the short side, and just has overlaid background music, but I wanted to include it for the odd factor. Video of test flights of the prototype two seat Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II trainer jet aircraft from the 1970s.
What’s odd about this? Two things: this is the only one of these aircraft ever built.
Thing #2: The guy flying in the second seat is…Barry Goldwater. Yes, the Senator from Arizona.
Science Sunday!
I’m thinking a little bit of space science today.
First up, a nice little historical video direct from NASA about the Mercury Control Center.
That covers Mercury. How about Gemini?
“The 12 Gemini”.
Apollo? Well, would you settle for a vintage Rocketdyne promo video on “Large Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines”, like the F1 engine used in the Saturn V?
Last one, and it is a long one. But today is Sunday. “Engineering Space: The Mighty Saturn V”.
I thought I’d dabble in some real history again today. These are also long, but it is a Saturday. Also, this is advertising to some extent: I am not getting any compensation for this, but I like the idea, and heartily endorse this product and/or event.
When war broke out in Sudan towards the end of the 19th century, Winston Churchill wanted to be there. He managed to get himself attached to the 21st Lancers: he also managed to get himself a contract to write articles about the war for one of the newspapers.
In 1899, Churchill published The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan, his second book. The original edition was an elaborately put together and illustrated two-volume set.
After becoming a member of Parliament, Churchill edited it down to one volume (and removed much of his criticism of senior officers, especially General Kitchener), and subsequent reprints have pretty much been based on the one volume abridged edition. The original two-volume edition is very rare.
“Lessons from Churchill’s ‘The River War'”, a lecture at Hillsdale College by Dr. James W. Muller .
Longer bonus: this is only a few days old, too. Dr. Muller at America’s National Churchill Museum. “Churchill This Day #7: The River War: Churchill at War on the Nile”.
The advertising portion of this: Dr. Muller has been working on a new, two volume, unabridged and annotated edition of The River War. It is currently available for pre-order from Chartwell Booksellers, the Churchill specialty bookstore (who are very nice folks), with an estimated shipping date of early to mid-June.
Today through Sunday are going to be busy, so there’s probably going to be a strong dose of random.
I haven’t done anything with food in a while, so how about a seasonally appropriate recipe?
“Erich Shows us How to Make Hasenpfeffer”.
Another version from AlmazanKitchen:
Now I know why I don’t post more food videos: I’m hungry. So let’s switch gears.
Here’s another historical video from the AT&T Tech Channel: “The Thinking Machines”.
As I generally do, I’ve set this up to skip the intro.
Travel Thursday!
In honor of the late G. Gordon Liddy, how about a tour of the Watergate Hotel?
Bonus #1: I’m kind of bending one of my own rules here, but I’m thinking of this less as military history and more as “also inspired by current events”.
The Battleship New Jersey folks put up a video the other day about transiting the Suez and Panama canals.
Bonus #2: What the heck, let’s do some more ships. From the “Great British Royal Ships” series, “RMS Queen Mary”.