Obscure American history trivia

Oooh. That was smooth.

Bet it frustrated the shit out of anyone who tried to cheat, too.

 

If a soldier has the Medal, everything else is just window dressing.

 

In this poor guy's case, the next 50 years were spent in a bottle until he put a round into his own brain pan.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison_Seeley

 

If you were there, it rides with you every day. One of my uncles crawled into a bottle that way. Wasn't a bullet but it killed him just the same.

My dad commanded an Army infantry company in the hedgerow country in Normandy. He went in at D plus 18, something like that, and played tag with the German paratroopers.

The only time I ever heard him*really* talk about combat was when we were in a little diner in Lyons, Georgia. He told a couple of stories about army life, and a woman sitting nearby heard him mention his unit. She asked if he knew a guy, named him. There were several guys in the company who were from there and he was one of them, as was my father. He was killed in combat under his command. He went to her table and sat and talked very quietly and told her the exact circumstances of her father's death.

He didn't talk about it. Funny stuff, war stories, yeah, sure, but he never talked about the sharp end. He just carried it around with him, every day, as many of them do.

 

The general rule of thumb with veterans is the more a guy talks about what he did, the less he did. He'll share stories about people and silly stuff until the cows come home. Action, not so much.

I didn't do much worth talking about. I went to sea with some really good men.

 

The sheer coincidence of her being there and hearing him blew dad's mind. "I had no idea. If I''d had a single clue she was there I never would have even opened my damn mouth."

He was shook afterward.

 

Charles Whittlesey, the man who commanded the "Lost Battalion" jumped off a steamer headed for Havana about three years after the war ended.

New York Giants infielder Eddie Grant was killed trying to rescue that ill-fated group. Grant and Whittlesey were Harvard Law School classmates.

Great story on Eddie Grant:

When Major Leaguer Eddie Grant Made the Ultimate Sacrifice | Smithsonian (smithsonianmag.com)

 

Name the four presidents to issue 1,000 or more executive orders during their presidency.

 

Off the top of my head, I would guess FDR is one of them due to his lengthy tenure and his New Deal programs.

 

Other three guesses: Truman, LBJ and Reagan.

 

FDR is No. 1 by a country mile, with 3,721.

No on the other three, though Truman came close with 907.