Mike the site is great. Well constructed and very professional. I have read most of your stories already. I especially identified with it on the one about your Da Nang divert to Chu Lai. I was with the initial Troops and SeaBees that made the landing in first few days of May '65. We initial opened a 3800 ft aluminum runway closer in to the encampment. As the laterite clay would erode from the pounding the SeaBees just kept laying it so that it reached a total length of 8000 ft. As soon as the la… Continue

In 1959 the U.S. Navy commissioned the first of six large aircraft carriers. At this time they were the largest in the world. The first Super Carrier was the USS Forrestal (CV-59), followed by the Saratoga (CV-60), Ranger (CV-61), Independence (CV-62), Kitty Hawk (CV-63), and the last of the group, the USS Constellation (CV-64). Measuring over one thousand feet in length and carrying over 80 aircraft, these ships were 25 percent larger than World War II carriers.

Built, launched and commissione… Continue

A student at the U.S. Naval Academy is called a Midshipman. The term is derived from the Royal Navy where the most junior officers, although not commissioned, were called Midshipmen because they were normally stationed amidship, the middle of the ship. At the U.S.Military Academy and the U.S.Air Force Academy the students are called Cadets. That term comes from England’s Royal Army and Air Force. Ironically, students at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy, a maritime school, are called Cadets, not Mid… Continue

According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary the term manifest means:
Adjective
1 : readily perceived by the senses
2 : easily understood or recognized by the mind: OBVIOUS

And the term destiny means:
Noun
1 : something to which a person or thing is destined: FORTUNE
2 : a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency: synonyms see FATE

The Mirriam Webster definition of Manifest Destiny is:
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized M&D
: a future event a… Continue

In 1933 John O’Hara wrote his most famous novel, Appointment in Samarra.
In the prologue to the book there is an introduction by the Englishman W Somerset Maugham. It is entitled…
Death Speaks:

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a women in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She look… Continue