Michael Foley's Blog (8)

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

The war in Vietnam lasted ten years, from 1965 to1975. During that time 58,000 Americans lost their lives fighting. That is an average of 5,800 lives per year. In 1970 there were 52,627 automobile fatalities in the United States, almost as many as were killed in the ten year war. During the worst of the war in Vietnam, there were 543,000 military personnel in that country, that year was 1969. According to the 1970 United States census, the population of the nation was 203,302,031. Do the math:… Continue

"These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father." - William Shakespeare (King Lear) This passage reminds me of a night flight with an eclipsing moon that….”portends no good to us:” Late in the afternoon of Augu… Continue

In the long history of the United States Navy, only three Navy ships have been captured by the enemy. The frigate USS Philadelphia was captured during the First Barbary War, in the Battle of Tripoli Harbor when the ship ran aground in October, 1803. The ship was subsequently burned by American sailors in Tripoli Harbor. On December 8, 1941, the river gunboat USS Wake (PR-3) was captured by Japanese forces while moored in Shanghai. The third Naval vessel to be captured was the USS Pueblo (AGER-2… Continue