Mac Caltrider

Aug 10, 2023 | coffeeordie.com | Mac Caltrider

Jonny Kim in a high-altitude pressure suit worn in the WB-57 aircraft, which is capable of flying at altitudes over 60,000 feet. Photo by Norah Moran, courtesy of NASA/Wikimedia Commons. If there really were an award for the Most Interesting Man in the World, 39-year-old Jonny Kim would be a top contender. He’s a Navy SEAL, a medical doctor, an aviator, and a NASA astronaut. His successes are even more remarkable for all the obstacles he had to overcome to achieve them.

Jun 20, 2023 | coffeeordie.com | Mac Caltrider

On Aug. 19, 1942, 50 United States Army Rangers — a strike force of specially trained infantrymen — joined a Canadian-led amphibious assault on the Nazi-occupied French coastal town of Dieppe. The hope was that the operation, if successful, would boost troop morale and also show the Soviet Union that its Western allies were serious about fighting the Germans. Suffice it to say that the operation was a disaster. The invasion force never made it beyond the beach. Nearly 4,000 Allied troops were killed.

Jun 14, 2023 | coffeeordie.com | Mac Caltrider

Keyword Search... Keyword Search... Marines attending the Marine Corps Instructor of Water Survival course wear UDT shorts, June 19, 2015. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Lillian Stephens. Ensign Lewis Luehrs and Chief Petty Officer Bill Acheson, clad in P-42 Frogskin combat fatigues and armed with nothing except sketch pads, approached the island of Kwajalein in a small rubber boat. As they crept closer to the beach, outcroppings of sharp coral began to appear all around them.

Jun 12, 2023 | coffeeordie.com | Mac Caltrider

On the morning of July 22, 1966, a company of United States Marines snaked silently along a densely vegetated jungle trail in Vietnam’s Quang Tri province. Suddenly, machine gun fire erupted. A battalion of North Vietnamese soldiers had ambushed the lead platoon, immediately inflicting mass casualties and pinning down the survivors. Desperate cries for more firepower sounded over the radios. Lance Cpl. Richard Pittman wasted no time answering.

Jun 5, 2023 | coffeeordie.com | Mac Caltrider

When Ken Potts began his morning on Dec. 7, 1941, he expected to enjoy a day ashore, away from his duties as a sailor aboard the USS Arizona. But a few minutes before 8 a.m., he heard a disconcerting noise. What happened over the course of the next few hours not only changed his Sunday plans, it changed the trajectory of his entire life.