Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Friday, November 11, 2011

Happy Veterans Day!

As most of you know, today's Veterans Day. A day to remember and honor the veterans that have fought for this great country's security and goals. The fact that we still stand here today is thanks to the sacrifice of the millions of servicemen that risked life and limb to secure our country's future. Hopefully, we can put ourselves out of the picture for a moment, and pay our respects to our quiet benefactors and have a private moment of silence for them.

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As a small history lesson, Veterans Day actually started out as "Armistice Day", which only celebrated the veterans of World War 1 at the time. It was first introduced on November 11, 1919 when President Woodrow Wilson first introduced "Armistice Day" as a holiday for the American people to honor it's World War 1 Veterans. However, it took almost 19 years before "Armistice Day" was proclaimed a legal holiday. What took so long?

Painting depicting the signing of the armistice with Germany.

15 years later on 1953, a humble Kansas man named Alvin King thought that it would be a better idea to honor all the veterans in history instead of just a single war's veterans. Alvin decided to begin a campaign to change Armistice Day to "All" Veterans Day. Thankfully, the Emporia Chamber of Commerce decided to support the cause after finding 90% of their Emporia merchants as well as the Board of Education willingness to close their doors on November 11 for this holiday. Only a year later on 1954, with help from U.S. Rep. Ed Rees, the bill for Veterans Day was thrown into Congress and bounced onto the President Dwight D. Eisenhower's lap. It was signed into law on May 26, 1954 and put into effect on June 1st.

So now that you know how the holiday was created and because you probably know a thing or two about American history, instead of treating this day as just another "vacation" day, let's remember the men and women that have fought and are still fighting for our past, present and future security.

Boo-yah!

Did You Know: While "Veteran's Day" and "Veterans' Day" are both grammatically acceptable, the United States government declared that "Veterans Day" shall be the official spelling.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Three Of The Best Snipers In History

Snipers are known to be stealthy marksmen that kill from long range, beyond the standard range of most personnel. Although modern games portray snipers as "camping around" and doing 360 degrees no-scope headshots, real life snipers require large amounts of skill and precision. Respecting that some games attempt to make snipers more realistic by accounting for bullet drop, wind resistance, and the concept that bullets don't travel completely straight all the time, they still miss the little things that still play a large role in what the bullet will hit, such as the air moisture, the amount/direction of wind between themselves and the target, bullet resistance, air density, target speed and direction, and even earth's gravity depending on how high or low they are to the earth. After all of that is accounted for, can the sniper (you?) still take the shot and remain hidden/alive?

Considering that I have this helicopter, I can make as many mistakes as I want.

I've chosen 3 individuals from history that are the best snipers, ever. Why only three? Well, obviously I can't account for every single sniper in history, and everyone has a different opinion on who's the best. So try to keep it in mind if you suddenly feel that you have been betrayed that your favorite sniper wasn't on this short list.

Carlos Hathcock, 93 confirmed kills. This man is responsible for the major development of the United States Marine Corps Sniper training program.

Hathcock was born in Arkansas on May 20, 1942. He grew up with his grandparents and even at the start of his life, he loved hunting, which in some manner helped feed his family. He used a rifle that his father brought back from World War 2, and would go to the woods to pretend to be a soldier hunting Nazis in a imaginary  Germany. Since a young age, he wanted to join the Marine Corps and thankfully, he pulled it off on the same day he turned 17, May 20th, 1962.


Unsurprisingly, Hathcock wasn't an underdog at any point of his military career, in fact he won many shooting championships back at home in Camp Perry and even won the prestigious Wimbledon Cup. After extensive training, he was sent over to Vietnam.

At first, he wanted to join the standard "scout" patrols, but he later changed his mind because his fellow Marines didn't have the hardcore, awesome woodmen skills that he had; he decided to hunt alone. However, many Marines questioned if a lone sniper would prove useful whatsoever. After 6 months and 14 confirmed kills, the Marines finally shut up. But wait! "Why so few kills?" Because the Marine Corps required a third party that had to be an Officer to confirm the kill and  since Vietnam wasn't known for being an jolly-happy dance contest all the time, it was difficult to actually confirm any kill; especially if the "kill" was behind enemy lines as it often was. (Because I don't think you would want to call a "time-out" during a raid to see if Sniper Joe killed Vietnamese Tim inside of a building full of other Vietnamese soldiers just waiting to shoot you.)

The Vietnamese army on the other hand, wasn't really happy about all their men falling like goats on a freeway, so they placed a $30,000 bounty on his life. (Usually, when the Vietnamese army wasn't happy about certain U.S. snipers, they usually put a bounty ranging from 8-2,000 dollar. Obviously, they thought that they could make a special exception for Hathcock.)

But Imagine that, if the Vietnamese army put you at 8$ per head?