Alla inlägg under februari 2014

Av loren adams - 28 februari 2014 12:42

 

At Camp Arifjan Resiliency Expo

 

Vet Offficers Operating

 

Av loren adams - 27 februari 2014 13:56

Autumn passed and Americans flocked to. Not a single troop ships were lost. Pershing came at last from Paris, set up headquarters and a large camp in the town of Chaumont, separated it from the surroundings and created a small efficient and exemplary USA.The new Army grew up in large camps around. By May President Wilson proclaimed conpulsory conscription. The French countryside northeast of Paris was alivened with gladsome, about the horrors of war ignorant young Americans with money in their pockets and everywhere in stations and in villages canteens and reading rooms were set up. They were accompanied by the YMCA leaders who made life bearable and served hot coffee on all platforms; stuff that the poor French soldiers had never experienced, and now got the part.

Everywhere Americans vitalized the front. Exhausted Frenchmen who were brought back met their replacements - well feed, mood healthy Americans who filled the bullet-riddled roads and the old horrible trenches. They were unassailed by war-weariness and fear and came in seemingly inexhaustible streams.
In June, they went through all the horrors of war concentrated in the battle for Belleau Forest, a coniferous and hardwood-jungle witin the Verdun area, that the Germans fortified during four years with hidden machine-guns and shooting positions. The Americans asked French about maps, but the maps were not French forte. They answered that they were perhaps in Paris.

- We'll go into the woods and see how it looks, said the American general.
They went in, they were chased out and they went back inside again. The losses were appalling: Casualties In Verdun class. Colonels were killed and generals came back wounded  

A young American who came up to the front by that terrible forest remembered the first thing he saw of Americans at war. A soldier who had both of his hands shattered led a train of 800 wounded towards the military hospital, because he was the only one who had eyes to see. The man behind him had laid his hands on his shoulders, and followed by all the other gas-blind, all with their hands on the soldier before him, in an infinite line. 
They took the Belleau wood, and from that day they just went forward, side by side with their allies. At time 11 am Nov. 11th ceased fire. It was over.

 

.



Av loren adams - 27 februari 2014 09:46

 

At Ludendorff Offensive eighth day, searched General Pershing and his chief of staff, an old Indian fighter named general Tasker Bliss, the General Foch, who three days before had reached his dream and ambition goal: to get give directives to all allied armies on the western front. The two Americans found Foch in his secluded and idyllic headquarters behind blossoming cherry tree in a small weirdly house between Beauvais and Compi`engne. Pershing arrived unannounced and just stepped on. Foch, Petain and Clemanceau low over a table with front maps in front of them.

Pershing had rehearsed and learned by heart in French what he would say.

- I have come here to offer you American troops in the ongoing battle. All we have is yours. Use us how you want. I also wish to emphasize that the American people would be proud to participate in history's greatest battles.
The three Frenchmen stood up from the maps. Foch was the right man to target with lofty and dramatic words. He was so delighted that he wanted to hear it again and get an audience. He took without a word Pershing by the arm and led him out into the garden where high French staff officers walked around and chatted.
- Repeat what you said, he asked Pershing.


Pershing read it again. Foch shook his hand. From a cherry tree he stood and admired said Tasker Bliss, who not would be outdone:
- We have come here to die.
Up until the 11 November, armistice day , 81,000 Americans would make truth of Tasker Bliss promise at the cherry tree, as so many died during the seven months that Americans fought in the war.

Av loren adams - 27 februari 2014 07:33

 

The first American troops, who were often called "Doughboys", landed in Europe in June 1917. However they did not participate at the front until late October 1917, when the Ist Division, a formation of experienced regular soldiers and the first division to arrive in France, entered the trenches near Nancy.

The phrase "going over the top"; OTT, came into usage during World War I Iand referenced attacking infantry rising out of their own trenches to assault the enemy. When the whistle blew and in order to attack opposing trench lines, infantry were required to climb over the parapet of their trenches and cross No Man´s Land""." As World War I offensives generally sustained heavy losses, "going over the top" was an unpopular activity for soldiers.

 

 
Av loren adams - 26 februari 2014 11:02

 


From the station in Paris to the luxury Hôtel Crillion at Place de la Concorde, thronged the war-weary Parisians and screamed, so John Persing thought almost hysterically "Vive l'Amerique", until they had no voice left. Again and again he had to walk out onto the balcony, and there saw one of his officers at last what no one has seen: Black Jack pulled his lips into a small tight smile. 

But when he steps in from the balcony, he looked at the interior of Hôtel Crillon and said:
- Don´t it beat hell.
For it belonged to a man from the Midwest, the State of Missouri, to profess homeland through a popular way of speaking, without caring about syntax.

He was unhappy in Paris and longed all the time from there. Every detail of the French military administration, he got confronted with - whether it involved the unloading of ammunition or organisatioen by a staff - terrified him and strengthened him in his commitment to that American soldiers did not get put into the French divisions but would always fight as units. He was not so stupid that he did not understand that his early arrival, before troop contingents, earned the French management's determination to liven up the war-weary French, and as long as he had no army, no one would attach themselves much by what he said or demanded.

Pershing remained in command for the entire war. He insisted that American soldiers be well-trained before going to Europe. As a result, few troops arrived before 1918. In addition, Pershing insisted that the American force would not be used merely to fill gaps in the French and British armies, and he resisted European efforts to have U.S troops deployed as individual replacements in decimated Allied units. This attitude was not always well received by the Allied leaders who distrusted the potential of an army lacking experience in large-scale warfare. In addition the British tried to barter their spare shipping to make the US put its soldiers into British ranks.

By June 1917, 14,000 U.S soldiers had already arrived in France, and by May 1918 over one million U.S troops were stationed in France, half of them being on the front lines. Since the transport ships needed to bring American troops to Europe were scarce at the beginning, the army pressed into service cruise ships, seized German ships, and borrowed Allied ships to transport American soldiers from New York, New Jersey, and Newport News, Virginia. The mobilization effort taxed the American military to the limit and required new organizational strategies and command structures to transport great numbers of troops and supplies quickly and efficiently. The French harbors became the entry points into the French railway system which brought the US forces and their supplies to the front. American engineers in France built 82 new ship berths, nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of additional standard-gauge tracks and 100,000 miles (160,000 km) of telephone and telegraph lines.


Av loren adams - 25 februari 2014 15:21

This is about one of the greatest US Military of all times. 

 

One morning in June 1917 landed the American supreme commander in Boulogne. His name was John Pershing. He was called Black Jack.
He still had no army with him. He was in a hurry to get started with the war. Behind a facial expression of constancy and an exterior of impeccable polish, which only an occasional English General reached up to, he kept back in Boulogne his impatience and his rising fury over welcome speeches and nonsense. He wanted to go and did not understand why the French lagged behind.

He was a poor boy from the Midwest, born in a hut while his father belonged to a navvy-team who built the railroads. He had ar one time been teacher in a small village school for negro children - throughout his career, he would always be known for being decent to negro soldiers, understanding them and winning their hearts. Along with officer training, he studied law, for he was never particularly fond of becoming a soldier. But that he become, and in the Indian wars in the Rocky Mountains and in the Spanish-American War he proved himself as one of the best.

Shortly before President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany and appointed Pershing - passing out a hundred generals who considered themselves as good - to lead the U.S Army to the Western Front, had Pershing´s wife and two daughters been burned to death. Only his young son had been rescued at the last moment. Much had not Black Jack talked before. Now he was almost mute.

Only when he belatedly in the afternoon with his small staff - all that is still there by the U.S military in Europe - came to Paris, he understood the delay. It was calculated that he would come only when work stopped in the French capital so the people could honor him.

Av loren adams - 25 februari 2014 11:11

When I look back
On the dreams I left behind;
Buried there in all my thoughts
It is you I always find.

I saw you then as I see you now
Through love's impassioned blindness,
A heart so fashioned there within
Filled with love and kindness.

How often has my heart declared
With anguish, for my words are few,
That the wind shall blow a little longer,
To keep me here with you.

Sweeter still are the pains of love.
The bonds of love grow stronger,
Even after the moonlight has gone to sleep,
I shall always love you longer.

No other can stir my heart so deep,
Or thrill me through and through,
And in my dreams there will never be
No other love but you.

When I look back to times gone by
There is one sure thing I know
It is you my love, who stole my heart
So many years ago.

   
Av loren adams - 19 februari 2014 09:56

(Reuters) - A delegation from Afghanistan's High Peace Council has travelled to Dubai to meet former and current Taliban figures, in the hope of laying the groundwork for peace talks to end Afghanistan's long conflict, sources familiar with the move told Reuters.

Officials led by Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, a senior aide to President Hamid Karzai, travelled on Sunday to the United Arab Emirates, officials from the High Peace Council and the Afghan government confirmed.

The delegation planned to meet a group of Taliban figures led by Agha Jan Mutassim, who was a finance minister during the Taliban's 1996-2001 government, the officials said on condition of anonymity.

The trip comes on the heels of a gathering Mutassim recently convened in Dubai, which Afghan officials said included 16 high-ranking former and current Taliban figures, the officials said, including six former Taliban ministers and half a dozen men said to be current commanders in the militant group.

After that meeting, Mutassim, who was once a powerful figure in the Taliban's political committee but whose links to the group are now unclear, said in a statement that the participants had "insisted in one voice on a discussion among all Afghans, and the need to find a peaceful solution."

While the Peace Council delegation travelled to Dubai because the Taliban figures indicated they would be willing to meet with Afghan government representatives - an unusual move for any member of the Taliban - it was not clear whether all of the participants would follow through, the officials said.

If the Peace Council delegates do hold talks with the Taliban figures it could mark a step forward in the Karzai government's efforts to kindle dialogue with important members of an insurgency that has lasted for more than 12 years.

It would also be a personal vindication for Karzai, long displeased by the Taliban leadership's willingness to hold talks only with Western or Arab officials, as he prepares to step down after April elections.

For years, the Taliban's reclusive leadership, believed to be located in Pakistan under the leadership of Mullah Mohammed Omar, has refused to negotiate directly with the government of Karzai, whom the Taliban says is an illegitimate leader.

The Karzai government has held informal talks with Taliban figures since 2001, but appears to have renewed its effort to establish a substantial dialogue with key militant representatives in recent months.

Afghan officials said they met representatives of Mullah Omar's faction of the Taliban, who are based in Qatar, earlier this year. But those talks do not have appear to have established a negotiating track and a Taliban spokesman denied the talks took place.

Skapa flashcards