Sisco

God Bless Melvin James Kaminsky AKA Mel Brooks and his three brothers for their service to our country during WWII. Mel Brooks, the Brooklyn-born funnyman best known for directing side splitting comedies such as Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles, The Producers, is not somebody most people would associate with life and death type of dangerous work. Yet, that is precisely what Mel Brooks during the Second World War, when he fought the Nazis as a combat engineer clearing minefields under enemy fire, and was in the thick of in the Battle of the Bulge. As he put it: “I was a combat engineer. Isn’t that ridiculous? The two things I hate most in the world are combat and engineering“. Born Melvin James Kaminsky in 1926, Brooks was raised in poverty after his father’s untimely death when the future comedian was only two years old. Understandably, growing up without a father was rough, and it left its mark on Brooks, as a child and into his adulthood. As he put it decades later: “There’s an outrage there. I may be angry at God, or at the world for that. And I’m sure a lot of my comedy is based on anger and hostility“. Growing up small and sickly in a borderline slum in Brooklyn, Brooks developed a sense of humor and a precocious comedic talent early on. Brooks graduated high school in 1944, with nebulous plans to go to college and study psychology, but then decided to enlist in the US Army. As he described his decision: “I enlisted to go to college, not to be in, you know, foxholes and shot at. But listen, that’s what happens in a war. Being a kid of seventeen, eighteen, I was a peacenik, I was against war, but I knew what Hitler was doing to Jews. So, I really did feel this was a proper and just war, and a war that should be fought. My mother had four stars in her window. I think the limit was three if you had children in the army – that is, I think I could have gotten out of it, but I was gung ho at being a soldier“. Mel Brooks, the Warrior Like many Americans, Brooks was extra fired up to fight the Nazis, but was also well aware of the extra risks faced by Jews if captured by the enemy. As he put it: “My brother Lenny was an engineer gunner in a B-17, and in his 35th or 36th mission, his Flying Fortress B-17 was hit, and they all bailed out, and they landed in Austria. He knew he had on his dog tags, for Hebrew and he had heard rumors that the Germans were taking Jewish troops and sending them to concentration camps. So in his way down, while still in his parachute, he ripped [his dog tags] off. ” Sent to Europe in 1944, Brooks’ qualifications that got him into ASTP marked him out as a soldier of high intelligence. So his first assignment was as a forward artillery observer – a job that requires quick thinking on the fly. He was then assigned to a combat engineer unit, the 1104th Engineer Combat Battalion (ECB), attached to the 78th Infantry Division. Combat engineers often went out ahead of the main assaults, to clear out obstacles for follow on troops. Brooks’ unit used demolitions to blast a way clear for the main forces, repaired bridges destroyed by the Germans in a bid to slow the Allied advance, built bridges from scratch, helped lay out and construct field fortifications, and otherwise offered whatever support they could. The combat engineers often did their work under the enemy’s noses, while subjected to artillery raining down on them, and German snipers doing their best to pick them off. The 1104th ECB became the first unit to throw a bridge across the Roer River, and later on, it built bridges across the Rhine. Brooks’ tasks included clearing minefields and defusing land mines. It was a hairy job, that was made even hairier when he had to do it while exposed to enemy fire. As Brooks described it to Conan O’Brien on his show: “You take a bayonet, and you look for mines – planted mines. And they could blow a tank, I mean they’re big. You find them, unearth them if it could blow up a tank, it could certainly take away a Jew in no time“. On at least five occasions, Brooks’ unit had to down their tools and pick up rifles to fight as infantrymen, and took casualties while doing so. He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge during the winter of 1944-1945. Mel Brooks, the Veteran In recalling his WWII experience decades later, Brooks observed that: “War isn’t hell. War is loud. Much too noisy. All those shells and bombs going off all around you. Never mind death. A man could lose his hearing“. He distilled his wartime experience to its essence when asked what he thought during the war about saving Europe and the world: “You thought about how you were going to stay warm that night. How you were going to get from one hedgerow to another without a German sniper taking you out. You didn’t worry about tomorrow“. Aware of the jarring contrast between his comedic persona and his serious wartime experiences, Brooks once mused to reporters: “I was a combat engineer. Isn’t that ridiculous? The two things I hate most in the world are combat and engineering“. The end of the war in Europe came while Brooks and the 1104th were carrying out a reconnaissance in the Harz Mountains of northern Germany. Brooks, by then promoted to corporal, had survived the war, healthy and hale, and had grown up and matured real fast from the teenager who’d enlisted just a year earlier. He closed his days in Europe by taking part in organizing shows and entertainments for American soldiers, as well as for Germans. Finally, the time came for Brooks to return to civilian life, and resume his quest to become a professional funnyman. After the war, Brooks was discharged from the Army, and he went back to entertainment. Like most WWII veterans, Brooks never viewed himself as a hero, and went out of his way to downplay his wartime experience. He simply saw himself as one of the many millions from his generation who had answered their country’s call, donned uniform and did their part, then returned home, happy to be alive. The Giant Killer book & page honors these incredible war heroes making sure their stories of valor and sacrifice are never forgotten. God Bless our Vets! Story source Khalid Elhassan

Yep

Fago de Chao? It’s death by meat.

Great story!

I believe that. I would need a bigger SUV and a bigger truck!

Spoke to him. He is doing good, but extremely busy.

Not really. She did as a puppy, though. Her fur is amazingly self cleaning. She will be covered with dirt and it is gone an housr later. She is. She is the definition of a “sheep dog” My wife is walking for her rehab on the driveway, she gets on a boulder for overwatch and watches her until she is done. Four times a day she does a circumference patrol around our house. Last one right before we go to bed. I am really impressed with this breed. Thought about a second one that is up for rehoming at the local animal shelter, but we really like our relationship with this one and a second one might upset that apple cart, so we are going to stick with just her. Just gotta watch the balls in the drain.

Just a guess until her next vet visit, but maybe 100 pounds. 9 1/2 months

He reminds me of someone.

Well Man's best friend struck again. My pooch loves balls and loves to crunch and shred them.A baseball takes 10 minutes. So I got her a couple of heavy duty 4 inch gum rubber balls with a cover from Tractor Supply. I checked to see if they would go down the storm drain under our house. Nope too big. All was good, right? Yes, until she learned to tear the cover off one and drop it down the drain. With the cover off it is precisely 3 and 7/8 in diameter. Just the size you need to completely plug a 4 " PVC drain pipe. It rolled down about 6 feet in and settled there. No amount of suction, grappling or leverage could dislodge it. With reports of up to 1 inch of rain coming last week I had visions of a flooded driveway and possibly house. Fortunately our plumber brought over a heavy duty roto for tree roots that was able to shred it up in about half an hour. Nothing came out the bottom end but pieces of rubber. You will notice in the picture of the drain a screen in there now. Lesson learned.

Thank you.

I eat two a day, along with preservative free sausage and bacon for breakfast. No carbs except for a little from the bacon sugar cure. I feel good and my A1C is back to normal.

Interesting! The good news is we still don’t know everything, because I would hate to live in a world if we did. There are already enough know it alls, we need more know it lesses

Mind blowing thought of the day: Dark Matter, which Physicists postulate makes up 75% of the Universe, may be formed when fermion particles are pushed through portals into a fifth dimension. And yes, this is an actual theory of Physics. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35471480/dark-matter-fermion-portal-fifth-dimension/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_pop&utm_medium=email&date=111221&utm_campaign=nl25627801&utm_term=AAA -- High Minus Dormant and 90 Day Non Openers

Amen well said by all.

Great Story!

You will remember that for the rest of your life. An amazing story.

Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Lewis Millett "In the fierce charge Capt. Millett bayoneted 2 enemy soldiers and boldly continued on, throwing grenades, clubbing and bayoneting the enemy, while urging his men forward by shouting encouragement. Despite vicious opposing fire, the whirlwind hand-to-hand assault carried to the crest of the hill." Millet the recipient of the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, 3 Legion of Merit's, 3 Bronze Stars, 4 Purple Hearts, and 2 Air Medals. Lewis Millett really hated Nazis. I know that most of you think that Indiana Jones cornered the market on hating those guys, but Millett really took it to a whole new level. This guy was so cheesed off at Hitler and his goose-stepping morons that in early 1940 he dropped out of high school as a junior to go enlist in the Army and help the world teach Der Führer that messing with freedom and democracy was like the political equivalent of sending up a giant Bat-Signal with the words "Please Come Kick My Ass" engraved on there instead of a bat. Well, this was great and all, but back in 1940 the United States had a pretty strict policy of not intervening in Europe's bullpoopy, and President Roosevelt kept coming out on the radio being all like, "whatever we're not going to go to war with the Nazis (even though they really deserve it)." However, unfortunately for Uncle Adolf, Lewis Millett held no such isolationist policies – when it looked like the U.S. wasn't going to get in on the Fascist-pummeling annihilation, he deserted the Army, hitchhiked up to Canada, and joined the Canadian Army instead. The Canadians were like, "eh, whatever," and trained him in gunnery, anti-aircraft warfare, and radar system operation, before shipping him off to London to help their British buddies deal with the annoying stream of V-2 rockets and aircraft bombs that were constantly pummeling the English countryside during the Blitz. Well in 1941 a few thousand pounds of Japanese torpedoes finally convinced the U.S. that beating the crap out of the Axis Powers was a pretty decent idea, and it turns out that it wasn't that big of a deal for Millet to transfer over to the United States Army. He was sent to North Africa with the 1st Armored Division, where he spent six months fighting Rommel'sAfrikakorps and having the pleasure of watching the 37mm rounds from his anti-tank cannon bounce off the ultra-thick armor of the German Panzers. It's not like that stopped this insane Jackhammer of Democracy from pneumatically ramming his foot up the Fascists', however – not long into his deployment he received a Bronze Star for shooting down a German fighter plane that was coming in low for a strafing run. The Me-109 was zooming in low over the desert, so Millet jumped into the back of a half-track and used the truck-mounted machine gun to shoot the driver in the face, somehow putting a round through the cockpit of an airplane going 300 miles per hour and depositing it into the ocular cavity of the pilot. Just in case this didn't sound quite enough like the sort of insanity that you generally don't see outside of completely balls-out cheesy 1980's action movies, Millet earned a Silver Star for running up to a burning half-track, jumping in the driver's seat, hauling ass away from his men, and then leaping out of the moving vehicle seconds before it exploded. Millet was a Sergeant kicking asses in Italy when his superiors finally figured out that he had at one point deserted the Army. He was court-martialed and convicted of desertion, but because this crazy bastard was such a face-rending hardass, he was just fined fifty-two dollars and told to "please never let it happen again." Then, just to show that there were no hard feelings, they promoted him to Lieutenant a couple weeks later. Millett would later claim that he was probably the only man to make Colonel after being court-martialed for desertion, which is probably true. Then again, when you leave the armed forces of your country because they aren't kicking enough asses for your liking, I guess it's kind of hard to argue with your qualifications as a badass. Apparently the Second World War wasn't enough carnage for Millett, because when the Korean Conflict rolled around in the 1950s he still had quite a bit of fuel left in his Asskicking Tank. It was while serving as Captain of Company E of the 27th Infantry Regiment that Lewis Millett commanded the actions that earned him the Medal of Honor. One day, while fighting in Korea, Millett and his men came across a note talking about how the Chinese thought the Americans were pussies who were afraid of cold steel and hand-to-hand combat. Obviously this made Lewis Millett so pissed off that he bit his own rifle in half, and he resolved then and there to provide the enemy with a first-hand demonstration of just how frightened he was of punching people with the broken-off remnants of a combat knife. It wasn't long before he had his chance. During the fighting for Hill 180, the 1st Platoon of Company E was pinned down by heavy fire from North Korean and Chinese machine guns, anti-tank rifles, and small arms. Millett immediately told his men to fix bayonets and prepare for some neck-stabbing. He personally ran out in front of his men, and led 2nd and 3rd Platoon on a charge across an exposed rice paddy, up a 200-foot high snow-covered hill, and straight into enemy bunkers packed with 200 entrenched enemy soldiers. Millett, leading from the front, personally bayoneted two enemy soldiers, clubbed a couple more into submission with the stock of his rifle, threw a bunch of grenades all over the place, and shouted words of encouragement to his men. He was wounded by a grenade, but obviously it would take more than a gaping slash caused by a red-hot piece of metal shrapnel to slow this crazy badass down. He refused to be evacuated until the hill was captured, urging his men to fight on and kick asses. 47 of the 200 defenders of Hill 180 were killed (18 by bayonet), the rest retreated, and 1st Platoon was saved with minimal casualties. If this seems completely crazy to you, that's because it is. To Lewis Millett, however, that was so nice he had to do it twice – later that same month he received the Distinguished Service Cross for leading ANOTHER goddamned bayonet charge, this one with similar results. It would be what is now referred to as the last bayonet charge in American military history, which is pretty understandable if you ask me. There really aren't too many people out there crazy enough to order fixed bayonets against a row of automatic weapons, but that was pretty much par for the course for Lewis Millett and His Awesome 'Stache. After Korea, Lewis Millett completed Ranger training and founded the famous Recondo School to train reconnaissance commandos in Vietnam. He served throughout the Vietnam War, and retired a Colonel in the Army. He died of CHF on November 14th, a veteran of three wars, and hellacious kicker of Commie-Nazi asses, and a hell of a tough guy.

Charles Shay, Army Medic, 97, Normandy, France When Shay, a Penobscot Native American, was drafted at 19, he had scarcely left Indian Island, Maine. “I never knew at that time what I was destined to experience.” He recalls his mother traveling to New York to wave to him as his ship, the RMS Queen Elizabeth, set sail for England. “My father had to work, so he stayed in Maine, but he was there in spirit.” A freshly trained medic, Shay landed with the first wave at Omaha Beach on D-Day, the largest seaborne invasion in history, credited with hastening Nazi Germany’s defeat. Coming ashore from landing boats weighed down by machine guns and ammunition, many men drowned. Others made it to the beach and were killed in a hail of gunfire. Using obstacles, the Germans had placed as protection from gunfire in water to his chest, Shay scrambled up the beach with his medic’s bag and began treating the injured. “I found myself a place to work on higher ground.” Administering morphine and applying antiseptic and bandages, he noticed wounded men piling up along the shore, rising tide. “I saw . . . they would drown.” Running back to the beach, he turned them on their backs and dragged them to higher ground. Bullets whizzed past; he was untouched. He still wonders why. Among the wounded was friend and fellow medic Edward Morozewicz, whose injuries were past help. “We said goodbye.” For his bravery that day, Shay received the Silver Star and the Bronze Star. Shay pursued a career as an Air Force medic, and in 2009, successfully lobbied the state of Maine to establish Native American Veterans Day. Affinity for the French and deep connection to Normandy, wherein 2007 he received the Legion d’Honneur, where he still conducts ceremonies to honor the dead, prompted him to retire there.

A good article from Military Times: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/09/01/what-war-with-china-could-look-like/

More on Mr. Flaherty: Maybe the most unconventional man to ever serve in the unconventional world of Special Forces! Richard J. Flaherty, born with a rare blood disease only grew to the size of 4' 9" 97lbs, but he had big dreams and wanted to fight for his country. All the military branches turned him down but that didn't deter Flaherty. He spent three years writing letters until the Army finally allowed him in but no one ever believed he would make it through basic training. Flaherty exceeded all expectations by becoming a Paratrooper and Officer. In December of 1967, he was sent to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division. One of his first tests as a Platoon Leader was during the "Tet Offensive. After his first tour he then went on to do the impossible by becoming a Special Forces Green Beret Captain and war hero - Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars, & 2 Purple Hearts. After the war due to the Reduction in Force, Flaherty was recruited into the shadowy world of military contract work: Rhodesian military, CIA and the ATF. In 2015, two weeks before he was killed, Flaherty confessed his life story to his friend Miami police officer, David Yuzuk. Yuzuk would then embark on a three-year investigative journey dragging him down the rabbit hole of black ops and CIA conspiracies from the bloody jungles of Vietnam to the dangerous streets of Iraq & Venezuela, all in search of the peripatetic Captain Richard J. Flaherty. Flaherty Military Bio: In December of 1967, he was sent to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division. One of his first tests as a Platoon Leader was during the "Tet Offensive." He served as a Platoon Leader with companies B, C, and D and as a Recon Platoon Leader with Echo company. In January of 1969, he returned to CONUS and attended the Special Forces School at Fort Bragg and was then assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group. Later that year he returned to South East Asia with the 46th Special Forces Company A-110 in Camp Pawai, Lopburi Thailand. Captain Flaherty also earned the Air Medal, Gallantry Cross W/Silver Star, Army Commendation Medal, Combat Infantryman’s Badge, 3 Overseas Bars, Sharpshooter Badge W/Rifle Bar, Air Medal, Parachutist Badge, Vietnam Service badge. To learn more about Richard J. Flaherty please check out the book, "The Giant Killer" available on Amazon as a Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, & Audiobook or the award winning documentary, "The Giant Killer Finding Flaherty" available to watch on Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, Tubi, Plex, VUDU, Roku, and iTunes. Free on Tubi & US Amazon Prime.

The longest serving Ranger. 2 Silver Stars, 10 Bronze Stars... Army Ranger Patrick Gavin Tadina is pictured here in an undated photo wearing North Vietnamese Army fatigues and carrying an AK-47. A 30-year Army veteran who was the longest continuously serving Ranger in Vietnam and one of the war's most decorated enlisted soldier. Patrick Gavin Tadina served in Vietnam for over five years straight between 1965 and 1970, leading long range reconnaissance patrols deep into enemy territory -- often dressed in black pajamas and sandals, and carrying an AK-47. A native of Hawaii, Tadina earned two Silver Stars, 10 Bronze Stars -- seven with valor -- three Vietnamese Crosses of Gallantry, four Army Commendation Medals, including two for valor, and three Purple Hearts. His small stature and dark complexion helped him pass for a Viet Cong soldier on patrols deep into the Central Highlands, during which he preferred to be in the point position. His citations describe him walking to within feet of enemies he knew to be lying in wait for him and leading a pursuing enemy patrol into an ambush set by his team. In Vietnam he served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, 74th Infantry Detachment Long Range Patrol and Company N (Ranger), 75th Infantry. Tadina joined the Army in 1962 and served in the Dominican Republic before going to Southeast Asia. He also served with the 82nd Airborne Division in Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury in 1983 and with the 1st Infantry Division during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. A 1995 inductee into the Ranger Hall of Fame, he served with "extreme valor," never losing a man during his years as a team leader in Vietnam, a hall of fame profile at Fort Benning said. Some 200 men had served under him without "so much as a scratch," said a newspaper clipping his daughter shared, published while Tadina was serving at Landing Zone English in Vietnam's Binh Dinh province, likely in 1969. Tadina himself was shot three times and his only brother was also killed in combat in Vietnam, Stars and Stripes later reported. The last time he was shot was during an enemy ambush in which he earned his second Silver Star, and the wounds nearly forced him to be evacuated from the country, the LZ English story said. As the point man, Tadina was already inside the kill zone when he sensed something was wrong, but the enemy did not fire on him, apparently confused about who he was, the article stated. After spotting the enemy, Tadina opened fire and called out the ambush to his teammates before falling to the ground and being shot in both calves. He refused medical aid and continued to command until the enemy retreated, stated another clipping, quoting from his Silver Star citation. "When you're out there in the deep stuff, there's an unspoken understanding," he told Tate in 1985. "It's caring about troops." After retiring from the Army in 1992, he continued working security jobs until 2013, Poeschl said, including stints in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Story Source Military .com

Good story on Flaherty. This guy was an American legend: “Wild Bill” Donovan: Irish-American War Hero and Superspy: “Wild Bill“ Donovan had many fascinating friends, including Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond – the fictional, globe-trotting superspy. Donovan’s real-life feats, however, surpassed even Bond’s wildest exploits. Perhaps no other Irish American served his country more daringly, yet Donovan’s largely clandestine service to America is still greatly under-appreciated. Born in 1883 into poverty, the son of a County Cork-born railroad superintendent in Buffalo, New York, William Joseph Donovan combined rakish good looks with a first-rate intelligence. Rare amongst Irish-Americans of his generation, Donovan inherited his father’s allegiance to the Republican party. Excelling in his local Catholic school, Donovan first went to a local Catholic college before transferring to Columbia University, where he starred as the football team’s quarterback. Admitted to its law school in 1905, Donovan was a classmate of his future boss, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but the two were not friendly. Donovan, though, was too restless just to practice law. Eager for military service, he and his Saturn Club friends formed a National Guard cavalry troop, known as the Silk Stocking Boys, which was soon dispatched to Mexico, chasing Pancho Villa in vain across the hot and dusty Mexican landscape. When America entered the Great War in 1917, Donovan was commissioned as a major in “the Fighting 69th,” a regiment of poor Irish toughs who, despite their heroism in the Civil War, were notorious for their fist-fighting and hard drinking. Donovan weeded out the troublemakers, putting his imprint on the unit by hand-picking 2,000 smart, athletic, and agile men. Becoming infamous for his demanding physical training of the recruits, in which he also took part, Donovan once asked his exhausted men what the hell was wrong with them. One of them replied, “We are not as wild as you are, Major Donovan,” and the name stuck. Donovan befriended the 69th’s famous Canadian-born chaplain Father Duffy, whose statue still graces New York’s Times Square. Duffy admired Donovan’s fearlessness in battle. Donovan wore his medals in battle to encourage his men, even though they made him a target for snipers. On July 27, 1918, Donovan proved his valor while leading his men across the Ourcq River. Hemmed in by machine guns on three sides, Donovan refused to cower, even though the 69th lost 600 of 1,000 men, including three-quarters of the officers. For his bravery, Donovan won the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award. Soon, Donovan again displayed his courage, fighting in the thick of battle on October 14 and famously shouting, “They can’t hit me and they won’t hit you!” Wounded the next morning, Donovan refused to be evacuated and continued commanding his men, even after American tanks retreated from the withering German fire. Awarded the Medal of Honor, Donovan’s letters about the engagement, published by newspapers, made him a national hero. Upon being awarded the Medal of Honor, Donovan became the most decorated soldier in U.S. history, winning, amongst other orders, the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, and several foreign awards. The Fighting 69th, or what was left of it, returned to a hero’s welcome and a ticker-tape parade up Fifth Avenue. Using his newly found fame, Donovan, along with Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., started the American Legion, which quickly evolved from a group of war veterans into the most influential American veteran group, with over a million members and local posts across the country. Donovan became a hero with a national following. Returning to Buffalo to practice law, Donovan soon grew bored of private practice and won appointment as a U.S. attorney in Buffalo. Prohibition laws then existed, but his Saturn Club openly flouted them; nevertheless, Donovan declared the “law is the law,” and ordered a raid on the club by sledgehammer-wielding federal agents. Damned by the influential club members, Donovan was effectively driven from Buffalo, much to the consternation of his wife’s WASP family. Moving first to Washington, D.C., in 1924, he became assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, but his career was blocked by anti-Catholic discrimination. Donovan then came to New York in 1929 to start his own lucrative Wall Street law firm, which made him a millionaire. Ever restless, he ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York in 1932, surprisingly proving to be a poor stump speaker who drew resentment from many Irish voters for looking and acting like the rich Republican he was. Spending lavishly, Donovan was always on the move, shuttling between his Washington mansion, his duplex on New York’s Beekman Place, his summer home on Cape Cod, and his Virginia country home. His wanderlust increasingly took him to Europe and Asia, where he wrote reports for clients on the investment climate. In 1939, he met Spain’s Generalissimo Franco on the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, where he observed Nazi Germany’s frightening use of its weapons and warplanes. He also visited Italy’s Mussolini, who was impressed by Donovan’s war heroics. Ostensibly traveling for business, Donovan in fact gathered intelligence for a secretive private organization known as the Room, a group of international businessmen and lawyers who traded tips on the increasingly ominous European situation. Amazingly, before World War II, the U.S. government had no foreign spy agency, leaving it unprepared for the upcoming world war. In 1939, with Britain facing war, its foreign intelligence service MI6 began looking for American allies and spotted one in Donovan who, despite his Irish background, was an anglophile. In July 1940, Donovan flew to London to meet Colonel Stewart Menzies, the chief of MI6, and Winston Churchill, whom Donovan greatly impressed. Returning to Washington as the Battle of Britain raged, the pro-British Donovan told Roosevelt that Britain could survive only with America’s help. In January 1940, Donovan sat in a radio studio plugging The Fighting 69th, a new Hollywood movie. The film, starring James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, and George Brent as Donovan, put him back in the spotlight just when President Roosevelt needed someone with Donovan’s European experience. Roosevelt liked Donovan and trusted his intelligence, even though Donovan was a Republican. In July 1941, FDR established the Office of the Coordination of Information (C.O.I.), naming Donovan its director. After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt again turned to Donovan, adopting Donovan’s blueprint for a secret American intelligence service based on the British model and appointing him to run the agency, called the O.S.S.: the Office of Strategic Services. Quickly, Donovan created a massive spy network fighting a worldwide, clandestine war. Occupying the rank of two-star general, Donovan slept little, continually flying abroad on secret missions. Ever the soldier, Donovan even defied orders, landing at Normandy on D-Day while barely avoiding capture by German soldiers. Donovan’s O.S.S. nevertheless played a huge behind-the-scenes role in winning the war for the Allies. At the end of the war, America was in transition. Donovan and the American Legion pushed the GI Bill, the most far-reaching education program in American history, through Congress, allowing millions of veterans a college education. America also knew it needed a foreign intelligence agency and Donovan hoped to be named by FDR’s successor Harry Truman to head the newly created Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA. However, Truman, a loyal Democrat, did not share FDR’s high opinion of Donovan, instead naming one of Donovan’s spies, Allen Dulles, to run the CIA. Deeply disappointed, Donovan went to Nuremberg, where he played an important role in providing evidence in the prosecution of former Nazis. For the remainder of his life, Donovan longed to run the CIA, but President Eisenhower also denied him the job, instead naming him ambassador to Thailand, where Donovan first began to show signs of the dementia that quickly grew worse. Hospitalized in 1957, Donovan suffered hallucinations, imagining the Red Army coming over the 59th Street Bridge, while often wandering onto the street in his pajamas. In his last days, Donovan received a hospital visit from Eisenhower, who called Donovan “the last hero.” When Donovan died on February 8, 1959, the CIA cabled its station chiefs around the world: “The man more responsible than any other for the existence of the Central Intelligence Agency has passed away.” Today, Donovan’s statue stands in the lobby of the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a tribute to the Irish-American war hero who single-handedly created America’s foreign intelligence capability. The Giant Killer book & page honors these incredible war heroes making sure their stories of valor and sacrifice are never forgotten. God Bless our Vets!🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 Story by Geoffrey Cobb

Hate to say it with all the steaks I have cooked on the grill, lately I have come to prefer the reverse sear method. It performs miracles with Chuck roasts and other chewy pieces of meat. I use the propane griddle to sear it after I pull the steak from the oven. Sizzle some butter on the griddle and put her on!

Took Alternate 14A in the 1970’s from Sheridan West to Yellowstone East entrance. Three mistakes: 1. Did not gas up in Sheridan, thought I had enough. 2. Left Sheridan at 10pm. 3. Took alt 14 rather then 14. Scariest road I have ever been on. No open gas stations in Graybull. Ran on fumes into Coty, fortunately one 24 hour gas station. Pushed on into the Park. The Scout broke down by the Rainbow Bridge. Crashed in it for a couple of hours. We were woke up by a Ranger who said we had to move, they were hunting a grizzly that had killed a camper the night before in Rainbow Bridge campground. Got the Scout started and pushed on into West Yellowstone.