Category Archives: Neglected History

“BERN”ING THE DEMOCRATS’ CALLOUSNESS TOWARD THE POOR AND THE WORKING CLASS

bernie-sanders-corporationsYOU GO, BERNIE SANDERS! Sanders CONTINUED his assault on the coalition of the callous, the comfortable and the uncaring who supported Hillary “Bugsy” Clinton and Barack “Tony Ears” Obama. Can this hunka hunka Bernie Love become the conscience of the Democrats and straighten out bloated rich pigs like Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore?

BERN ONE: Bernie personally explained to Charlie Rose, a talking head on the alt-left NPR that Donald “Agent Orange” Trump won because the corporate media and the political establishment don’t understand “there are tens of millions of people who are not racists, who are not sexists, they’re hurting.”

In an obvious poke at the bought and paid for Democrat Hillary Clinton, Sanders added “(Y)ou can’t just spend your entire life raising money from the wealthy people. What Trump was doing, to his credit, he was going out holding rallies. He was going all over this country. He was going in rural areas, where candidates previously did not go. In many ways, I did that myself.”  

mika-brzezinskiBERN TWO: Bernie Sanders has already encouraged far-left MSNBC’s Democrat-supporting Mika Brzezinski to join the growing chorus of corporate media shills openly discussing how Hillary’s thuggish campaign staff would – in Mika’s words – “bully” anyone trying to point out Hillary “No Billionaire Left Behind” Clinton’s countless weaknesses. “I experienced it myself” she testified.

Mika bravely risked further harassment by stating that Bernie Sanders versus Donald Trump would have been a much better fight. In light of the severe public humiliation Hillary experienced at Trump’s hands last week Mika certainly has a point.

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SEVEN AMERICAN FLYING ACES OF WORLD WAR ONE

eugene-bullard

Eugene Bullard

For my final Veterans Day post I’ll do another shoutout to the Flying Aces of World War One. The movie Flyboys is a good fictional film about their mystique (but based on the real-life Lafayette Escadrille).

EUGENE BULLARD – This African-American boxer from Columbus, GA served in the French Foreign Legion as early as the Battle of Verdun in 1916 and had already won a Croix de Guerre before joining the legendary Lafayette Escadrille on a bet.(!) He qualified but the prejudiced Frenchman Dr Edmund Le Gros rejected him for service.

Bullard instead flew a Spad 7 with French Escadrille 93. Eugene still had an uphill fight against prejudice and the French supposedly failed to credit him with all of his kills, limiting him to just 2 in the official records but tradition credits Bullard with between 5 and 9. He had what may be the best nickname outside of the Red Baron and was called the Black Swallow of Death. On the side of his plane he painted the words “ALL blood runs red” in reference to the bigotry he had faced. Continue reading →

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TWO MORE AMERICAN ACES FROM WORLD WAR ONE

With Veterans Day approaching here’s another look at some neglected World War One history.

arthur-r-brooks-betterARTHUR R.”RAY” BROOKS – Captain Ray Brooks graduated from MIT in 1917 and immediately volunteered to serve in the World War that the U.S. had just entered. Brooks got his first 3 kills with the 139th Squadron and 6 more after transferring to the 22nd Aero Squadron. FOUR of Captain Brooks’ kills came in one dogfight as he tackled a squadron of 8 Fokker planes single-handedly. Seriously.

In addition to those kills Ray Brooks had 4 more probables and went on to win the Distinguished Service Cross. He was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor but was not confirmed for it, unfortunately. Brooks flew a Smith IV Spad XIII.    Continue reading →

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO COLLEGE FOOTBALL!

Northeastern_Oklahoma_AMIt was on November 6th, 1869 that Rutgers and Princeton played the very first college football game “on the banks of the Raritan” as the Rutgers fight song says. One of the things I love about college football is how far back its history goes.

It feels odd to think that Ulysses S Grant was in the White House when Continue reading →

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AMERICAN MEMBERS OF THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION IN WORLD WAR ONE

french-foreign-legionNearly 200 American men served in the French Foreign Legion during World War One. Some were expatriates already living in Europe while others joined up to fight the Germans, Austro-Hungarians and Ottoman Muslim Turks. They had to join the French Foreign Legion because – though the war started in August of 1914 – the United States did not enter the conflict until April of 1917.  

Most of the attention goes to flying squadrons like the legendary Lafayette Escadrille and the American pilots who served in Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War One. Balladeer’s Blog will instead feature Americans who don’t get the same degree of exposure.

FRED ZINN – Called “the Battler from Battle Creek” this man was visiting France in August of 1914 when the war broke out. He enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and by October was stationed at the Western Front. Zinn was wounded twice in action by February 1st, 1916, and ended that second convalescence period by transferring to the Aeronautique Militaire unit. Continue reading →

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HARRY TRUMAN’S WORLD WAR ONE SERVICE

Harry Truman World War One

Harry Truman in World War One

Veterans Day is one week from now so Balladeer’s Blog is presenting another look at World War One since November 11th marks the date that war ended.

HARRY S TRUMAN, CAPTAIN OF BATTERY D – This future Senator, future Vice President and future President is credited with one of my favorite quotes: “There’s nothing new in the world except the history you don’t know.”

That Show-Me State Seneca was in charge of Artillery Battery D, a hard-fighting unit that was often deployed well forward, in the heart of the action. During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in 1918 Truman’s Battery D provided fire in support of the young George Patton’s tank brigade. “Captain Harry’s” boys engaged German field guns, eliminating and forcing the abandonment of enemy batteries at a noteworthy rate. Continue reading →

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SERGEANT YORK: LEGEND OF WORLD WAR ONE

sergeant-alvin-york

Sgt Alvin York

Veterans Day is just over a week away so Balladeer’s Blog looks at some more World War One history.

SERGEANT ALVIN YORK – At age 29 (yes, twenty-nine) Alvin York of Tennessee was drafted into the United States Army in November of 1917. York trained with the 82nd Infantry Division at Camp Gordon, GA. In April, 1918 the unit arrived in Liverpool, England and by mid-May was at Sommes, where they began relieving various units in the trenches to acquire their first field experience.  

June saw York and the 82nd move to Lagney, where they patrolled and raided enemy lines for several weeks. In September York and his comrades participated in the St Mihiel Offensive and in October they fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, during which York earned the Medal of Honor. Continue reading →

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FIVE AMERICAN FLYING ACES OF WORLD WAR ONE

sopwith-camelWith Veterans Day fast approaching Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at some more World War One history since that conflict gets much less attention than World War Two.

Similarly, since Eddie Rickenbacker was the most famous American Flying Ace of the war with 26 kills I will cover 5 Aces that aren’t as well known. 

frank-lukeFRANK LUKE – This 21 year old copper miner from Arizona managed 18 kills in 17 days before meeting his own end. In addition to shooting down enemy planes Frank Luke specialized in bringing down the much tougher targets: lighter than air craft. Pilots had to thread their way through relentless anti-aircraft fire AND rockets to accomplish a kill on such craft, making it sort of the fighter pilot equivalent of stealing bases in baseball. 

From September 12th to September 29th, 1918 the deadly Luke made himself a legend, earning copious praise even from the aforementioned Eddie Rickenbacker. Frank flew a Spad 13 with the 27th Aero Squadron. On September 29th the Ace was shot down over Murvaux and was alive but severely wounded after his crash landing. Even so he exchanged fire with German ground troops, with tradition holding that he killed at least 3 more of the enemy before their own fire cut him down for good.  
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INFOGALACTIC: THE FREE SPEECH ALTERNATIVE TO WIKIPEDIA

sjws-always-lieInteresting news!

Earlier this year Gab.ai launched as a Free Speech alternative to Twitter and Facebook.

Now a site called Infogalactic has launched as a Free Speech alternative to Wikipedia.  Continue reading →

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COURAGEOUS FEMALE CHESS CHAMP REFUSES TO WEAR A HIJAB

nazi-paikidze-barnes-2

And we have ANOTHER member for Balladeer’s Blog’s real-life League of Extraordinary Women: Nazi (“Nah-zee”) Paikidze-Barnes, the United States’ Women’s Chess Champion. Paikidze-Barnes has already stated she will NOT participate in February’s World Championship matches because they are being held in Tehran and – per Muslim law – the female participants will be required to wear hijabs no matter what country they are from.

Nazi Paikidze-Barnes courageously refuses to submit to such demeaning and degrading treatment. Former Pan-American Women’s Chess Champion Carla Heredia has called on all 64 participants in next February’s matches to protest the hijab “commandment” as well.

nazi-paikidze-barnesThe heroic stands by these two extraordinary women have been largely ignored by America’s gutless Political Correctness fascists who crawl for Islam . Those enablers cravenly try to pretend that all Muslim women LOVE wearing degrading body-bags. If Nazi and Carla were calling for the 64 chess players to surrender their dignity and WEAR the hijabs you can bet they’d have been canonized on The View multiple times by now.

This situation raises intriguing questions like: Will Godwin’s Law pussies insist that Nazi forfeit all of her victories because of the way her first name is spelled? (I’m kidding!)

And even more importantly: Continue reading →

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