#Military History

[theworldofwars]

Gordon Highlanders guarding German prisoners clearing snow from a road at Doullens, 21 December 1917.

[deadpresidents]

"I then began to ask them if they knew what he drank, what brand of whiskey he used, telling them seriously that I wished they could find out...for if it made fighting generals like Grant, I should like to get some of it for distribution."

-- President Abraham Lincoln, on what he told a group of Congressmen who tried to warn Lincoln about rumors that Ulysses S. Grant drank too much alcohol

[humanoidhistory]

Computer room at the Nevada Test Site.

(National Archives)

[barbucomedie]

Halberd of the Life Guard of Archbishop Wolf Dietrich from Salzburg, Austria dated to 1589 on display at the Salzburg Museum in Salzburg, Austria

Photographs taken by myself 2022

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Can we just have a moment to appreciate this guy? All of Philomena Cunk’s experts are great but Ashley Jackson, professor of imperial and military history at London’s King’s College stands out.

When repeatedly asked about the “Soviet Onion,” he initially tries to correct her. She accuses him of mansplaining, so he eventually just plays along completely straight-faced.

“Well, if you want to talk about sort of Russian Soviet vegetables, we can. I mean, it was a deeply agrarian country, and so there were lots of onions, lots of potatoes, lots of other things.”

“Did they have turnips?”

“Think so. Cheap, easy to grow, hardy. Great in a stew.”

Just… “Great in a stew.” Man went from trying to correct her to just… listing the virtues of turnips. Class act.

[bantarleton]

Iconic.

[dronescapesvideos]

First Lieutenant Arthur Carley, 401 Willowood, Dayton, Ohio, found shelter for his platoon near a wrecked Zero by Motoyama Airfield. Iwo Jima. 23 February, 1945

➤➤ KAMIKAZE, USELESS SACRIFICE (VIDEO): https://youtu.be/z0qMAvhjREo

[lonestarflight]

Two workers attaching a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp onto a F4U Corsair at the Chance-Vought factory in Stratford, Connecticut.

Date: March 1943

NARA: 179036630

[daguerreotyping]

Carte de visite of a debonair French chasseur fetchingly bedecked in frogging, c. 1870

[catsofyore]

Idea: remake 'Léon: The Professional' but with kittens. Ca. 1917 - 1918. Source.

[gay-jewish-bucky]

Debunking the Claim that Bucky Barnes' Dog Tags "Prove He Cannot Be Jewish"

In 2021 and 2022, when discussing the fact that MCU!Bucky (henceforth referred to simply as Bucky) is based off of Arnie Roth, a gay Jewish man and Steve's childhood best friend, I received pushback from fans telling me that Bucky can't possibly be Jewish due to his dog tags; citing a behind the scenes picture posted by Sebastian Stan to his instagram story.

Transcription of the dog tags:

James B. Barnes (Legal Name) 32557038 (Serial Number*) T41 42 (Tetanus Immunization) O (Blood Type) R. Barnes (Next of Kin) 3092 Stockton RD (Address) Shelbyville IN (Location) P (Religion Marker)

*A serial number starting with a 3 indicated that the servicemember was drafted into the Army, it's important that we do not forget that Bucky didn't chose to fight.

During World War II the dog tags of American service members would have had one of the following regulation religion markers:

P for Protestant (the marker we see on Bucky's dog tags)

C for Catholic

H for Hebrew, this being the marker for 'Jewish'

NO (or left blank) for No Religion

For Jewish servicemembers fighting in Europe, being discovered to be a Jew by your captors–especially if you were captured by the Nazis–carried considerable risk and could mean the difference between life or horrific torture, experimentation and possibly even death.

Some Jewish service members, justifiably incredibly fearful of what could happen if they were found out, would either omit a religion marker altogether or, after getting their tags, would attempt to obscure the 'H' marker in some way so it could not be read by their captors.

While this saved some lives, it was not a perfect and fool-proof system, and we have no way of knowing how many times it failed.

In 1943, the year Bucky was drafted, the Army introduced a more official (and more widely adoptable, and thus widely adopted) option to protect Jews in its ranks:

Through the European Theatre of Operations United States Army, Jewish servicemembers could elect to have the 'H' marker for Hebrew on their dog tags replaced with a 'P' for Protestant.

This would offer Jewish servicemembers a more convincing layer of protection if they were ever captured by the enemy, because, unlike an obscured religion marker (or that lack of one) which could itself draw suspicion, a set of dog tags printed with a 'P' would be entirely indistinguishable from the dog tags worn by a gentile and would be less likely to draw suspicion.

Due to this option being made available to Jewish people serving in the United States Armed Forces, the 'P' marker on Bucky's dog tags not only does not definitively prove that he's really a gentile, in actuality its presence provides even further historical support in favour of him being a Jewish man.

Sources and Additional Reading:

Jewish GIs and Their Dog-Tags by Rabbi Akiva Males - Hakirah

A Star of David for Pvt. Benjamin Garadetsky - Jewish Telegraphic Agency (jta.org)

U.S. Army WW2 Dog Tags | WW2 US Medical Research Centre (med-dept.com)

Do You Know the History of the "Dog Tag" (jcveteranscouncil)

Beyond The Battle: Religion and American Troops In World War II (uky.edu)

World War II and American Jewish Identity

European Theater of Operations, United States Army - Wikipedia

Pride Month 2022, 40 Years of Arnie Roth and Michael Bech - Marvel Comics: The Queer History Behind MCU Bucky’s Backstory

J.M. DeMatteis, the creator of Arnie, confirming the character's use for MCU!Bucky

Full screenshot of Sebastian Stan's post of the dog tag

How to Decode a WWII US Army Serial Number | Amy Johnson Crow

[theworldofwars]

The Observer's Lewis Gun mounted on Scarff Ring in a De Havilland No.4 Bomber. September 1917.

[deadpresidents]

"Ulysses Simpson Grant's period in office seems to prove the theory that we can coast along for eight years without a President...Grant's period as President was one of the low points in our history...I don't think Grant knew very much about what the President's job was except that he was Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. That was the thing, I think, that impressed him more than anything, and he was pretty naïve or ignorant about everything else...He wasn't even a Chief Executive; he was another sleepwalker whose Administration was even more crooked than Warren Harding's, if that's possible."

-- President Harry S. Truman, on Ulysses S. Grant

[humanoidhistory]

Robert Oppenheimer: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

[clove-pinks]

The U.S. frigate United States capturing H.B.M. frigate Macedonian: fought, Octr. 25th. 1812 / lith. & pub. by N. Currier, c. 1835-1856 (LOC).

[queerism1969]