Battles Long Ago: Yalu River 1894

Over at GFT. Imperial Japan's first exercise in actual empire-building...

...steampunk battleships, Philo N. McGiffin, Asian rivalry, and dog-drowns-man stories.

Battles Long Ago: Khalkhin-Gol 1939

Over at GFT, some military history;

The Imperial Japanese Army becomes the first outfit in WW2 to discover that if you give Grigory Zhukov enough men, time, and armor that he will eff you up.

New Year's Eve 1942

and the Battle of the Barents Sea

At GFT.

Here's hoping that you all are enjoying a happier, healthier, and, above, all, WARMER runup to 2013 than the guys were at the fringe of the Arctic on this day seventy years ago!

Islamofascism, Umyyad Style!

This month at GFT; the Second Siege of Constantinople, 717-718.

Fighting them here because, well, because they kicked ass there; tricks that wouldn't fool a woman, Greek Fire, and the Man with the Golden Nose.

Check it out the Labor Day Specials!

The Forehead of Zeus

I want to invite the patrons here to visit our friend Labrys for a Memorial Day trip to Ft. Maclellan, Alabama for Women's Army Corps Basic Training, 1974.

"I hate running, I hate hot weather. So how on earth did I end up in Women's Army Corps Basic Training in Ft. McClellan, Alabama in August of 1974? I would have done most anything to get the hell out of Kansas. My father laughed and said "So my little girl is joining the Whore Corps."

As much as there is very little that remains of the Army I knew, Labrys brings to life an Army that literally no longer exists except in memory, and does it with her usual frank eloquence.

I can't recommend her post too highly, both for her subject - a piece of U.S. Army life that is almost as forgotten as brown shoes - as well as her writing, which hits like an M-14 round. What better way to spend the Memorial Day weekend? Forget the hamburgs in the grill and go read. You won't regret it.

And don't forget to ask her to keep going - she remembers another place and time that have almost vanished; the U.S. Army, Europe in the Seventies, and the Bavarian glories of Flint Kaserne. Hoch, hoch, Labrys!