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We, the Cadence staff, celebrate with the world in welcoming the New Year by compiling 20 interesting military facts
for your intellectual pleasure. Enjoy, brave cadets of UPM ROTC!
1. Soldiers arrived to fight the Battle of Mame in
World War I - neither on foot nor by military airplane or vehicle - but by taxi cabs. France took over all taxicabs in Paris
to get soldiers to the front.
2. Russian submarine designers are building military submarines out of concrete. Because
concrete becomes stronger under higher pressure, C-subs (concrete submarines) could settle down to the bottom in very deep
water and wait for enemy ships to pass overhead. Concrete would not show up in sonar displays (it reads just like sand or
rocks), so the passing ships would not see the sub lurking below.
3. Rebecca Elizabeth Marier was the first woman
to graduate "top of the class" at West Point, the US Military Academy. The rankings are based on academic, military and physical
accomplishments.
4. Edgar Allan Poe and James Abott McNeill Whistler both went to West Point.
5. Poet/writer
Edgar Allan Poe was expelled from West Point because he showed up for parade in his birthday suit.
6. The closest
that film star John Wayne came to military action was in 1944, during a three-month entertainment tour of Pacific bases. His
boyhood wish of becoming a naval officer never came true, although he did came close to receiving an appointment to Annapolis.
During World War II, he was rejected for military service. Wayne was never a cowboy either. Odd jobs that "The Duke" held
as a young man include being a fruit picker, iceman, truck driver, and movie propman.
7."It may affront the military-minded
person to suggest a regime that does not maintain any military secrets." - Albert Einstein.
8. In order to become
an astronaut, applicant to NASA's Mercury Space Program in 1959 were required to be in a branch of the military; be under
40 years of age; shorter than 5 feet and 11 inches; demonstrate perfect eyesight and excellent physical condition; hold a
bachelor's degree or an equivalent in engineering; be a qualified jet pilot; and have a least 1,500 hours of flying time.
9. During the Crimean War, the British Army lost ten times more troops to dyssentry than to battle wounds.
10.
During World War I, the punishment for homosexuality in the French Army was execution.
11. In feudal Japan, the Imperial
Army has special soldiers whose only duty was to count the number of severed heads after each battle.
12. Alexander
the Great ordered his entire army to shave their faces and heads. He believed that beards and long hair made it easier for
an enemy to grab and cut off their heads.
13. When the Byzantine Army cornered the Slav's 15,000 strong army, they
decided to spare their lives. But the weren't that merciful. They blinded each and every one of them, sparing only one in
a hundred (from whom they removed only one eye) so they could lead their comrades home.
14. George Custer was the
youngest American officer to become general in the United States Army. He made his rank at age 23.
15. Pope John XXIII
served as a sergeant in the Italian Army during World War I.
16. The famed Alcatraz prison in San Francisco was first used as a prison by the US Army during the Civil War. Numerous
attempts have been documented. However, there is no firm evidence that any of them succeeded. The word "Alcatraz" is Spanish
for "pelican."
17. Fans thought that Rod Serling invented the term "Twilight Zone." In fact, so did he. He had not hear anyone use
the term before, so he assumed that he had coined a new term. However, after the hit TV show debuted in 1959, Serling was
informed that Air Force pilots used the phrase to describe a "moment when the plane is coming down on approach and the pilot
cannot see the horizon."
18. Captain Cook lost 41 of his 98 crew to scurvy, or lack of Vitamin C, on his first voyage
to the South Pacific in 1768. By 1795, the importance of eating citrus was realized, and lemon juice was issued to all British
Navy ships.
19. During World War II, the US Navy had a world champion player, Reuben Fine, calculate - on the basis
of positional probability - where enemy submarines might surface.
20. Baseball great Yogi Berra, who was catcher for
the New York Yankees from 1946-1963, was enlisted in the Navy during World War II and participated in the D-Day landing on
Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.
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