“History is a set of lies agreed upon”
Napoleon Bonaparte
A brief history of American wars along with suggested books and movies for all Americans to learn about and understand veterans’ sacrifice and the wars they fought for YOUR freedom
The American Revolution
The American colonies fought for your independence from 1775 until 1783. The colonists defeated the British Empire, the greatest military power in the world at that time. Colonists were frustrated with Britain forcing them to pay taxes. Colonists rallied behind the phrase, “no taxation without representation”.
George Washington was the commander of the Continental Army. His brilliant victories at Trenton and Princeton raised morale but his most important contribution to the war was keeping a poorly equipped army fighting for four years. Washington delivered one of "the most jarring defeat(s)" ever inflicted upon the British Empire at the time. - Historian Stephen Brumwell.
The Battle of Bunker Hill: “Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” The British took the hill but suffered staggering dead and wounded. The Battle of Saratoga was the first great American victory of the war. The turning point to victory and independence. 25,000 Americans were killed in the war. This total included app. 11,500 POWS who died on British prison ships in NYC. The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. America was independent!
Books
The American Revolution: A History by Gordon Wood
1776 by David McCullough
Movies
The Patriot Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Logan Lerman
The Crossing Jeff Daniels, Roger Rees, Sebastian Roché
The Civil War
The Northern States and Southern States fought over slavery and states rights. President. Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States in 1860. Eleven States left the Union and became the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as President. The Civil War began April 12, 1861 when the Confederates fired on Charleston, S.C.'s Fort Sumter.
The war was a slaughter that lasted four years with Americans killing other Americans. More Americans were killed in the Civil War than the two World Wars, Korea and Vietnam combined. 761,000 Americans were killed, and there were over 1,600,000 Killed, wounded or missing. Historians write about the causes of the war but never mention the casualties
Notable US commanders: US Grant, General William Sherman, General Phil Sheridan
Notable Confederate commanders: Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, Thomas Stonewall Jackson
Major battles were:
Bull Run.
Antietam. The bloodiest day in American history.
Fredericksburg. The Union Army hospital was at the Chatham House. The doctors cut off so many arms and legs, they were piled high as a tree outside the home.
Vicksburg. The civilians ate horses during the long siege.
Richmond.
Petersburg.
Gettysburg. The site of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.
The Wilderness.
Cold Harbor.
Atlanta. Sherman’s march to the sea.
The killing ended on May 9,1865. General Robert E Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House. The greatest American tragedy ended.
Books
Civil War by James M. McPherson
The Red Badge of Courage by Steven Crane
Movies
Gods and Generals Robert Duvall, Mira Sorvino, Jeff Daniels
Gone with the Wind The most famous film about the Civil War
Glory Denzel Washington, Matthew Broderick
World War One
Thanks to President Woodrow Wilson’s misguided policies and colossal blunders, the US entered World War One. Wilson ran for President in 1916 on the slogan 'He kept us out of the war". Americans of Irish and Germans heritage, church leaders and women were all opposed to our entry into the war.
The US Army and Navy were totally unprepared to go to war. The Army took horrific casualties learning trench warfare. General John Pershing led the Americans into battle at the Marne River, Chateau Thierry and Belleau Woods.
During the war the U.S. mobilized over 4 million military personnel and suffered 116,516 deaths, including around 45,000 who died due to the 1918 Spanish influenza outbreak. Both sides used gas warfare, now outlawed.
The War ended on November 11,1918 at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour.
Books
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Movies
Paths of Glory Kirk Douglas
Sergeant York Gary Cooper
World War Two
The Empire of Japan attacked the US on December 7, 1941 in a sneak attack. President Roosevelt called the attack " A day that will live in Infamy". Three days later, Germany declared war on at the US. We were in World War Two. The war was fought on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The US Navy ruled the waves and the US Air Force dominated the sky.
The US Army defeated the German Army in Africa, Italy, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Denmark, Austria, and Germany. The Germans had better weapons, especially their tanks. The American Army freed Europe from the Nazis.
Major Battles were:
Kasserine Pass.
Sicily.
Italy. Monte Cassino, Salerno, Anzio.
France. D Day, June 6, 1944, the largest Amphibious battle in history.
Battle of the Bulge.
Germany surrendered in May 8, 1945.
The US Navy, US Army and the Marines fought the Japanese in the Pacific.
The US Navy fought large naval battles at:
Guadalcanal.
Coral Sea.
Midway. The Navy greatest victory turning the tide in the Pacific.
The Marines fought a series of island battles. Tarawa, Saipan, Pelieu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
The Japanese surrendered in August 15, 1945 after the US dropped two atom bombs. If we didn’t drop the bombs, The US would have suffered up to 1,000,000 American casualties invading Japan.
US Army Killed: 228,238
USAir Force Killed: 88,119
Navy Killed: 62,614
Marines Killed: 24,511
Coast Guard Killed: 1,917
Total Killed: 405,399
Total Wounded: 670,846
General Douglas MacArthur said, “Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death. The entire world is quietly at peace”.
Between 60 and 72 million people in the world were killed in World War Two.
Books
Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan
Movies
Saving Private Ryan Tom Hanks, Directed by Steven Spielberg
Band Of Brothers miniseries Directed by Steven Spielberg
Schindlers List Directed by Steven Spielberg
Hacksaw Ridge Andrew Garfield
The Cold War
The Cold War was a worldwide confrontation between the US and Nato versus the USSR (Russia) and the Warsaw Pact. The USSR was fighting for communist world domination and the US was fighting to bring Democracy to the world. This confrontation was on land in Germany, the Air, and over the oceans. The Korean and Vietnam War were two flash points in the Cold War.
The main line of defense was in Western Germany. The mighty Seventh US Army and the US Air Force blocked the Warsaw Pact troops from invading Western Europe. The US had thousands of nuclear weapons but the Soviet Union also had hundreds of nuclear missiles. Sane military minds prevented a nuclear war.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest America and the USSR ever came to nuclear war. The US raised the readiness level of SAC forces to DEFCON 2. For the only confirmed time in US history, going to Defcon2 means bombers with nuclear weapons are in the air, submarines with missiles and ground missiles are all ready to be fired. The leaders John Kennedy and Khrushchev both backed off, came to an agreement and nuclear oblivion was averted.
The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Germany was reunified and America won a great victory over communism.
Books
1984 by George Orwell
Orwell takes his place at the head of this list as the first writer to use the term “cold war” in relation to geopolitical conditions immediately after the second world war (in You and the Atomic Bomb). Nineteen Eighty-Four remains the defining vision of totalitarian rule. It supplied us with a vocabulary we still use and is as relevant today as it was when Orwell wrote it. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carre
Movies
1984 Richard Burton, John Hurt. Directed by Michael Radford. Released: 1984
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold Richard Burton, Directed by Martin Ritt
The Korean War
North Korea's Communist forces invaded South Korea's democratic country, South Korea and its allies, principally made up of U.S. troops defending South Korea. The Korean War was the first armed conflict in the global struggle between democracy and communism, called the “Cold War.” Gen. Douglas MacArthur was designated commander of the unified U.N. forces, but was later replaced after publicly criticizing U.S. policy and threatening the Chinese with massive retaliation.
North Korea moved south quickly at first and captured the South Korean capital, Seoul. US forces pushed them back towards North Korea and eventually the border with China. Communist China lent their support to the North Koreans and their effort regained control of Seoul.
Heavy fighting raged at the 38th parallel, which became the post-war border between the two countries. After the 1953 truce at Panmunjom, North Korea, North and South Korea remained separate, as before the war. The US has troops stationed in and defending South Korea for 70 years.
U.S. troops engaged: 5,720,000
American battle deaths: 33,741
Books
The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam
Movies
Pork Chop Hill Gregory Peck
The Manchurian Candidate Frank Sinatra
The Vietnam War
The U.S. helped non-Communist South Vietnam fight invasion by Communist North Vietnam from 1961 to 1973. President Lyndon Baines Johnson said at Baylor College “We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves”. John Fitzgerald Kennedy had 17,000 troops in Vietnam in 1963. LBJ sent 525,000 troops to Vietnam in 1968. President Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes which stopped and started for four years. The bombing was as ineffectual as the Commanding General William Westmorland. JFK, LBJ and Robert McNamara were responsible for the second greatest tragedy in American history.
President Richard Nixon begins troop withdrawals from the region in May 1969, a military assault on th Ho Chi Minh trail in 1970, but five years too late. Nixon ordered plans for retaliatory bombings of North Vietnam after talks to end the war in Vietnam broke down December 13, 1972. Operation Linebacker II, otherwise known as the “Christmas Bombings” On December 29, the North Vietnamese agreed to resume the talks and signed the final Paris Peace Treaty the Vietnam War. This bombing was also seven years too late.
US Killed: 58,471 men and 8 woman, all nurses. 202,000 wounded
Books
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo
We Were Soldiers and Young by Hal Moore and Joe Galloway
Movies
We were Soldiers Mel Gibson
Hamburger Hill Anthony Barrile
The Wars In Iraq and Afghanistan
The US was attacked on September 11, 2001 by 19 Muslims, 15 from Saudi Arabia. They hijacked four planes, flew two of them into two World Trade Center towers in NYC, one into The Pentagon, and the fourth, which was headed for The Capitol Building in Washington, DC, into a field in Pennsylvania thanks to the heroism of several passengers. Almost three thousand Americans were killed. The American Army and the CIA attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9-11 and scored victories. The US under Presidents George Bush and Barrack Obama got tied down in Afghanistan and stayed 16 years too long.
In the Iraq War, the US attacked under dubious claims of weapons of mass destruction. There were no weapons in Iraq. Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz said "The Iraqis will welcome us with flowers”; we were not welcomed. The US suffered thousands of casualties. Another tragedy brought to the citizens by our government. Hopefully, this is the last US government attempt at Nation Building.
Over 4250 Dead Americans under Bush and Obama; over 30,000 wounded.
Books
12 Strong by Doug Stanton
War by Sebastian Unger
Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell
Movies
Lone Survivor Mark Wahlburg
Restrepo, Documentary, Directed by Sebastian Unger and Tim Hetherington
The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner, Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
American Sniper, Bradley Cooper, Directed by Clint Eastwood
Hate the War, Love the Warrior