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Celebrity Veterans

NBC has a new show called “Stars Earn Stripes”.  I haven’t seen it myself.  Honestly, watching ‘celebrities’ pretend to do what soldiers do every day doesn’t appeal to me.  If they want to live the soldier’s life, then they ought to spend most of their days in a motor pool or doing equipment maintenance.

Anyway, reading about the show got me to researching about real celebrities who served in the military.  Here are a few who were either celebrities before or after their service, but didn’t become famous because of it, like President Eisenhower and Audie Murphy.

  • Buster Keaton – Private, Army Signal Corps, World War I
  • Bea Arthur – Staff Sergeant, U.S. Marines Women’s Reserve, World War II
  • Mel Brooks – Corporal, Army Corps of Engineers, World War II.  Fought in the Battle of the Bulge
  • Howard Cosell – Major, Army Transportation Corps, World War II
  • Clark Gable – Major, Army Air Force, World War II.
  • Woody Guthrie – Merchant Marine and Army, World War II
  • Jimi Hendrix – Paratrooper, 101st Airborne Division, 1961.  Probably not the most motivated of soldiers, but still a paratrooper when that was rare.
  • Rock Hudson – Aircraft mechanic, U.S. Navy, World War II
  • Steve McQueen – Tanker, Marines, late 1940’s.  Busted back to private several times, but eventually got his act together.
  • Ralph Nader – Cook, U.S. Army, 1959.  A volunteer in a draftee army.
  • Rod Steiger – U.S. Navy, World War II
  • Jimmy Stewart – Pilot, U.S Army Air Corps and Air Force, eventually retiring as a brigadier general. Interesting subnote – Flew along as an observer on a B-52 mission in Vietnam, but didn’t publicize it.
  • Hunter S. Thompson – Air Force, 1950’s
  • Charles Rangel, Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Artillery, Korea.  Decorated for valor during the retreat from the Yalu.

So there you have it.  Ordinary people, some of them already well-known, who gave of themselves for the country.  You have just about every political stripe in there.  Some of them were heroes, some weren’t the best soldiers in history, but all of them put their hand in the air and took the oath.

When the ‘stars’ on NBC want to earn their stripes, I believe the recruiting sergeants will be available.

by daddybear71 on August 18, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in military

Posted by daddybear71 on August 18, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/18/celebrity-veterans/

Thoughts on the Day

  • I’m a pretty simple parent.  I really only have two rules.  First, that which I say do, I expect my children to do.  Second, that which I tell my children to not do, I expect them to not do.  Is that too much to ask?
  • Took the family to the state fair.    Yeah, I need to have my head checked.
  • Costs for the day, not including incidental purchases:
    • Entrance for the adults and teenagers – $50
    • Entrance for Boo – $6
    • Parking – $8
    • Food – $60
    • Not sure how so many people can afford this.
  • I was specifically forbidden from coming home with more animals than we left with.
    • No, I was not allowed to substitute a child for another animal.
    • Yes, I asked.
    • Yes, she checked.
  • The FBI, TSA, and ATF had booths set up next to the state and city police booths.
    • The FBI, and TSA booth had people talking to them, but the ATF booth was about as popular as the HS Precision booth at the NRA convention.
    • TSA had a static display of what they consider dangerous explosives, including cans of Goex and IMR powders.  The lady working there couldn’t explain why they were included with dynamite and det cord.
  • Irish Woman was unaware there were so many breeds of cows and doves.
  • I wasn’t aware there were rabbits the size of cocker spaniels.
    • Am I wrong for asking if they judged the bunnies for taste?
  • Someone needs to tell the local bands that playing 20-year-old Top 40 hits by Nirvana and Green Day doesn’t make them edgy and controversial.
  • We didn’t try any of the deep-fried delicacies.  Yes, I know it’s tradition, but my arteries started to hurt just from the smell of the food booths.
by daddybear71 on August 18, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Thought for the day

Posted by daddybear71 on August 18, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/18/thoughts-on-the-day-46/

30 Days of Abraham Lincoln – Day 15

I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. — 1862

My Take – Flexibility and openness to good criticism and new ideas are the key to success in just about anything.  I won’t compromise core principles like ‘Women and children first!’, but I will listen when someone tells me I’m messing up or shows me a different path that still leads to a desired goal.

by daddybear71 on August 18, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Abraham Lincoln

Posted by daddybear71 on August 18, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/18/30-days-of-abraham-lincoln-day-15/

Thought for the Day

Giving my daughter her first rifle of her very own was one of the best moments of the week.  She’s excited to take it to the woods this fall.

 

Girlie Bear’s Thompson Center Omega .50 Muzzleloader Rifle

by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Thought for the day

Posted by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/17/thought-for-the-day-163/

One of the Reasons I Like Redheaded Irish Women and Technicolor Movies

Maureen O’Hara, born August 17, 1920

by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/17/one-of-the-reasons-i-like-redheaded-irish-women-and-technicolor-movies/

Bambi Lessons

It’s kind of a gloomy, wet day, so I’m letting Boo watch television instead of go outside. Disney is showing “Bambi”, which I haven’t watched in years.  Here are some lessons I see in it:

  • Baby animals are cute
  • Winter is fun
  • Never cross an open area without proper surveillance and overwatch
  • Owls are crabby bastards, but I can identify with them
  • Women can make you act really stupid
  • Always leave a fire guard or douse your campfire

Seriously, it’s a good movie.  Yes, it kicked the antropomorphization of forest animals that Beatrix Potter started into high gear, and every year I get the “But you’re going to kill Bambi!” speech from those who don’t like hunting, but it has good messages about friendship and family.

 

by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in movie

Posted by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/17/bambi-lessons/

30 Days of Abraham Lincoln – Day 14

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. — 1863

My Take – I can’t really add much to this.  We don’t make days like Independence Day or Memorial Day sacred. That was done long before we were born.  It is our task to take the rights and privilege that have been handed down to us and make something out of them.

by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Abraham Lincoln

Posted by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/17/30-days-of-abraham-lincoln-day-14/

Today’s Earworm

by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Earworm

Posted by daddybear71 on August 17, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/17/todays-earworm-208/

Thought for the Day

Question – What does my youngest son have in common with Billy Graham?

Answer – They both have the ability to get me to rise to my feet and yell “Jesus!”.

by daddybear71 on August 16, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Thought for the day

Posted by daddybear71 on August 16, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/16/thought-for-the-day-162/

Today’s Motivator

by daddybear71 on August 16, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on August 16, 2012

https://daddybearsden.com/2012/08/16/todays-motivator/

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