The Best Christmas Present Ever

Seventy years ago, US Navy demolition teams, Army engineers, and hundreds of other American servicemen, all part of a UN force that weeks earlier had numbered over 100,000, watched as a massive explosion – the largest since World War II – erupted over a small port in North Korea. With docks, warehouses, and wharfs bursting…

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Honor, Courage, Commitment

Chief Tomich, center seated, with fellow Chief Petty Officers

He never forgot the sight. Passing through Pearl Harbor on his way to the Marshall Islands during WWII, 17-year-old J. Robert “Bob” Lunney witnessed, for the first time in his life, the carnage of war: capsized and damaged ships, oil-stained water, and battle-scarred buildings. As a young sailor from the Bronx, his brief time at…

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A Christmas Miracle

Civilians evacuating at Hungnam

Thousands of refugees, huddled at the water’s edge and anxiously waiting to board  American ships, knew what would happen if they were left behind. The Chinese, massing in the nearby mountains, would storm into Hungnam and make an example of anyone who had defied them. US and ROK collaborators, Christians, anti-communists, and anyone deemed a…

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