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So, a slight interruption into my normal content, but I am starting my last year (inshallah) of grad school, and starting to think about my capstone project. So if you're a follower with a more academic bent, I might reach out to you for advice. Feel free to tell me no.
Making sure this book is prominently displayed at the library for Veteran's Day so I can trigger as many people as possible
Come to read about Storm of Steel, stay for a devastating discussion on duty and fatherhood
astralcodexten.com/p/your-bo…
love the contrast between the geardo helmets and the dorky PPE masks
Breaching Operations 💥
U.S. Soldiers assigned to the 95th Combat Engineer Company conduct a specialized deliberate breach range at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, to refine explosive obstacle clearance and tactical entry capabilities.
📍 Hawaii
📸 Sgt. Samarion Hicks
#USPACOM #USArmy #CombatEngineers
Stay out of the Honch tonight, frens
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Nimitz-class aircraft carrier coming into Yokosuka, Japan - October 16, 2026 SRC: X-@HNlEHupY4Nr6hRM
4th Class Officer retweeted
Mayor just watched it all happen from a nearby hilltop
"I refute it thus" declares the toddler from the top of the stairwell, after bringing told "We can't take popsicles upstars!"
PJ O'Rourke speaks of this
A fun statistical oddity when people want to try and play edge cases is that the survival rate for falling out of a plane without a parachute is not zero
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falls_…
March 24, 1944. A British Lancaster bomber is on its way home from a raid on Berlin when a German night fighter tears into it.
The plane catches fire. The crew is ordered to bail out.
In the tail turret, 21 year old gunner Nicholas Alkemade turns around to grab his parachute.
It's on fire.
Rear gunners on the Lancaster sat in a tiny, cramped turret at the very back of the plane. There was no room for a parachute in there with them, so it was stored just inside the fuselage. Alkemade opened the door and watched his parachute burn up in front of him.
The flames were coming for him. His oxygen mask was melting. His clothes were starting to burn.
He had two choices. Stay in the plane and burn alive. Or jump.
Without a parachute. From around 18,000 feet. More than three miles up.
He later said he decided he'd rather die quickly than burn. So he turned the turret, opened the doors, and threw himself backward into the night sky.
He fell for what must have felt like forever. He said that at one point he felt strangely calm, like he was lying on a cloud, and assumed he was about to die.
Then he blacked out.
He woke up lying in deep snow beneath a stand of pine trees, staring up at the stars. The branches had broken his fall, and the snow had cushioned the landing.
He had burns, cuts, and a badly twisted knee.
That was it. No broken bones.
The first thing he reportedly did was light a cigarette.
He couldn't walk far, so he blew his whistle until Germans came and found him. And that's when his problems started.
The Germans didn't believe him. Why would they? An enemy airman with no parachute, claiming he had just fallen out of the sky. They assumed he was a spy who had sneaked in somehow and was lying about it. The Gestapo interrogated him.
Alkemade begged them to go look at the wreck of his bomber.
So they did. They found the Lancaster's remains, and the burned harness from his parachute. The clips showed it had never even been attached. Everything matched his story.
The Germans were so stunned that they gave him a written certificate confirming that he had fallen from his aircraft without a parachute and survived. His fellow prisoners in the POW camp reportedly treated him like a celebrity.
He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner at Stalag Luft III, the same camp made famous by the Great Escape.
After the war he went back to an ordinary life in England. Factory work. A family. He lived until 1987.
Three miles. No parachute. A cigarette in the snow.
4th Class Officer retweeted
At least it didn't collide with a cattle truck. I'd hate to see corned beef all over the road.
4th Class Officer retweeted
People spend far too much time wondering what a Handley Page Atlantic would look like in a Viggen scheme. Well, here's the answer, so we can all move on with our lives now. Goodnight.
I read this so you don't have to, earn this
blackshoe.substack.com/p/mor…
This was inevitable
The U.S. Space Force activated Space Forces Special Operations (SPACEFOR-SOC) on the 7th, establishing its ninth component command.

ALT A Special Operations Forces Soldier participates in a training exercise with the 50th Security Forces Squadron and a tier 1 NATO mission partner at Schriever Space Base, Colorado, Oct. 19, 2023. This exercise increased interoperability and allowed for the 50th SFS to begin employing the Agile Combat Employment concept. (U.S. Space Force photo by Tiana Williams)
RIP to a real one; I have three books of his books on my To Read shelf as we speak, and 6 or 7 more on audiobook, and two in the Read pile. The only good from this is there's a slam dunk name for a new ship.
The U.S. Naval Institute mourns the passing of Dr. Craig L. Symonds, distinguished naval historian, award-winning author, and professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy. Through three decades of teaching and a lifetime of scholarship, he helped generations of naval officers and readers understand the people, decisions, and sacrifices that shaped our naval history.
In May 2023, Dr. Symonds addressed the Naval Institute’s 150th Annual Meeting, reflecting on the enduring relationship between the Navy and its independent forum. His remarks became his most recent Proceedings article, “A Two-Way Street: The Navy–Naval Institute’s 150-Year Relationship.” In it, he described the Institute as “a sounding board and not an echo chamber”—a reminder of the value of thoughtful debate in advancing the naval profession.
We honor his lasting contributions to naval history and extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and former students. His legacy lives on in the people he taught and the history he brought to life.
Read his article and revisit his 2023 remarks.
usni.org/magazines/proceedin…

































