Free Republic

Imagine if a state didn’t let someone vote in an election because their grandfather wasn’t the correct race. Surely lawyers in Eric Holder’s Justice Department would be typing up a lawsuit as fast as fingers could fly across the keyboard. After all, Obama is the president who boasted he was a champion for voting rights, falsely we’d later learn. Eric Holder compared voter ID to a modern version of Jim Crow. But a recent federal court opinion shows Jim Crow is alive and well, and living in paradise. This week, the United States District Court in the Commonwealth of the...

Satellite imagery revealed that the United States is constructing a new military facility in the Pacific, possibly preparing an alternative landing site for its airforce should the military bases on Guam become inoperable. Land-clearing activity has been spotted at Tinian International Airport in the Northern Mariana Islands, based on satellite images obtained by The War Zone on June 15. An annotated satellite image showing the full scope of planned construction as part of the Tinian Divert Airfield project. USAF Past satellite imagery from the Planet Lab suggests that construction work at the site started in May. This appears to correspond...

Marvin Strombo, who had taken the calligraphy-covered Japanese flag from a dead soldier at World War II island battlefield 73 years ago, returned it Tuesday to the family of Sadao Yasue. They had never gotten his body or — until that moment — anything else of his. Yasue and Tatsuya’s sister Sayoko Furuta, 93...covered her face with both hands and wept silently as Tatsuya placed the flag on her lap. ... The flag’s white background is filled with signatures of 180 friends and neighbors in this tea-growing mountain village of Higashishirakawa, wishing Yasue’s safe return. The signatures helped Strombo find...

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, shortly after 8:00 a.m. local time, a lone American B-29 was conducting what seemed to be a reconnaissance flight at high altitude over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. At about 16 minutes after 8:00, the aircraft released an object over the centre of town. Attached to parachutes, the object floated down slowly enough to give the four-engine Boeing Superfortress time to turn and lumber out of the airspace. The atom bomb exploded at about 1,900 feet above the centre of Hiroshima. The devastation was cataclysmic. Immediate casualties, dead and injured, numbered approximately 115,000....

Sixty years later, the debate still rages. Was America right to drop the atomic bomb - both bombs? Did it truly face the prospect of a full-scale invasion of Japan which some estimated would result in a million casualties? Or was Japan's imperial army, despite its astonishing savagery and unwillingness to surrender, on the brink of capitulation? Can the mass slaughter and irradiation of civilians without warning ever have been justified? The man who built the A-bombs, scientist Robert Oppenheimer, and the man who used them, President Harry Truman, are both long dead. But the men who were physically close...

The U.S. military will be conducting bombing exercises on Farallon de Mendinilla Island at the height of celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the Battles of Saipan and Tinian. The bombing exercises would be conducted 24 hours daily from June 15 to 18, according to a public advisory released by the Emergency Management Office. On June 21, the military would also conduct an aerial survey of FDM from 8am to 12pm, the EMO said. The EMO advised fishermen, commercial pilots and tour operators to stay away from the training site during the duration of the military exercises. "The general locations...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... . U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. . . Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family...