Free Republic

Today the White House announced that President Trump was donating his 1st quarter salary to the National Park Service. The announcement was made during the regular press briefing by White House spokesman Sean Spicer. “The president has spoken with counsel and made the decision to donate his first-quarter salary in total to a government entity,” Spicer said. He continued, “He has chosen this quarter to donate it to the National Park Service.” “It is my pleasure on behalf of the President of the United States to present a check for $78,333 to the Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke and...

The winner of the U.S. presidential election will be determined by about 17 swing counties, with a total of about 500,000 swing voters between them. The American public has heard that 12 swing states will determine who will be the next president. But a book, Presidential Swing States: Why Only Ten Matter, by Hamline University Professor David Schultz, who also edits the Journal of Public Affairs Education, predicts a very small number of America’s 3,142 counties and county equivalents will tip the balance. * In Ohio, it’s Hamilton County, home to Cincinnati; * In Pennsylvania, the key counties are Bucks...

The battles for American independence began more than a year before the historic vote of the Colonies to declare independence from Britain. The British Army, along with their Navy and Marines had occupied Boston since 1768. The following are the battles fought before and after America actually had an official Army, rather than the magnificent "rabble" who accomplished so much, with so little. Below is the flavor of some of the most important battlefields. Happy Birthday America!Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 1775:Britain had a force of 1500, with 73 killed, 174 wounded, and 53 captured. U.S. Colonists had a...

7 Most Incredible Tank Graveyards on Earth In certain corners of the globe you'll find the strangest of military cemeteries – places filled not with the bodies of fallen troops but littered with the carcasses of abandoned tanks. These once-formidable weapons of war no longer strike fear into the hearts of opposing forces; their days of rolling inexorably onwards on the teeth of steel tracks are over. Now, the armor of these behemoths is rusting and corroded, their hatches all but sealed from lack of use, and their controls never again to be manned by commanders in battle. WWII tank...

Actor Duvall enters battle to save Va. battlefield By STEVE SZKOTAK LOCUST GROVE, Va. (AP) - Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall has fired a verbal salvo against plans to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter near a Virginia Civil War battlefield where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee first fought the Union's Ulysses S. Grant. Duvall, who is a descendant of Lee, said he will help preservationists in "chasing out" the retailer from a site near the Wilderness Battlefield. At a news conference on Monday, Duvall said he has no grudge against Wal-Mart but believes in capitalism coupled with sensitivity. Duvall was joined...

FORT HUACHUCA — Forty-three soldiers making up the 518th Signal Company returned to Fort Huachuca arriving at Libby Army Airfield at 7:15 a.m. Monday and then they were bused to a ceremony at Murr Recreation Center, where they were reunited with their families and friends. During their 15-month deployment, they performed missions in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. The 518th is a Tactical Installation Network company, which essentially means they install the critical infrastructure for tactical networks where none existed before. This platoon element is stationed in Fort Huachuca. Its parent unit is located in Fort Gordon, Ga. The guest speaker...

U.S. Army Col. John Nicholson (second from left), Task Force Spartan commander, illustrates friendly and enemy positions for U.S. Army Gen. John P. Abizaid (second from right), U.S. Central Command commander, as U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John M. Custer, U.S. Central Command commander director of intelligence, and U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, Combined Joint Task Force-76 commander, look on May 2, 2006, at Provincial Reconstruction Team Asadabad headquarters. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Michael Pintagro CENTCOM Commander Visits 'Mountain Lion' Battlefields General Abizaid also met with U.S. Marines of Task Force Lava, wrapping up his...

SHARPSBURG, Md. — A Ku Klux Klan group plans to hold a rally June 10 on the grounds of the Antietam National Battlefield, site of the bloodiest one-day clash of the Civil War, an organizer and a park official said...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The New Mexico battlefield known as the "Gettysburg of the West" was listed Tuesday as one of America's 10 most endangered battlefields. Proposed development was one threat cited by the Civil War Preservation Trust in naming the 10 sites located in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Washington, D.C. "Hallowed ground, where more than 600,000 Americans gave their lives, is being paved over in favor of shopping malls, housing tracts and even gambling casinos," the trust's president, James Lighthizer, said during a news conference. The New Mexico battlefield, at Glorieta, was where Union forces...

A 200-acre site that was part of William T. Sherman's Atlanta campaign is once again up for grabs. This time, the contenders are Henry County government and developer Maxie Price, Jr., and the guns have been replaced by lawyers. The county is looking to condemn part of the site of the Battle of Lovejoy's Station, on the south side of McDonough Road at the Clayton County border, in the name of preservation. Henry County Commissioner Elizabeth “BJ” Mathis, who represents the area, wants the site to be turned into a passive park dedicated to Civil War history, and an existing...

Mansfield Threatened by Mining Company

If you care about the Gettysburg battlefield, drive out to Devil's Den and look at the beautiful old trees. You won't find many because the park service just cut most of them down. Some of these trees were over a hundred years old. Some were "witness trees" when the Civil War veterans came back to dedicate their monuments. The trees provided a place of shady contemplation in the hot summer sun for thousands of visitors. Many of us who care about the battlefield are sickened by their loss. The park service plans to make the landscape look like 1863 so...

WASHINGTON -- America has no more than 20 years before the last of the unprotected but critical Civil War battlefields are "preserved or paved over," the president of the Civil War Preservation Trust said Thursday. Revealing a list of the 10 most-endangered battlefields at a news conference with country musician Darryl Worley, trust president O. James Lighthizer called the hallowed acreage "outdoor classrooms" under serious threat of development. Although the trust has had success in preserving more than 18,000 acres of critical battlefields, including parts of Shiloh in Tennessee, Iuka and Corinth in Mississippi and Antietam in Maryland, important tracts...

The History Channel is going to air a new historical series entitled DECISIVE BATTLES including some classic wars between ancient Persian armies and Roman and Greek ones. The History Channel goes on location to the actual battlefields and integrates cutting-edge videogame technology to bring history and imagination together in the new series DECISIVE BATTLES. The half-hour series DECISIVE BATTLES premieres Friday, July 23 at 9-9:30pm ET/PT. The series is hosted by Matthew Settle (Band of Brothers) on location at the ancient battlefields and features expert commentary from the world©s foremost historians. DECISIVE BATTLES is unlike any series The History Channel...

Battlefield sites under attack from development Study lists Princeton, Monmouth, Trenton among most endangered in U.S. Friday, May 14, 2004 The Revolutionary War battlefields at Princeton, Monmouth and Trenton are among the most endangered by sprawl and development in the nation, according to a new study by the U.S. National Park Service.The forthcoming review, "The Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Historic Preservation Study," examines 825 nationally significant battlefields and sites associated with the two wars.The New Jersey sites are among the nation's 28 most significant sites in danger, said Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist.)."The study looks at the historical...

<p>Spotsylvania County supervisors early yesterday morning overwhelmingly rejected plans to build a massive development on the site of the Chancellorsville Civil War battlefield.</p> <p>After nearly nine hours of discussion and public comment, the board voted 6-0, with one abstention, against zoning changes that would allow for the development of the Town of Chancellorsville, a complex with about 2,000 homes and 2.2 million square feet of retail, office and hotel space.</p>