Will Dabbs

Entire swaths of humanity are stark raving lunatics. On 1 September 2004, 32 lunatics approached School Number One (SNO) in Beslan, North Ossetia, an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus in Russia.

Most anyone sufficiently enlightened to frequent GunsAmerica is already familiar with the airborne component of Operation Overlord. Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan captured our imaginations and just wouldn’t let go.

John Boitnott got his first taste of war on 7 December 1941 at Pearl Harbor. Serving as a Marine onboard the Northampton-class cruiser USS Chicago, he was wounded during the Japanese aerial attack.

It was the threat of the battleship and her fearsome guns that kept combat fleets bottled up and gave invasion planners pause. 

I would love to be able to sit down with James Sullivan and Gene Stoner. I would ask them if they had any inkling of the chaos their remarkable little rifle might someday foment.

My buddy Sario Caravalho is a fascinating guy. Born and raised in Hawaii, he was one of the US Army’s first Green Berets.

The Purple Heart was awarded retroactively for wounds received during World War 1. MacArthur himself was the first recipient. It was standardized across all services in December of 1942. However, the Purple Heart is a military award no sensible person covets.

When she came of age, Jo enrolled in law school intending to become a human rights lawyer. While studying law she developed friendships with several Jewish students. In the late 1930’s with persecution of the Jews on the rise across Europe, Jo felt energized to support them.  

It is tough to believe that, even this deep into the enlightened Information Age, nations can yet still go to war simply because a single charismatic lunatic wants them to.