DeSoto County Veterans Park

11/10/2026

November 10, 2026

Hello Everyone!!

Happy Birthday Marines!!!!!!

On Nov. 10, 1775 at the Second Continental Congress founded The United States Marine Corps when the they established the Continental Marines to serve during the Revolutionary War.

“Semper Fidelis” or Semper Fi (“Always Faithful”) is the motto of the Marine Corps.

“Oorah” is a motivational word as explained below.

In 1953, a company-size Reconnaissance Battalion recon unit was activated in Korea. One of these, the 1st Amphibious Reconnaissance Company, traveled to its landing areas via submarine. It was aboard these submarines that "oorah" was born as a motivational word and one of the first words newly enlisted Marines learn in bootcamp.

Want to wish a Happy 251st Birthday to the U.S. Marine Corp. Thank you for your service. Semper Fi from my Heavenly Marine! May we all prove ourselves worthy of their sacrifice. God Bless to All!!

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11/08/2026

November 8, 2026

Hello Everyone!!

61 years ago today, November 8, 1965, for the actions that day in the Iron Triangle northwest of Saigon, by Specialist Five Lawrence Joel, a medic with the 1st Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, would receive the nation’s highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor.

When his unit was outnumbered in an attack by an enemy force, Specialist Joel, who suffered a severe leg wound in the early stages of the battle, continued to administer aid to his wounded comrades. Wounded a second time, with a bullet lodged deep in his lungs, Joel continued to treat the wounded, completely disregarding the battle raging around him and his own safety. Even after the 24-hour battle had subsided, Joel, a 38-year-old father of two, continued to treat and comfort the wounded until his own evacuation was ordered.

President Johnson presented the Medal of Honor to Specialist Joel on March 9, 1967, in ceremonies held on the South Lawn of the White House. May we all prove ourselves worthy of their sacrifice. God Bless to All!!

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11/04/2026

November 4, 2026

Hello Everyone!

47 years ago today, November 4, 1979, student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 90 hostages. The students were enraged that the deposed Shah had been allowed to enter the United States for medical treatment, and they threatened to murder hostages if any rescue was attempted. Days later, Iran’s provincial leader resigned, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s fundamentalist revolutionaries, took full control of the country, and the fate of the hostages.

Two weeks after the storming of the embassy, the Ayatollah began to release all non-U.S. captives, and all female and minority Americans, citing these groups as among the people oppressed by the United States government. The remaining 52 captives were left at the mercy of the Ayatollah for the next 14 months.

President Jimmy Carter was unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis, and on April 24, 1980, he ordered a disastrous rescue mission in which eight U.S. military personnel were killed and no hostages rescued. In November 1980, Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Soon after, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations finally began between the United States and Iran.

On January 20, 1981, the day of Reagan’s inauguration, the United States freed almost $3 billion in frozen Iranian assets and promised $5 billion more in financial aid. Minutes after Reagan was sworn in, the hostages flew out of Iran on an Algerian airliner, ending their 444-day ordeal. May we all prove ourselves worthy of their sacrifice. God Bless to All!

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11/01/2026

November 1. 2026

Hello Everyone!!

226 years ago, today, November 1, 1800, President John Adams, in the last year of his only term as president, moved into the newly constructed President’s House, the original name for what is known today as the "White House."

Adams had been temporarily living in Tunnicliffe’s City Hotel near the half-finished Capitol building since June 1800, when the federal government was moved from Philadelphia to the new capital city Washington, D.C. Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, at their home in Quincy, Massachusetts, that he was pleased with the new site for the federal government and had explored the soon-to-be President’s House with satisfaction.

Although workmen had rushed to finish their work before Adams returned to D.C. from a visit to Braintree (now Quincy) MA. in late October, construction remained unfinished. When Adams arrived on November 1st the Adams’ furniture from their Philadelphia home was in place and a portrait of George Washington was already hanging in one room. The next day, Adams sent a note to Abigail, who would arrive in Washington later that month, saying that he hoped “none but honest and wise men [shall] ever rule under this roof.”

John and Abigail Adams lived in what she called “the great castle” for only five months as Thomas Jefferson defeated Adams in his bid for re-election. Abigail Adams departed in February 1801 for Quincy. As Jefferson was being sworn in on March 4, 1801, John Adams was on his way back to Massachusetts, where he and Abigail lived out the rest of their days at their family farm. God Bless to All!!

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11/01/2026

October 31, 2026

Hello Everyone!!

Meant to post this yesterday, sorry!

162 years ago today, October 31, 1864, the U.S. Congress admits Nevada as the 36th state in the Union.

In 1864, Nevada had only 40,000 inhabitants, considerably short of the 60,000 normally required for statehood. But the 1859 discovery of the incredibly large and rich silver deposits at Virginia City had rapidly made the region one of the most important and wealthy in the West. The unskilled miners complained about the blue-gray material that kept clogging up their gold sluices. More experienced miners realized that the material the gold miners had been tossing away was rich silver ore, and soon after, discovered the massive underground silver deposit called the Comstock Lode. For the first time, western mining began to attract investments from large eastern capitalists, and these powerful men began to push for Nevada statehood.

The decisive factor in easing the path to Nevada’s statehood was President Lincoln’s proposed 13th Amendment. Since time was short, the Nevada constitutional delegation sent the longest telegram on record up to that time to Washington, D.C., containing the entire text of the proposed state constitution at the astronomical sum of $3,416.77 On January 31, 1865, Congress approved the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Nevada became our 36th state. God Bless to All!!

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10/29/2026

October 29, 2026

Hello Everyone!!

Meant to post this yesterday, sorry.

140 years ago, yesterday, October 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland.

Originally known as “Liberty Enlightening the World,” the statue was proposed by the French historian Edouard de Laboulaye to commemorate the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution. Designed by French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the 151-foot statue was the form of a woman with an uplifted arm holding a torch. Its framework of gigantic steel supports was designed by Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, the latter famous for his design of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

In February 1877, Congress approved the use of a site on New York Bedloe’s Island, which was suggested by Bartholdi. In May 1884, the statue was completed in France, and three months later the Americans laid the cornerstone for its pedestal in New York Harbor. In June 1885, the dismantled Statue of Liberty arrived in the New World, enclosed in more than 200 packing cases. Its copper sheets were reassembled, and the last rivet of the monument was fitted on October 28, 1886, during a dedication presided over by President Cleveland and attended by numerous French and American dignitaries.

In 1903, a bronze plaque mounted inside the pedestal's lower level was inscribed with “The New Colossus,” a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus that welcomed immigrants to the United States with the declaration, “Give me your tired, your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

In 1892, Ellis Island, adjacent to Bedloe’s Island, opened as the chief entry station for immigrants to the United States, and for the next 32 years more than 12 million immigrants were welcomed into New York harbor by the sight of “Lady Liberty.” In 1924, the Statue of Liberty was made a national monument, and in 1956 Bedloe’s Island was renamed Liberty Island. The statue underwent a major restoration in the 1980s. God Bless to All!!

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10/26/2026

October 26, 2026

Hello Everyone!!
Here is the first of 2 events, in chronological order, that took place on this day in history.

201 years ago, Sunday, October 26, 1825, the Erie Canal opened, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River. Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the driving force behind the project, led the opening ceremonies and rode the canal boat Seneca Chief from Buffalo to New York City.

Work began on the waterway in 1817. Teams of oxen plowed the ground, but for the most part the work was done by immigrants, among them Irish diggers who had to rely on primitive tools. They were paid $10 a month, and barrels of wh**ky were placed along the canal route as encouragement. West of Troy, 83 canal locks were built to accommodate the more than 500-foot rise in elevation. After more than two years of digging, the 363-mile Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo, was opened on October 26, 1825, by Governor Clinton.

The effect of the canal was immediate and dramatic. Settlers poured into western New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. Goods were transported at one-tenth the previous fee in less than half the time. Barges of farm produce and raw materials traveled east, as manufactured goods and supplies flowed west. In nine years, tolls had paid back the cost of construction. Later enlarged and deepened, the canal survived competition from the railroads in the latter part of the 19th century. Today, the Erie Canal is used mostly by pleasure boaters, but it is still capable of accommodating heavy barges. God bless to All!!

10/26/2026

October 26, 2026

Hello Everyone!!

84 years ago today, October 26, 1942, the last U.S. carrier manufactured before America’s entry into World War II, the Hornet, was damaged so extensively by Japanese war planes in the Battle of Santa Cruz that it had to be abandoned.

The battle for Guadalcanal was the first American offensive against the Japanese, an attempt to prevent the Axis power from taking yet another island in the Solomon chain and gaining more ground in its race for Australia. On this day, in the vicinity of the Santa Cruz Islands, two American naval task forces had to stop a superior Japanese fleet, which was on its way to Guadalcanal with reinforcements. As was the case in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, the engagement at Santa Cruz was fought exclusively by aircraft taking off from carriers of the respective forces; the ships themselves were not in range to fire at one another.

Japanese aerial fire damaged the USS Enterprise, the battleship South Dakota, and finally the Hornet. In fact, the explosions wrought by the Japanese bombs that rained down on the Hornet were so great that two of the Japanese bombers were themselves crippled by the blasts, and the pilots chose to dive-bomb their planes into the deck of the American carrier, which was finally abandoned and left to burn. 20,000 tons which weighed 20,000 tons, had seen battle during the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo and its commander at the time, Marc Mitscher, was promoted to admiral and would be a significant player in the victory over Japan and the Battle of Midway.

While the United States losses at Santa Cruz were heavy, the cost of aircraft to the Japanese was extensive. Having lost more than 100 planes, including 25 of the 27 bombers that attacked the Hornet, they were unable to reinforce their troops at Guadalcanal, paving the way for an American victory. May we all prove ourselves worthy of their sacrifice. God Bless to All!!

10/26/2026

October 25, 2026

Hello everyone!!

Meant to post this yesterday, sorry

82 years ago, yesterday, October 25, 1944, during the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, the Japanese deployed kamikaze (“divine wind”) bombers against American warships for the first time. It will prove costly–to both sides.

This decision to employ su***de bombers against the American fleet at Leyte, an island of the Philippines, was based on the failure of conventional naval and aerial engagements to stop the American offensive. Declared Japanese naval Capt. Motoharu Okamura: “I firmly believe that the only way to swing the war in our favor is to resort to crash-dive attacks with our planes. There will be more than enough volunteers for this chance to save our country.”

The first kamikaze force was in fact composed of 24 volunteer pilots from Japan’s 201st Navy Air Group. The targets were U.S. es**rt carriers; one, the St. Lo, was struck by a A6M Zero fighter and sunk in less than an hour, killing 100 Americans. More than 5,000 kamikaze pilots died in the gulf battle-taking down 34 ships.

For their kamikaze raids, the Japanese employed both conventional aircraft and specially designed planes, called Ohka (“cherry blossom”) by the Japanese, but Baka (“fool”) by the Americans, who saw them as acts of desperation. The Baka was a rocket-powered plane that was carried toward its target attached to the belly of a bomber.

All told, more than 1,321 Japanese aircraft crash-dived their planes into Allied warships during the war, desperate efforts to reverse the growing Allied advantage in the Pacific. While approximately 3,000 Americans and Brits died because of these attacks, the damage done did not prevent the Allied capture of the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. May we all prove ourselves worthy of their sacrifice. God Bless to All!!

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10/22/2026

Hello Everyone!!

October 22, 2026

Hello Everyone!!

61 years ago today, October 22, 1965, in action near Phu Cuong, about 35 miles northwest of Saigon, PFC Milton Lee Olive III of Company B, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, who was 16 days shy of his 19th birthday, threw himself on an enemy gr***de and saved four fellow soldiers, including his platoon leader, 1st Lt. James Sanford.

The action came during a patrol that made contact with Communist forces on the southern fringes of the infamous “Iron Triangle,” a traditional Communist stronghold. Private Olive’s body absorbed the full, deadly blast of the gr***de and he died saving his comrades. Lieutenant Sanford later said of Olive’s act that “It was the most incredible display of selfless bravery I ever witnessed.” At a ceremony at the White House, April 21, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson presented Olive's Medal of Honor to his father and stepmother. Also in attendance were two of the four men whose lives were saved by Olive's actions.

Olive, who was born in Chicago, was only 18 years old when he died. He would receive the Medal of Honor, posthumously, six months later. The city of Chicago honored its fallen hero by naming a junior college, a lakefront park, and a portion of the McCormick Place convention center after him. Though Olive was born Chicago he was a native of Lexington, Holmes Co. Mississippi and is buried in West Grove Cemetery there in Lexington.

We met this brave young man’s father and stepmother in 2017 when we had the distinct honor of having his brick placed on the “Walk of Honor” located on the levee at the park. His brick is on the west side or to the left of the POW/MIA chair. May we all prove ourselves worthy of their sacrifice. God Bless to All!!

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