Ghosts of Arlington Podcast

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week we get to the conclusion of John Glenn's orbital flight and find out if the alarms worrying NASA will jeopardize his re-entry and his life. NASA will also deal with the aftermath of the flight and we will see Project Mercury more or less through to its end. The future of NASA and JFK's moon shot have everything riding on...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Today I look back on the last year, my first as a podcaster, talk a little about who is listening and answer listener-submitted questions. As always, a very special thanks to Mountain Up Cap Company for its continued help to spread the word about the podcast on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/MountainUpCapCompany Climb to Glory! For mo...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here After waiting for Shepard and Grissom to fly, after waiting through TEN launch postponements, John Glenn FINALLY get his turn to go into space, but after NASA see a particular warning light illuminated, will he make it back safely? The Space Race series introduction is Lift Off by kennysvoice . As always, a very special thanks to Mountain Up...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week, JFK meets with the Mercury Seven at the White House to honor Alan Shepard, specifically, and the entire team, generally, for all they have done to get America in space. Acting to build on what he knew would be short-lived momentum after Freedom 7's flight, Kennedy addresses congress and the American public about the importanc...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here On this week's episode, the Project Mercury astronauts react to Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbiting the earth, reigniting American fears about Commies in Space that also erupted after the Sputnik launch. Alan Shepard makes a suborbital flight, becoming the first American in space. Of course, Russian scientists are very dismissive of the Ame...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here With as far ahead as the Soviet Space Program was, it wasn't surprising that the first person in space wasn't one of the Mercury Seven, but Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. But what is surprising is that it was almost as big a shock for the Americans as when Sputnik was launched... we will also find out which of the Mercury Seven wi...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here The second and third years for the US space program were not much better than the first and the United States found itself playing catch up to the Soviets.  To make matters worse, the Mercury Seven began dividing up into factions, a scandal threatened the astronauts' place in Project Mercury, and when John F. Kennedy, who had spent appr...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Jumping head first into the space race, this week sporadically covers the history of the interest in space over the last 3000 years or so and ends with the early days of the Cold War space race. The  Soviet Union jumps out to an early lead and leaves the United States reeling to catch up. NASA is created and introduces its first class of ast...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week wraps up the Abner Doubleday story with his retirement years - looking at his association with veterans' organizations and his role in the Theosophic Society. If you're not familiar with Theosophy, don't worry, I'll go into that as well. I hope that after the last five episodes you will agree with me that Abner...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Many people know about hard fighting on day two of the Battle of Gettysburg at places like Little Round Top, Devil's Den, the Peach Orchard; or about Pickett's Charge on day three - but what if I told you that if not for the foresight of a cavalry commander named Buford and a suddenly-thrust-into-command infantryman named Doubleday...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here I just had to talk about the outro music for Episode 39. I mean, how cool is it that an audio recording of a Civil War veteran singing about the Civil War exists?! I didn't use the entire song in the last episode but I play it in its entirety at the end of this one. The lyrics are posted with the recording on the website. As always, a v...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here It took Doubleday about a a year to get back into the fight after Fort Sumter and he provided one of the few bright spots for the Union at Second Manassas. After that, he was a filed commander and found himself on campaign for the next year. After Manassas, successfully commanded at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville (kind of) at...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here After taking the time to eat a big breakfast while under bombardment by Confederate shells, Doubleday and his artillerists get the Union into the fight taking the first shift of the Union defense of Fort Sumpter. But the outnumbered force had to yield in the end. After returning north, Doubleday got his own command - known as the Fort Sumpte...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Last week I talked about how Abner Doubleday is sometimes still known as the guy who invented baseball when in reality, he had nothing to do with the sport. With that in mind, I wanted to take time to discuss things that Doubleday actually did, like advocate ardently with his wife Mary for abolition, freed a Mexican slave during the Mexican...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week I talk a little about baseball in my life, how I really hope there is not a work stoppage this season, and how that is all connected to Arlington National Cemetery. There is a persistent myth that Union General Abner Doubleday invented baseball in upstate New York in the mid-19th century. Its a nice concise origin story but there i...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week we wrap up Black History Month by continuing the story of Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., the man who commanded the Tuskegee Airmen for the US Army Air Corps in World War II, who would transfer to the US Air Force when that military branch was created in 1947, and who would become the Air Force's first African American general officer...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here After the Harlem Hellfighter's returned from the Great War, a cultural movement of African American literature, music, art, and entertainment took the United States by storm. Centered in Harlem, the movement - known as the Harlem Renaissance - was the first taste of African American culture for many everyday Americans. Unfortunately, th...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week we continue the story of the Harlem Hellfighters by exploring their homecoming parade down 5th Avenue in the New York City - possibly the largest parade in the history of a city that loves parades - and focusing on arguably the two most famous veterans of the 369th. First, Jim Europe, who was a household and considered the musical...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here As Black History Month gets underway, I wanted to take the time to share the story of the 369th Infantry Regiment from World War I, that went on to be dubbed the Harlem Hellfighters. These men had to fight for their right to fight for their country and to avoid the menial labor tasks most segregated units were assigned upon arriving in Europ...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This concluding episode in the Joe Beyrle saga sees Joe Forrest Gump his way into the Red Army, fight along side Soviet soldiers, and somehow avoid death on the battlefield all while having a personal interaction with Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the most famous leader in the Red Army. His bad luck with trains continues but eventually he makes it...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week we follow Joe Beyrle from his transportation from temporary POW camps in France to permanent camps in Germany, and finally, to on in Poland. Along the way he has to recover from a fractured skull that left him in a coma for six days, survive American fighters strafing his train car, unaware that it is transporting American POWs, an...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here After a two week break, I am glad to be back and hope your new year is off to a wonderful start! This week in part two of a four part tale, we continue to story of Joe Beyrle. After he jumped into Normandy with 3rd Battalion, 101st Airborne Division he finds himself alone and does his best to cause a little mischief. He is then captured not...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Don't miss the special announcement at the start of the episode about the new-ish format I will be adopting so that I don't go insane trying to produce too much content each week and a scheduling update for Christmas & New Years. This week we start the multi-part tale of US Army Staff Sergeant Joseph Beyrle who went from an ath...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here After killing US District Attorney Barton and getting off on the first-ever use of a temporary insanity defense, Dan Sickles keeps up the shenanigans for the rest of his life, becoming one of the most senior politically appointed generals in the Union, one of the most controversial figures of the battle of Gettysburg, military governor after...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Dan Sickles might be best known as the US Representative from New York who shot and killed the unarmed US District Attorney Philip Barton Key in Lafayette Square. The murder of the son of Star-Spangled Banner author Francis Scott Key just steps from the White House drew the attention of the entire nation and was the first trial watched natio...