Mostly about Utah
USS Utah was a battleship that was attacked and sunk in Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. A Florida-class battleship, she was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the U.S. state of Utah. Prior to World War 2 she had declined in usefulness and had even served for a while as a mobile target for gunnery practice. In 1941, however, she had been refitted and was in use for training purposes … [Read more...]
I came across an interesting web site today called the National Priorities Project. The site analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent. One of the pages, called the Cost of War, lets you see the cost of war to your community. For example, the state of Utah's share of the money spent would be $5,277,419,209. For Texas, where my … [Read more...]
Prior to touring the Battleship Texas we visited the San Jacinto Monument and learned about the Battle of San Jacinto. In the above photograph of the monument, Derek and Bryson are by the minivan, Jill is to the right, and Sarah is gesturing. We rode the elevator to the top of the monument to enjoy the view of the Houston Ship Channel and the USS Texas from 550 feet. The San Jacinto Monument … [Read more...]
On my recent March trip to Texas I took the opportunity to tour the Battleship Texas. She is anchored at San Jacinto State Park, the first US battleship to become a permanent museum ship, and the first battleship declared to be a US National Historic Landmark. I will tell the story of this great battleship using the informational signs placed on deck. Built during the period of arms escalation … [Read more...]
Defense Spending In The Billions The chart above shows the fifteen nations with the greatest annual military spending. The United States, with a budget of $535.9 billion annually, spends more on defense than the next fourteen nations combined. One wonders if all that spending by the United States is really necessary, considering that the U.S. military budget is more than four times that of the next … [Read more...]
I work at Hill Air Force Base so I was interested to read about a presentation made to the Utah Legislature recently concerning Falcon Hill. This involves the construction of the largest Enhanced Use Lease project in the history of the Department of the Air Force. It officially began October 10, 2008 with a ground breaking ceremony held at the Hill Aerospace Museum. I follow the blog of Becky Edwards, … [Read more...]
On this Veteran's Day my guest writer is my father-in-law, Robert Holst. This is his story of his service during the Korean War. National Guard I joined the National Guard for three years. I was in it awhile before I graduated in 1949. We used to have fun at summer camps. We’d go down there for two weeks and drive a big truck. I drove a big six-wheel drive truck into Salt Lake once. One day … [Read more...]
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