As a kid, Eldridge Johnson Jr. just wanted to be a pilot.

When he was drafted, the closest he could get was helicopter mechanic. 

It was the 1960s; racial divisions were deep and Black men like him faced barriers, even in the Army.

But he was determined. He'd fly. 

And on Thursday, over 50 years later, the Army awarded him a Distinguished Flying Cross, the service said in a release last week.  🧵👇
Johnson set his heart on flying when he was 14, growing up in Chicago, after riding in a light airplane at a state park's open house, he told @SmithsonianMag in 2021.

He took flight lessons & soloed at 16, but couldn't afford flight hours for a license.

Drafted at 18, he'd heard about the Army's helicopters, but was told he'd have to settle for fixing them.

Pfc. Morgan Mathews was looking for her recruiter.

It was a big moment. The end of a long march. The culmination of Marine Corps boot camp.

She was going to get her Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.

He should've been there.

After all, he was her husband. 🧵👇

When she didn’t see him, she made peace with it, said a Marine Corps statement.

They have a 2-year-old daughter. She assumed he was busy taking care of her.

But she saw other recruits' family members there.

And that got her more upset that he wasn't.

Tsuneo Yamagishi walks anxiously onto a U.S. post in Japan.

It’s 1947. He’s 18, seeking work. And hungry.

But he knows little English: “Thank you,” “O.K.”

And 2 years earlier, he’d fought the Americans at war.

“That is what I worried about, whether they would hire me or not.”

Yamagishi served with Japan’s Imperial Navy near the end of WWII.

But after the war, life was rough.

“There was no job… no food… nothing,” he said, quoted in a recent Army statement.

An older sister took him in. A younger one wrote to a friend near Camp Zama for help.

She woke before dawn for rucks & runs on base in Africa.

Lifted daily. Did high-intensity training.

At the peak, she was doing 3 workouts a day.

But after 3 months of prep, Sgt. Liliana Munday was still nervous.

“I almost had an aneurysm, I was so scared,” she said.

🧵👇 Since about 1974, French troops in Djibouti have taken on the grueling 5-day desert commando course.

U.S. troops have done the course in recent years.

This go-round, 40 U.S. troops signed up, a military statement said.

Munday was among them.

I’m not sure I should tweet this right now. I don’t know that I have the stamina to get through all the nuance. But anyway, let’s talk about this @PentagonPresSec claim that Stars and Stripes enjoys “complete editorial independence” and is so valuable for informing the troops. Why is it then, Mr. @PentagonPresSec, that Stars & Stripes REPORTERS are the only persons IN THE WORLD who DoD specifically & summarily disqualifies from making FOIA requests? Screenshot from DOD’s annual FOIA report data in 2020 — being a S&S reporter specified as denial reason.

Pfc. Emily Zamudio was in the first platoon of women to complete Marine boot camp in San Diego. She's now the first entry-level female Marine to earn the 0311 MOS at SOI-West on Camp Pendleton, Calif., the service says. (Tessa D. Watts/U.S. Marine Corps)
dvidshub.net/news/405503/tr… “Knowing that the infantry is a male-dominant MOS, I wanted to prove that I can do a man’s job,” Zamudio said. “Hopefully this opens the door for more females.”

A U.S. Army EOD team member handles an exploded 107mm rocket for documentation after it was intercepted by a U.S. C-RAM in a failed attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Aug. 30. After interception, the rocket tumbled nearly 100 yds onto the airfield. (U.S. Air Force) A team of airfield operators, maintainers and air transportation specialists pose with an American flag at Hamid Karzai International Airport during last month's evacuation. (Undated U.S. Air Force photo via 621st Contingency Response Wing)

This @USMC officially licensed product from @OriginalFunko is "coming soon." (Oct/Nov per Entertainment Earth.) Lines of soldiers and airmen, too.
They're in the Pops! with Purpose line, meaning some of each purchase is donated to charity, but Funko's site doesn't say which one. Sorry, @USArmy fans, no pinks and greens. But ACUs are well represented... What does this tell us about the age of the Funk Pop consumer being targeted?

Learned yesterday that @starsandstripes' Bob Reisman died from complications after surgery.
You won't have seen his byline. For decades, he was part of another crucial part of our mission: getting newspapers to deployed troops.
Colleagues call him "the ultimate 'paperboy.'" James Afflerbach, a distribution manager for Stars and Stripes in Europe, recalled in an email that when he was a "rookie" in 2003, Bob refused all his excuses for not going to Iraq.
"Bob was not a prior service member, but he had more grit than a salty old drill sergeant!"