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The Cursed Lebman 1911
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1906 colt new service
Philadelphia | Oct 4, 1777
Following the American defeat at the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, the British Army captured Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress. After taking the American capital, British General Sir William Howe positioned two brigades under General James Grant and a contingent of Hessians troops commanded by General Wilhelm von Kynphausen in Germantown. The British force in the village totaled 9,000 men.
George Washington, commanding an army of 8,000 Continentals and 3,000 militiamen, sensed an opportunity. He decided to attack and destroy the enemy detachment at Germantown using a double envelopment.
Washington set his plan into motion on the night of October 3. Much like at Trenton, he divided his army so as to attack the British from multiple directions at dawn. General John Sullivan would attack with the main force while General Nathanael Greene attacked on the flank. The militia, under General William Smallwood, would target the British extreme right and rear. Unfortunately for Washington, darkness and a heavy fog delayed the advance and cost him the element of surprise.
Sullivan’s column was the first to make contact, driving back the British pickets on Mount Airy. The British were so shocked to find a large force of American soldiers that some were cut off from the main body; 120 men under British Colonel Musgrave took shelter in the large stone house of Chief Justice Benjamin Chew, known as Cliveden. This fortified position would prove a thorn in the Americans’ side for the remainder of the battle, with numerous assaults being repulsed with heavy casualties. While the fighting around Cliveden raged on, Sullivan pushed his men towards the British center.
On the left, one of Sullivan’s divisions, commanded by General Anthony Wayne, became separated in the fog. To make matters worse, Sullivan’s men were also beginning to run low on ammunition, causing their fire to slacken. The separation, combined with the lack of fire from their comrades and the commotion of the attack on Cliveden behind them, convinced Wayne’s men that they were cut off, causing them to withdraw.
Luckily, Greene’s column arrived in time to engage the British before they could rout Wayne. Unfortunately, one of Greene’s brigades, under General Adam Stephen, also became lost in the fog, mistook Wayne’s men for the British, and opened fire. Wayne’s men returned fire. The resulting firefight caused both units to break and flee the field.
Only the steadfastness of Greene’s and Wayne’s men and the American artillery prevented a disaster. The American retreat was also aided by the onset of darkness.
Washington’s Army lost roughly 700 men killed and wounded. Another 400 Americans were captured. The British suffered more than 500 casualties of their own. Despite the British victory, many Europeans, especially the French, were impressed by the continued determination of the Continental Army.
From The American Battlefield Trust
The F-35 Lightning is the most advanced operational stealth jet in the world. Public domain.
Maggie Stewart had wanted to fly jets for as long as she could remember. She took an Air Force ROTC scholarship and studied mechanical engineering simply because she thought it would improve her chances of securing a coveted flight slot.
She was smart, athletic, driven and pretty. The first three were prerequisites. The last one didn’t hurt. She got word at Christmas of her senior year that she was finally destined to become a pilot.
This is Miss America USAF 2LT Madison Marsh. As a nation, we need to get ready to see young patriots like Madison thrust into harm’s way. Public domain.
Maggie had never worked as hard as she had in Air Force flight school. While her mates hit the bars on weekends to unwind, she buried her head in meteorology, aerodynamics, and airspace. She graduated second in her class. On the big day, she got assigned F-35. Second Lieutenant Stewart was about to be a Lightning driver. It didn’t feel real.
Everything Maggie touched turned to gold. Six years after graduation, she was a Captain on the Major’s list with 500 hours in the most advanced multi-role fighter plane on Earth. Then, she got the call.
Maggie and her squadron self-deployed to an Allied airbase in Jordan and were ready for combat sorties 36 hours later. When the shooting started, it really wasn’t much different from the simulator.
Her jet seemed transparent to Iranian radar. As a Lightning pilot, Maggie found herself tasked with destroying ballistic missile launchers, air defense systems, and command and control nodes. Three weeks later, she was getting good at it.
This deep into the conflict, the only things flying over Iran sported either an American roundel or an Israeli star of David. Maggie Stewart’s mount granted her unprecedented situational awareness. She could see everything on the battlefield. She felt invincible. Then, on an otherwise routine egress, it felt like her jet hit a stone wall.
The warhead on the Iranian MANPADS shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile wasn’t but a couple of pounds. However, it went off just inside her engine exhaust. The F-35 was stealthy, but it wasn’t actually invisible. The Iranian Republican Guards gunner had just gotten lucky.
The plane yawed madly, unnaturally. There was no way for Maggie to have known, but the Iranian Misagh-2 had actually torn most of the twin vertical stabilizers off of her airplane. As a result, the machine tried to spin. At more than 600 knots, the sleek attack jet began to disintegrate. Maggie’s last conscious memory was of yanking the twin yellow ejection handles.
Adrenaline and Terror
The young woman regained consciousness at the bottom of a rocky depression. The ejection sequence was automated, which was the only reason she still drew breath. It was pitch dark, and her parachute was inextricably tangled in some nearby scrub.
Quickly regaining her wits, she peeled herself out of her harness, retrieved her collapsible assault rifle by feel, and slipped her ejection seat survival kit across her shoulders. Nothing seemed broken, though she hurt most everywhere. Miraculously, she could still move.
Maggie ran on adrenaline and terror. She traced along the ravine until she reached a rocky defile some five kilometers distant. With the sun now peeking above the horizon, she found a deep crevice and shoved her slight frame as deeply into it as she was able. Now, finally able to think, she felt the fear well up like some kind of living thing.
Her survival radio cost more than her late-model sports car, but it inexplicably didn’t work. She could hear the dull crump of explosions in the distance as her comrades continued to work over Iranian targets. At a different time under different circumstances, this might have been reassuring. Now she knew it would just piss off the Iranians. Maggie Stewart had never felt so small or so alone. The sensation was suffocating.
The following day was hell. The sun beat down as her imagination tormented her soul. Images of burning pilots in cages or worse danced in her mind’s eye. At one point, she heard someone speaking Farsi dangerously close by. She held her breath until she thought her lungs might explode, but the voices moved on. She had never been so happy to see a sunset.
Once it was hard dark, Maggie gathered her meager gear and began to move. This time, she went up, seeking out high ground. She followed ridgelines without much of a destination. She just wanted to put as much distance as possible between her and that parachute.
Three hours later, she heard gunfire and went to ground. It seemed distant and sporadic at first, a crackle that ebbed and flowed like some kind of sentient creature. However, the sound was clearly moving closer. She briefly considered running. However, there was no place to go, and the terrain did not favor it. Finding a handy rock, she slipped behind it to think.
Preparing to Meet Jesus
The fear that she had marginally suppressed thus far now bubbled to the surface. There in the dark in the midst of a hostile land liberally populated by bloodthirsty psychopaths, her dam finally broke. She wrapped her face in her soft green cotton cravat and simply wept. It wasn’t the dying that so concerned her, though that was certainly a big part. It was what would inevitably come before.
With terrifying rapidity, the crackle of gunfire got louder and closer until it reached a crescendo. Determined to do this well, Maggie rolled onto her back, pulled her GAU-5A in close, and prepared to meet Jesus.
“Maggie!” the voice cut through the darkness like a laser through Styrofoam. The mild midwestern accent was like cool water in the desert. The terrified American pilot safed her rifle and sat up just as the point man came over the rise. By the dim moonlight, he and his mates, in their night-vision goggles, looked like alien monsters.
The man was immensely strong, yet his voice was soft. “Captain Stewart, we’re Americans, and we’re here to take you home. We’ve been watching you ever since you first touched down. You’ve done a great job.”
The rescue cost several American combat aircraft, but nobody cared. No other Americans had been lost, and Maggie Stewart was indeed coming home. She flew operationally for five more years and taught at the SERE school before medically retiring due to her injuries.
Maggie nonetheless still made time to marry a guy and raise two boys. The book deal brought her a cool $1.2 million, and Scarlett Johansson played her in the movie. Because America is the greatest nation in the history of the world.