Vietnam War Archives – Page 4 of 24

December 8 in U.S. military history

1941: As Japanese warplanes continue to hammer Allied bases across Asia and the Pacific, President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously declares

1846: Gen. Stephen Watts Kearney’s U.S. Army of the West, accompanied by a small detachment of mounted rifle volunteers commanded

1804: Marine Corps 1st Lt. Presley O’Bannon, William Eaton, Navy Midshipman George Mann, and seven Marines land at Alexandria, Egypt

1817: The First Seminole War begins when Gen. (and future president) Andrew Jackson leads forces into Spanish-held Florida to reclaim

1965: 450 soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry under the command of Lt. Col. Harold Moore are choppered in