Rebecca Burgess

Think Tank Type. Imbiber of ideas & smokey scotches. Observer of baseball & the arts. Fellow & Editor @YorktownInst | @IWF | @TheCSDProject |

[Rebecca Burgess @TheSubtleNotes]

Re-upping some writings & thoughts about veterans, military service, & democracy future present & past for Veterans Day /National Veterans & Military Families Month

[Rebecca Burgess @TheSubtleNotes]

Writing dabbles in many currencies, but none so valuable as translation.

What ⁦@PhilKlay⁩ gives us in his new book is a look at how, and importantly why, soldiers’ service in the Forever Wars must be translated

⁦@IWF⁩ ⁦@1977khv⁩ ⁦ https://t.co/1f8hBodhQV

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

Two days ago we lost an American hero. His name was Bruce Crandall, and this is his story 🇺🇸

Before he was a legend, Bruce Crandall was a kid from Olympia, Washington, born in 1933, an All-American high school baseball player who joined the National Guard at 15. The Army drafted him in 1953, trained him as an engineer, then put him in a cockpit. His first real job as a pilot was mapping the parts of the world nobody had charted yet, flying for two years over the open desert of Libya, then over thousands of square miles of unmapped mountains and jungle in Central and South America. He married Arlene in 1956. They would raise three sons. He spent the early part of his career flying toward empty places. Then Vietnam asked him to fly toward the worst one.

Sixty years ago, in a clearing called LZ X-Ray, roughly 450 American soldiers were surrounded by an enemy force several times their size. The shooting was so heavy the medevac helicopters turned back. Landing meant dying.

Bruce Crandall made a different choice.

He was a 32-year-old major flying an unarmed Huey. No guns. No armor that mattered. Just a thin aluminum shell and a decision. He pointed the nose at the hottest piece of ground in the war and went in anyway, with his wingman Ed "Too Tall" Freeman right behind him.

Then he did it again. And again. Twenty-two times in a single day.

He flew in the ammunition and water that kept the men alive. He flew out more than 70 wounded soldiers, loading them while rounds punched through the airframe, the cargo bay slick with other men's blood. Each run he could have stopped. Nobody would have blamed him. He kept his word to the men on the ground instead: you will be resupplied, and if you fall, we are coming for you.

He never fired a shot all day. He saved dozens of lives with nothing but nerve and a helicopter.

The men called him "Snake." He went back for a second tour and was shot down in January 1968, this time by friendly bombs falling too close. By the end of the war he had flown more than 900 combat missions.

Then he did something quieter that almost nobody talks about. He went home and lived an ordinary life. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1977, earned a master's degree, ran a small California town as its city manager, and spent 17 years in the Public Works Department in Mesa, Arizona, fixing roads and keeping the water running. The man who once flew through a wall of fire spent his later years making sure the streetlights worked.

It took 40 years for the country to catch up to what he did at X-Ray. In 2007, President Bush hung the Medal of Honor around his neck. If you saw We Were Soldiers, that was him on screen, Greg Kinnear in the cockpit, though the real man was braver than any movie could hold.

Col. Bruce "Snake" Crandall died on May 31, 2026, at 93 years old. He outlived the war, the doubts, and most of the men who watched him come screaming back into that valley when no one else would.

Some heroes carry a rifle. This one carried the wounded home, then went back to work like it was nothing.

Rest easy, Snake. We have it from here.

In honor of Lt. Col. Bruce Crandall (1933-2026), the best of us and a true American hero. We won't forget you 🇺🇸

[James Pethokoukis ⏩️⤴️ @JimPethokoukis]

Vietnam, Watergate, oil shock--and yet…

[National Mall NPS @NationalMallNPS]

On this day in 1922, 50,000 people gathered on the National Mall for the opening and dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. Two million people tuned in over the radio.

This summer, a new part of the memorial will open to the public in time for America’s 250th celebration. The Lincoln Memorial undercroft shares a previously unseen space beneath one of the National Mall’s most iconic monuments. Visitors can step into the cavernous structural chamber, long hidden since the memorial’s opening, to see the massive concrete foundations that support the monument. Interactive exhibits inside explore both the memorial’s construction and its enduring legacy.

Find more information about how to visit at https://t.co/45KngTHrF7.

[Christina Kopp @christinamkopp]

Having lived and/or worked in DC for over a decade, I can’t believe I’d never heard of this letter from the Duke of Wellington to a bunch of bureaucrats in London during the Napoleonic wars.

If you haven’t either, please enjoy (link below if the font is too small):

[Independent Women @IWF]

13 brave American servicemembers lost their lives during Operation Epic Fury. 🇺🇸

Behind every statistic is a son, daughter, friend, and hero with a family and community forever changed.

We honor their sacrifice and remember those who gave their lives in service to our nation.
@TheSubtleNotes
https://t.co/G5N3SEJjJc

[Freedom 250 @Freedom250]

101-year-old World War II veteran Don Graves — the last surviving flamethrower operator from his battalion, which fought on Iwo Jima — sings “God Bless America” at the National Memorial Day Parade.

[Rebecca Burgess @TheSubtleNotes]

“A nation is a body and soul at the same time.” Ernest Ronan argued. With the National WWI Memorial, @SabinHoward is showing us the soul of a nation.

[Law & Liberty @LawLiberty]

Rebecca Burgess (@TheSubtleNotes) explores how the National World War I Memorial transforms bronze stone and public space into a reflection on national memory and civic responsibility. https://t.co/2gQFwCfon7

[PBS News @NewsHour]

For more than 25 years, comedian Dave Chappelle has called the small village of Yellow Springs, Ohio, home.

@IAmAmnaNawaz traveled there to meet with Chappelle and understand why he’s invested millions of dollars into this community and why he believes the local public media station is crucial to the town’s future.

[Rebecca Burgess @TheSubtleNotes]

I really want to publish a coffee table book called “Men Standing Around Looking At Things”. You know it would be a bestseller even if it’s perpetually in the Barnes & Nobles discount rack

[NEXTA @nexta_tv]

😄 In Italy, one of the hobbies among older men is being an “umarell”

These are retired men who like to stand around construction sites, watching the work and offering unsolicited advice.

[TravelGov @TravelGov]

Hong Kong: On March 23, 2026, the Hong Kong government changed the implementing rules relating to the National Security Law. It is now a criminal offense to refuse to give the Hong Kong police the passwords or decryption assistance to access all personal electronic devices including cellphones and laptops. This legal change applies to everyone, including U.S. citizens, in Hong Kong, arriving or just transiting Hong Kong International Airport. In addition, the Hong Kong government also has more authority to take and keep any personal devices, as evidence, that they claim are linked to national security offenses. Read more: https://t.co/K5w2tETFu5

[BaseballHistoryNut @nut_history]

Major League Baseball is aired in the morning for Japan. So technically they eat breakfast with it being on television.

Here’s their #openingday commercial. No hyperbole, when I say this, it might be greater than any US MLB commercial I’ve seen. Well done and worth the watch for any baseball fan.

[The Name of War @TheNameofWar]

The dog tags of 58,307 US soldiers killed during the Vietnam War at the Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago

[Architect of the Capitol (AOC) @uscapitol]

Cherry and magnolia blossoms can now be seen all over the #USCapitol campus. 🌸🩷🌸

[Mark Gadala-Maria @markgadala]

This is wild.

143 million people thought they were catching Pokémon. They were actually building one of the largest real-world visual datasets in AI history.

Niantic just disclosed that photos and AR scans collected through Pokémon Go have produced a dataset of over 30 billion real-world images. The company is now using that data to power visual navigation AI for delivery robots.

Players didn't just walk around with their phones. They scanned landmarks, storefronts, parks, and sidewalks from every angle, at every time of day, in lighting and weather conditions that staged photography would never capture. They documented the physical world at a scale no mapping company with a fleet of vehicles could have replicated on the same timeline or budget.

Niantic collected this systematically, data point by data point, across eight years, while users thought the only thing at stake was catching a rare Charizard.

The most valuable AI training datasets in the world aren't being assembled in data centers. They're being built by people who have no idea they're building them.

[Evergreen Intel @vcdgf555]

A lot of people don't know or appreciate how much studying, researching, networking or adjusting it takes to make a graphic like this.

Thanks for making them, Ian.

[Insider Paper @TheInsiderPaper]

WATCH: US Embassy in Venezuela raises American flag for the first time in 7 years

[Tom Antonov @Tom_Antonov]

The French soldier ADC Arnaud Frion killed last night in Iraq in a drone attack, had participated in the rescue and evacuation of U.S. special forces who had fallen into a deadly ambush in Tongo Tongo, Niger, in 2017 (4 KIA, 2 WIA). 🇫🇷🇺🇸

[Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library @TRPresLibrary]

The wait is almost over.

On July 4, 2026, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library will open its doors for the first time — on the 250th birthday of the United States.

Opening day will include:
• The dedication ceremony
• The first chance to explore the Library
• A special drone light show: “Eyes on the Stars: Theodore Roosevelt and the American West.”

🎟 Tickets go on sale soon
• March 23 – Founding Member presale
• March 30 – Public ticket release

Become a Founding Member to reserve your visit first and receive unlimited admission throughout 2026.

Become a Founding Member:
https://t.co/7xnQ7SHuwX

Plan your visit:
https://t.co/LDSaiFGtov

#TRLIBRARY #TRLibrary #TR250 #MedoraND

[National Mall NPS @NationalMallNPS]

Often mistaken for cherry blossoms, the Japanese plum trees are usually the first trees to bloom on the National Mall each year. Native to China, they are a popular subject in traditional painting & poetry in East Asia. They are just beginning to open near the D.C. War Memorial.

[Christopher Kratovil @chris_kratovil]

In honor of the United States Semiquincentennial (the fancy term for America’s 250th birthday), this is your periodic reminder that the only copy of the Declaration of Independence located west of the Mississippi is, somewhat bizarrely, tucked out of the way on the 7th floor of the downtown Dallas Main Public Library. For Texans it is easier to get to than the National Archives in DC, free to view, and as an added bonus there’s a copy of “the most important book in the English language”, Shakespeare’s First Folio (one of, appropriately enough, only 250 to survive), located in the adjacent viewing room.