Welcome to Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine. This is “This Week in U.S. Military History,” where we walk through key moments that share this week on the calendar. Today we’re exploring events from March seventeenth, two thousand twenty six through March twenty third, two thousand twenty six.
Across this span of days the calendar lines up with moments that pushed the United States military in new directions, from colonial speeches and Civil War showdowns to space launches and modern invasions. We see a besieged port city finally liberated, a hard fighting army checked in its last major offensive, and a wartime commander turning retreat into a promise to return. We watch carrier decks erupt in flame off Japan even as armored columns prepare to cross the Rhine into the heart of Germany. Mid century airborne assaults, satellite launches, and secret bombing campaigns show how airpower and technology reshaped strategy. At the bookends of the Cold War and beyond, missile defense visions and the opening blows of the Iraq War reveal the burdens of global responsibility. This Week in U.S. Military History is part of Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine, developed by Trackpads dot com, and through these stories we follow threads of resolve, innovation, and consequence across more than two centuries of service.
On March twenty third, seventeen seventy five, delegates from across Virginia gathered in Richmond, still arguing over how far to push resistance to imperial authority. The colony had already seen protests and organizing, yet many leaders still hoped that one last compromise might avoid open war with the Crown. Patrick Henry rose in that tense hall to argue that the time for half measures had passed and that the colonies had to prepare to fight if they wished to preserve their liberties. His speech, remembered for the closing cry “Give me liberty, or give me death,” helped tip the convention toward placing Virginia’s militia on a true war footing. That decision strengthened a growing network of armed colonies just months before large scale fighting erupted in the North. It became an early example of political debate turning into concrete military preparation, as words spoken indoors helped trigger the mobilization of armed volunteers outside.
By March seventeenth, seventeen seventy six, the Revolutionary War had dragged on for almost a year around Boston, with neither side able to deal a decisive blow. General George Washington’s Continental troops ringed the city on the landward side, while British regulars and Royal Navy ships held the harbor and town, both forces worn down by supply problems and disease. The balance shifted when American forces dragged heavy cannon from captured forts far to the north and emplaced them on the commanding ground of Dorchester Heights. Overnight, British commanders awoke to find their fleet and garrison suddenly exposed to plunging fire from those new positions. Rather than risk catastrophic losses, they chose to withdraw, sailing for Halifax and yielding the city to Washington’s army without a ruinous assault. The peaceful occupation of Boston gave the young rebellion its first major strategic victory, lifted morale across the colonies, and encouraged foreign observers to take the American cause more seriously.
In the final spring of the Civil War, March twenty first, eighteen sixty five found Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s armies marching north from Georgia into the Carolinas, aiming to link up with Union forces advancing from Virginia. Confederate General Joseph Johnston gathered what troops he could to strike a concentrated blow against one wing of Sherman’s column near Bentonville, North Carolina. Over three days of fighting, Southern attacks won some local success but could not break the larger Union formations or drive them from the field. By March twenty first, Union reinforcements had arrived, and Johnston’s outnumbered army withdrew, narrowly escaping encirclement in the muddy woods and fields. The failed stand at Bentonville marked the last major Confederate attempt to halt Sherman’s advance in the East. In the weeks that followed, Union forces captured more territory in the Carolinas, feeding directly into the string of surrenders that ended organized Confederate resistance.
Early in the Pacific campaign of the Second World War, March twentieth, nineteen forty two found United States and Filipino forces on Bataan and Corregidor fighting a desperate defense against Japanese invasion. With the situation deteriorating and Washington determined to preserve a senior commander for future operations, General Douglas MacArthur received orders to leave the Philippines and take up a new post in Australia. His journey out was hazardous, using small boats and aircraft that had to thread their way past enemy patrols and contested seas. When he reached safety, MacArthur delivered a simple statement promising, “I shall return,” a phrase that quickly became a rallying cry in Allied propaganda and for those still under occupation. That vow linked his personal honor to a broader strategic commitment to liberate the islands. When he finally waded ashore on Leyte in nineteen forty four, the visible fulfillment of that pledge carried heavy symbolic weight for the American public and for Philippine civilians who had endured years of war.
As the naval war closed in on Japan, March nineteenth, nineteen forty five saw United States fast carrier task forces striking airfields, shipyards, and industrial targets across the home islands. The carrier Franklin was operating relatively close to the enemy coast, her flight deck crowded with fueled and armed aircraft being readied for another strike. A lone Japanese dive bomber slipped through the defenses and dropped bombs that penetrated into the hangar deck, touching off a chain of explosions and fires. The blasts and flames killed and wounded hundreds of sailors in moments, and more than once it seemed certain the crew would have to abandon ship. Damage control parties and surviving crew members fought the inferno for hour after hour, jettisoning ordnance and working to restore enough power to keep the ship afloat. Their efforts brought the shattered carrier home, turning Franklin into both a grim reminder of the risks of operating near enemy shores and a testament to shipboard training, discipline, and sacrifice.
By early nineteen forty five, Allied forces in Western Europe had driven the Wehrmacht back to the Rhine, the last great natural barrier before the German heartland. Several crossings were underway or being planned, including the famous seizure of the bridge at Remagen, but General George Patton’s Third Army wanted a foothold of its own. On the night of March twenty second, nineteen forty five, elements of the fifth Infantry Division slipped across the river near Oppenheim in assault boats, exploiting a relatively lightly defended sector. Engineers quickly followed with pontoon bridges, enabling armor and additional infantry to surge over the river and expand the bridgehead. The crossing showed how far Allied river crossing doctrine had matured, blending surprise, engineering skill, and aggressive maneuver into a coordinated operation. The Oppenheim bridgehead helped unhinge remaining German defenses west of the Main River and sped the Allied advance into central and southern Germany during the war’s final weeks.
In the second year of the Korean War, United Nations forces under Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway were pushing north in a series of offensives to reclaim ground lost during earlier Communist advances. As part of this effort, planners designed an airborne operation to cut off retreating North Korean and Chinese units and to support the drive across the Han River. On March twenty third, nineteen fifty one, American paratroopers of the one hundred eighty seventh Regimental Combat Team, joined by allied elements, dropped near Munsan ni in Operation Tomahawk. They seized key road junctions and high ground, then linked up with advancing ground forces moving north from the Seoul area. The operation did not produce a dramatic encirclement, but it did disrupt enemy movements and demonstrated the flexibility of airborne troops in a limited war. Tomahawk stands as one of the largest airborne drops of the conflict and an important test of post–Second World War airborne capabilities.
The late nineteen fifties brought the opening moves of the space age, as the Soviet Union’s Sputnik launches spurred the United States to orbit its own satellites. On March seventeenth, nineteen fifty eight, the Navy managed Vanguard program successfully placed a small, lightweight satellite into orbit, known as Vanguard One. The satellite carried no weapons, but it featured innovative solar cells and transmitted tracking data that helped scientists refine measurements of Earth’s shape and atmospheric density. For military planners, the mission demonstrated that American launch vehicles and guidance systems could reliably place payloads in precise orbits. The knowledge gained fed into later communications, navigation, and reconnaissance systems that underpinned modern command and control. Though modest in size, Vanguard One’s longevity in orbit and the technical lessons it provided gave it an outsized influence on the emerging partnership between space technology and national defense.
By March eighteenth, nineteen sixty nine, the Vietnam War had become a grinding conflict, with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces using sanctuaries in nearby Cambodia and Laos to rest, resupply, and move along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Seeking to disrupt those bases, President Richard Nixon authorized a series of secret bombing raids by B fifty two bombers against selected locations inside Cambodia. Operation Menu began that day with strikes that were not publicly acknowledged and that were carefully concealed in official records. Militarily, the raids aimed to destroy supply dumps and command centers, making it harder for the enemy to operate along the border. Politically, the expansion of the air war beyond Vietnam raised serious questions once it became known and contributed to domestic debate and regional instability. The operation shows how the pressures of a prolonged conflict can lead leaders to broaden the battlefield in ways that echo for many years afterward.
During a period of renewed Cold War tension, the United States searched for ways to counter the enormous arsenals of intercontinental ballistic missiles held by both superpowers. On March twenty third, nineteen eighty three, President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation and called for a long term research effort into defensive systems that could intercept and destroy incoming nuclear weapons. The proposed Strategic Defense Initiative looked to advanced technologies, including space based sensors and interceptors, as part of a layered shield rather than relying only on retaliation. Supporters argued that such defenses might eventually reduce reliance on mutual assured destruction, while critics questioned both the technical feasibility and the impact on existing arms control agreements. The program, often nicknamed Star Wars, never achieved the sweeping capabilities imagined in early speeches. Even so, it reshaped strategic thinking, spurred research into missile defense technologies, and became a factor in how both sides approached later arms negotiations and modernization.
On March nineteenth, two thousand three, another turning point arrived when the United States and a coalition of partners launched the opening strikes of what would become known as the Iraq War. In the wake of the September eleventh attacks and years of tense inspections and sanctions, the coalition had confronted Iraq over weapons of mass destruction and compliance with international demands. After a final ultimatum to Saddam Hussein’s regime, cruise missiles and aircraft hit leadership and command targets in and around Baghdad, while ground forces prepared to push north from Kuwait in the hours that followed. Within weeks, Iraqi government control in major cities collapsed and conventional resistance crumbled, yet the conflict did not end with the fall of Baghdad. A prolonged insurgency, sectarian violence, and multiple phases of counterinsurgency and stabilization operations placed heavy demands on soldiers, Marines, aircrews, and sailors. The war’s effects on strategy, force structure, and the lives of veterans continue to shape American military history in the early twenty first century.
Across these seven calendar days, from impassioned words in a colonial gathering place to river crossings, airborne assaults, secret bombing campaigns, and the opening salvos of a long modern war, we see how choices echo through both battlefield and home front. Speeches that once sounded like political rhetoric translated into militia musters, and a simple promise from a displaced general helped sustain hope through dark months of occupation. Technological steps into orbit and ambitious visions of missile defense suggest how future wars might be deterred or fought, even as events in Cambodia and Iraq show the unforeseen costs of expanding conflict. The common thread is the enduring weight borne by those who plan, fight, and live with these decisions, whether they stand on a ridge in North Carolina, a carrier deck off Japan, or a dusty road outside Baghdad. As we mark the week from March seventeenth, two thousand twenty six through March twenty third, two thousand twenty six, This Week in U.S. Military History invites you to reflect on how past choices still shape today’s doctrines, alliances, and personal stories of service.