3 Great American Heroes We Should Never Forget

[Waffles731]

In honor of fourth of July I am going to talk about three of the greatest American heroes out there.

1. John Paul Jones

First off this is the founder of the American Navy and famous privateer (A state sanctioned pirate) not the bassist for Led Zeppelin whose real name is actually John Baldwin.

John Paul Jones commanded five naval vessels and two privateer vessels. You might know this quote, "I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way."-John Paul Jones. Now the American Side thought of him as a great military commander and privateer. The English thought he was a flat out pirate.

He was the Commander of our side in the most celebrated naval battle of the Revolutionary War, The Battle of Flamborough head:

It occurred in the north sea off of the coast of Yorkshire England, Where in the early part of the battle his ship was damaged, half his crew was killed, and his ship was sinking and on fire. The enemy commander Richard Pearson asked him to surrender John Paul Jones responded, "I have not yet begun to fight." John Paul Jones then rammed his ship into the enemy ship and he and his crew then cleared the deck with Grenades, Pistols, and Cutlasses like a Pirate Badass because again a privateer is a state sanctioned pirate. At the end, He was successful and while his ship sunk he now had a shiny new British warship. He also lead a small raiding party on mainland England making him the last person successfully invade England.

2. Neil Armstrong

To me Neil Armstrong represents the best of not only Americans but in all in humanity. He in a sense represents the entire human race as his footprints on the moon will last for thousands of years, long after you and I are dead, are homes are gone, and our bodies will be dust. His footprints will still be on the surface of the moon an enduring legacy to not just Americans but of all of humanity, that says 'Fuck you Universe, we were here.'

And make no mistake he was a patriot. He was a Navy Pilot in Korea and was actually shot down at one point. He fought for his country and he landed on the moon for all of humanity. That makes him an American Hero.

3. Bass Reeves

Bass Reeves was the very first African American U.S Marshal and one of the very best gunfighters of the old west and make no mistake he does deserve the title of gunfighter. At the end of his career he had killed fourteen outlaws in self defense. He was also a freed slave. This man after being freed dedicated his life to serving justice and protecting the innocent and for that he is a true American Hero.

#AmericaFuckYeah

[Marinepilot]

Another American hero whom I think needs to be here is Audie Murphy. He like myself was a native Texan. I met him once. As I recall he was very small and
unimposing. I said "Audie, you're a hero". He said, "No son I was just following orders". Life didn't end well for him at all. He was killed in a private plane crash in his 40's. At one time he was living on a cot in his ex wife's garage.

[Waffles731]

If we included Audie Murphy's greatest exploits it'd be double the length.
He was the most decorated soldier of all time

[BamBamFox]

Abraham Lincoln.

[SunnyCaliGirl]

I agree

[Tomboy_Cool]

george washington, herrit tubman (i can't spell watever) , thomas jefferson i can go on and on sweet carrot

[Bluemax]

Aboard Gemini 8, Armstrong and Scott (who I sold a jacket to!) dealt with a stuck thruster which caused their craft to roll wildly. They managed to stop the thruster, arrest the roll, and reorient the craft by eyeballing it with the stars. They did this while partially out of contact with Houston (NASA's communication network wasn't complete then) and BEFORE the technicians on the ground could calculate a solution.

I like Michael Collins. He's very chill. He was the first astronaut to write a children's book. My students love it.

That pic is a fake, by the way. Not the moon landing, just that pic. Virtually all pics are of Buzz Aldrin. Armstrong had the camera. Also, that face you looks like it was copied and pasted from another pic of Neil taken back aboard the Eagle. Here's a link to it...
cdn3.vox-cdn.com/.../1.0.jpg

[posted]

I liked the one war story where some scouts buddy got shot, he picked up his comrades sub machine gun, killed all the Nazi soldiers, threatened an officer in a bar, then ran around the city throwing grenades and made the German soldiers evacuate in fear of a huge incoming wave.

[lime_rampljuset]

Why would a musician be a hero? Unless they served in the military.

[Waffles731]

You are thinking of louie armstrong.
This is Neil Armstrong, unrelated to louie and the first man to walk on the moon and a U. S navy pilot

[Waffles731]

NVM brainfart.
Read the first entry again.
I had to distinguish the founder of the American Navy from the bassist for led zepplin because the Naval Commander and Privateer has the same name as the bassist stage name and sadly if you mention the name John Paul Jones people more people are going to have heard of the Bassist (Admittedly an amazing bassist though)

[lime_rampljuset]

I read the whole article... I always do. When I was at university I worked reviewing long articles.

[Waffles731]

So you read, "First off this is the founder of the American Navy and famous privateer (A state sanctioned pirate) not the bassist for Led Zeppelin whose real name is actually John Baldwin."

[lime_rampljuset]

My question was, because many people think artists are heroes, someone to follow. I wasn't talking about the Navy's founder. I hope you now get what I tried to say.

[Waffles731]

Okay, I actually do have a response,
People like Muhammad Ali are heroes BECAUSE of how they refused to fight in Vietnam (Where we REALLY REALLY shouldn't have been) and were influential in the Civil rights movement.
www.quotehd.com/.../...-vietnamese-ever-called.jpg

[lime_rampljuset]

He was a sportsman, not a muscian.

[Waffles731]

Yes, but the logic is similar

[Fathoms77]

I love history. And now I know who said "I have not yet begun to fight." :)

[Tomboy_Cool]

neil armstrong is the only person i known out of this list

[Righttobeararms83]

so short. so few heros. I demand a rewrite with more American heros lol

[SunnyCaliGirl]

I love <3 this take so much, it's awesome and theses wonderful men should never ever b forgotten I agree 100% :) :) :)

[SunnyCaliGirl]

These*

[WeeGeeTheSecond]

Why isn't Honey Boo Boo and Miley Cyrus on the list?
(/s)

[Tomboy_Cool]

cuz they didn't do nothing in particulary great for america haha

[WeeGeeTheSecond]

@Tomboy_Cool

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[Tomboy_Cool]

what izzz true

[WeeGeeTheSecond]

@Tomboy_Cool
/s means sarcasm brah

[Tomboy_Cool]

o.. k

[OhioNativeForLife]

John Paul Jones "successfully" invaded England?

Did he take over the country?

[Phoenix98]

Greast list and good take ^^

[Byakuyarko]

sergeant York... certified badass

[Pilulu]

All of thee guys are badass.

[SunnyCaliGirl]

Heck yeah I agree 100%

[Melcart23]

I enjoyed this take. Good work.

[Maxemeister]

Lol how could u choose three there r so many

[jacquesvol]

John Paul Jones murdered, was murdered.
Karma.

[Waffles731]

This is from wikipedia
Jones was appointed U. S. Consul to treat with the Dey of Algiers for the release of American captives. Before Jones was able to fulfill his appointment, however, he was found dead (aged 45) lying face-down on his bed in his third-floor Paris apartment, No. 19 Rue de Tournon, on July 18, 1792. The cause of death was interstitial nephritis.
Where did you hear he was murdered because it says kidney failure

[jacquesvol]

his remains were resurrected and autopsied only 113 YEARS later, and then, examining the skeleton, American, doctors concluded kidney failure.
At the moment of his death, it was considered he was poisoned or had a VD.
But hat didn't suit American legends.

[Waffles731]

Also as someone WHO LOVES pirates, Pirates operated very differently from how people think,
So you know that most sailors were pressed or kidnapped into service and the ones that weren't were officers.
Pirates were also essentially very very very democratic, The captain and quartermaster were actually elected
www.cracked.com/...re-modern-than-you-realize.html
That article is both funny and informative.
Again I love pirates.

[Waffles731]

Captain Henry Morgan had one of the first comprehensive, all-inclusive health insurance systems in recorded history. Before the assault on Panama, Morgan drew up a charter for his crew that guaranteed certain benefits for any man who was injured in battle. Any one of his 2,000-strong pirate crew was entitled to 600 pieces of eight for the loss of a hand or a foot, 1,800 pieces for the loss of both legs, 200 pieces for one eye, and 2,000 pieces for total blindness -- that's about $153,000 in modern currency. We assume peg legs and eye patches were covered by a joint flex account.

[Waffles731]

(pirate crews who docked, traded, and intermittently lived in port towns in the West Indies during the 17th century) had entire communities where homosexual couples were considered perfectly acceptable. Picture that scene in Tortuga from the Disney movie, only loaded with gay men.

[Waffles731]

n a time when the job options for women consisted of "servant," "wife," and "prostitute" (and all three of which were variations of the word "property"), piracy was an attractively viable career choice. This is because some pirates didn't give one peg-legged starfish fart about gender roles when they crewed their ships

[Waffles731]

www.cracked.com/...lieves-thanks-to-movies_p2.html
That one too is good

[Waffles731]

"After all, it's not like decent citizens just went and became pirates all the time...

The Truth:

Wait, no, it did happen all the time. The overwhelming majority of pirates were honest sailors who ditched their jobs because the conditions were awful. Only a small minority became a pirate because they actually enjoyed being an outlaw. Being a sailor during pirate times was one of the shittiest jobs ever, and if they lived under British rule, most of them didn't so much "sign up" as "get kidnapped by the Royal Navy.""

[Waffles731]

Seriously, at one point, half the British Navy consisted of men forcibly recruited by hired thugs who scoured the harbors looking for anyone with a full set of limbs. If they didn't have enough money to pay off these thugs, they were suddenly sailors. "Pressed men" were paid less than volunteers (if they were paid at all), were shackled to the ships while on port so they didn't try to make a run for it and were flailed for any minor offense in a naval handbook that they probably didn't even get a chance to read.

[Waffles731]

That's without counting all the storms, crowded quarters and tropical diseases that made life so shitty for sailors in general. As a result, 75 percent of men who were press-ganged ended up dead within two years. So when a pirate crew captured their ship and offered them an alternative to certain death and constant humiliation, a lot of them understandably replied, "Fuck yeah!" In pirate movies, there's always a huge difference between the clean-cut lawful sailors and the nasty, deformed pirates, but it turns out they were basically the same thing.

[Waffles731]

Wouldn't the older pirates basically treat the fresh meat like slaves, though? Apparently not. We've told you about Black Bart, the sailor who was captured by pirates and six weeks later became their captain -- kinda like Westley's story in The Princess Bride, except for the fact that his crew knew exactly where he came from and didn't give a shit.

[Waffles731]

I think I may know too much about pirates

[jacquesvol]

I suspect those pirates rather treated the slaves like fresh meat.

[Waffles731]

Wouldn't the older pirates basically treat the fresh meat like slaves, though? Apparently not. We've told you about Black Bart, the sailor who was captured by pirates and six weeks later became their captain -- kinda like Westley's story in The Princess Bride, except for the fact that his crew knew exactly where he came from and didn't give a shit.
That is VERY frequent. Because most pirates started like that it wasn't the case

[jesusnicolas768]

Yeah I agree with this

[Thesis_Something]

dynamite bear tennis indeed lol

[Waffles731]

What?

[Tomboy_Cool]

its not tennis lmfao its bad mittin!
this is tennis sweety
upload.wikimedia.org/.../...s_Racket_and_Balls.jpg
get ur mind straight :)
and this is bad mitton
badminton-coach.co.uk/.../...on-Flick-Serve-ov.jpg

[Tomboy_Cool]

o damn ur unactive now u can't get ur mind staright :/

[Dred1614]

Great take.

[EscobarTheFamous]

Chris Kyle?

[Marinepilot]

Oh yes !

[Waffles731]

@Marinepilot
Oh please he has NOTHING on Carlos Hathcock

[Marinepilot]

Carlos Hathcock was a Marine's Marine.

[EscobarTheFamous]

@Marinepilot yeah Kyle is a sniper. Different.

[Waffles731]

Hathcock was a sniper