• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Was Alvin York undoubtably the most honorable U.S. soldier in history?

Obviously no one here knows much about US military history or our greatest heroes. Here are some of the best of the best that ever served.

latest


missing-in-action-1984-13.png


TopGun1.jpg


heartbreakridge.jpg


r-leeermey.jpg


I've seen lots of documentaries on TV and Netflix of these guys in action for America's freedom.

Well... At least one served.
 
Chesty Puller has the most impressive fruit salad in USMC history including 5 Navy Crosses and an Army Distinguished Service Cross, for a total of six Crosses behind only Eddie Rickenbacker who had 8.

You could have at the least given Wikipedia a 'reach around' for the near verbatim text!
 
Written on his burial sight another superb soldier born on american soil, Guess who?

"Those hoof beats die not upon fame's crimson sod,
But will ring through her song and her story;
He fought like a Titan and struck like a god,
And his dust is our ashes of glory."
 
Written on his burial sight another superb soldier born on american soil, Guess who?

"Those hoof beats die not upon fame's crimson sod,
But will ring through her song and her story;
He fought like a Titan and struck like a god,
And his dust is our ashes of glory."

Nathan Bedford Forrest.

And we know how that turned out.
 
I stand corrected on Norris.

he joined the USAF to get away from the crushing poverty where he came from. Its where he also got his start in martial arts in which he became wealthy and a legend in the sport. If IIRC, one of his Vietnam era movies was intended to honor his late brother. I don't believe Norris saw active combat due to the timing of his service (after the Korean war but before we were officially involved in Nam, but there is no evidence that he did anything other than serve where he was told to which was mainly Korea as an MP IIRC.
 
Nathan Bedford Forrest.

And we know how that turned out.

Bedford Forrest had more fighting spirit than any soldier I know of in the Civil War, which featured a lot of very hard fighters on both sides. He had thirty horses shot out from under him and personally killed about the same number of men. When his cavalry charged, he made it a point to be out in front of everyone. I can't think of anyone more dangerous to cross than Forrest, when his blood was up.
 
Last edited:
Bedford Forrest had more fighting spirit than any soldier I know of in the Civil War, which featured a lot of very hard fighters on both sides. He had thirty horses shot out from under him and personally killed about the same number of men. When his cavalry charged, he made it a point to be out in front of everyone. I can't think of anyone more dangerous to cross than Forrest, when his blood was up.

Has any other soldier ever been honored with the praise of friend & foe alike:

After his surrender, when asked by a Union Officer who he thought his greatest general was,
General Robert E. Lee replied, "Sir, a gentleman I have never had the pleasure to meet, General Nathan Bedford Forrest."

His greatest adversary William T. Sherman called him “the most remarkable man our civil war produced on
either side’ & ‘he had a strategy which was original & incomprehensible. There was no theory
or art of war by which I could calculate with any degree of certainty what Forrest was up to.’

Shelby Foote who wrote the monumental 3-volume "Civil War: A Narrative" held that there were two authentic
geniuses to emerge from the Civil War --- President Abraham Lincoln & Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Forrest for his wartime record, common-man origins, and masculine bearing iIn recent decades has come to rival the less-controversial
Robert E. Lee and Thomas (“Stonewall”) Jackson as the foremost human symbol of Confederate identity.
 
Bedford Forrest had more fighting spirit than any soldier I know of in the Civil War, which featured a lot of very hard fighters on both sides. He had thirty horses shot out from under him and personally killed about the same number of men. When his cavalry charged, he made it a point to be out in front of everyone. I can't think of anyone more dangerous to cross than Forrest, when his blood was up.


More so if you had a good 'tan'!
 
The fact Bedford Forrest made his fortune trading slaves does not interest me. Most of the men he killed, if not all, were white.

Here is some further reading for you. Look up the battle of Fort Pillow, April 12, 1864. Also after helping to found the KKK, I'm sure NBF only wanted to scare the black population.
 
Last edited:
Here is some further reading for you. Look up the battle of Fort Pillow, April 12, 1864. Also after helping to found the KKK, I'm sure NBF only wanted to scare the black population.

I have known about all that, in detail, for quite a few years, and I did not learn it from Wikipedia.
 
I have known about all that, in detail, for quite a few years, and I did not learn it from Wikipedia.

But you choose to ignore what you have read when you made your prior statement. I can't debate when there is no logic applied.
 
Read up on Fort Pillow.

I know about it already. If there are reliable accounts of Forrest personally killing colored soldiers there, I have not seen them. The thirty men Forrest is known to have killed were mostly white Union soliders he killed in combat. He appears to have killed at least one man in Mississippi long before the Civil War, and after a battle, he killed a Confederate officer who had picked a fight with him over a reprimand the man had received from Forrest.
 
I know about it already. If there are reliable accounts of Forrest personally killing colored soldiers there, I have not seen them. The thirty men Forrest is known to have killed were mostly white Union soliders he killed in combat. He appears to have killed at least one man in Mississippi long before the Civil War, and after a battle, he killed a Confederate officer who had picked a fight with him over a reprimand the man had received from Forrest.

Incredible

How many people do you suppose Stalin personally killed 1930-1945.

Guess he had no problem with Nazis.
 
Last edited:
Here is some further reading for you. Look up the battle of Fort Pillow, April 12, 1864. Also after helping to found the KKK, I'm sure NBF only wanted to scare the black population.

About Fort Pilllow:
A Yankee Congressional investigation found that the black soldiers trying to flee to the Union gunboats under the bluff
blundered into the two Southern companies sent to prevent a Northern landing & after failing to surrender;
they made the fatal error of firing on troops protected by ravines on both sides of them. Of course they were cut to shreds...
Forrest was tried because of the Fort Pillow incident but proven Innocent.


As to Forrest's relationship with African Americans know this:

When the war started, Forrest asked 45 of his slaves (which he considered as servants) to join him, offering them
their freedom after the war, no matter how it turned out. They all joined him and although they had numerous
opportunities to desert him, 44 stayed by his side until the end of the war. In fact, part of his special command escort later
called "the green berets" (ironic isn't it), consisted of the most elite and best soldiers available, and among them were eight black men.
Forrest said of the black men who served under him, "These boys stayed with me.. - and better Confederates did not live.
2 black men road with him the entire war. Napoleon Nelson and Nim Wilkes were their names.

So you question the fact that NBF is considered the finest cavalry commander either horse or mechanized
ever born on American soil, & consume yourself with a problematic disputable episode in his career.
 
About Fort Pilllow:
A Yankee Congressional investigation found that the black soldiers trying to flee to the Union gunboats under the bluff
blundered into the two Southern companies sent to prevent a Northern landing & after failing to surrender;
they made the fatal error of firing on troops protected by ravines on both sides of them. Of course they were cut to shreds...
Forrest was tried because of the Fort Pillow incident but proven Innocent.


As to Forrest's relationship with African Americans know this:

When the war started, Forrest asked 45 of his slaves (which he considered as servants) to join him, offering them
their freedom after the war, no matter how it turned out. They all joined him and although they had numerous
opportunities to desert him, 44 stayed by his side until the end of the war. In fact, part of his special command escort later
called "the green berets" (ironic isn't it), consisted of the most elite and best soldiers available, and among them were eight black men.
Forrest said of the black men who served under him, "These boys stayed with me.. - and better Confederates did not live.
2 black men road with him the entire war. Napoleon Nelson and Nim Wilkes were their names.

So you question the fact that NBF is considered the finest cavalry commander either horse or mechanized
ever born on American soil, & consume yourself with a problematic disputable episode in his career.

Please feel free to quote my questioning of NBF military prowess. I responded to a prior poster as to being on the wrong end when NBF 'got his blood up'. Ask Lt. Calley of My Lai fame about the commander's responsibility for his troops action.
 
Incredible

How many people do you suppose Stalin personally killed 1930-1945.

Guess he had no problem with Nazis.

Forrest's attitude toward blacks does not affect my view of his prowess as a fighter one iota. If you expect me to give a nod to politically correct dogma and modern views of racial equality by condemning him, you've got the wrong guy.
 
Alvin York in case you didnt know already served in world war I and was most prominently in action in the Argonne offensive in France. Where he picked off most of the Germans in the machine gun nests, and basically took the back lines of German troops single handedly with a group of 7 others behind him. i think he was the most prominentfgure in military soldier history.

Desmond Doss.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Doss
Doss refused to kill an enemy soldier or carry a weapon into combat because of his personal beliefs as a Seventh-day Adventist.[8] He consequently became a medic assigned to 2nd Platoon, B Company, 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division. While serving with his platoon in 1944 on Guam and the Philippines, he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for aiding wounded soldiers under fire. During the Battle of Okinawa, he saved the lives of 75 wounded infantrymen[DTD 1] atop the Maeda Escarpment. Doss was wounded four times in Okinawa
 
Forrest's attitude toward blacks does not affect my view of his prowess as a fighter one iota. If you expect me to give a nod to politically correct dogma and modern views of racial equality by condemning him, you've got the wrong guy.

Politically Incorrect?

That dog don't hunt, son.

He may have been one hell of a fighter, but to deny the reality of the day is silly.

Then again, visit most historic sites in the south and you would be forgiven for thinking the South won the war and slavery was a mutually beneficial institution.
 
Politically Incorrect?

That dog don't hunt, son.

He may have been one hell of a fighter, but to deny the reality of the day is silly.

Then again, visit most historic sites in the south and you would be forgiven for thinking the South won the war and slavery was a mutually beneficial institution.

Funny thing, with your stance on things, is that those in this thread like Audey Murphy & Alvin York who almost
every poster has acclaimed, if they had been born during the civil war era, you would be bashing
them too for fighting to 'retain slavery' after all York & Forrest were both Tennesseans & Murphy I believe was Texan.
 
Back
Top Bottom