re: Post your favorite badass from throughout history

quote:

---

Inspired the film "Enemy at the Gates," and has a super hot great granddaughter that lives here in DC.

---

A very good movie but one that took many "liberties" when telling the story of the of Zaytsev and his role in the Battle of Stalingrad. In fact, it's most likely the whole story of Enemy at The Gates is pure fiction as there are no German records whatsoever that shows a Major Konig even existed... much less commanded any sniper school or carried out some drawn out " sniper duel" with Zaytsev.

Still, even without the fictional story of Konig, Zaytsev was on of the top snipers in history. But he was no Carlos Hathcock by any stretch of the imagination.

Thread/

Lt. Col. James E. Doolittle and his Raiders.

Otto Skorzeny

German Stuka Pilot Hans Ulrich Rudel was also a true badass.

quote:

---

Rudel flew 2,530 combat missions claiming a total of 2,000 targets destroyed; including 800 vehicles, 519 tanks, 150 artillery pieces, 70 landing craft, nine aircraft, 4 armored trains, several bridges, a destroyer, two cruisers, and the Soviet battleship Marat.[1]

---

Hans Ulrich Rudel

That is badass and stupid at the same time. Only the Brits.

I feel like this has a place in this thread...

Oliver Cromwell

quote:

---

Carlos Hathcock

Badass

---

Saved many Marines. Hard to believe he never once got shot. I can't fathom hitting something at 2,500 yards either, much less a fatal shot.

quote:

---

Ermmmm . I'm thinking it's not really considered "baddass" to do this to young peasant girls. I mean look at the list so far. You have guys taking out things like wild bear with nothing buy a knife, guys holding off hundreds of Germans using the machine gun on a burning tank that could explode at any second, all while fully exposed to return fire, another guy who stacked Russian soldiers up like cordwood with nothing more than a old bolt action rifle. This lady just killed a bunch of little girls. Maybe if it were something like marauding Mongol horsemen or something... but not little peasant girls. It's just not the same.

---

Because Sonny Barger is much more honorable right? You know how much murder, rape, theft, arson, and countless acts human indecency happened under his watch?

quote:

---

In October 1940, Stewart was drafted into the United States Army but was rejected for failing to meet height and weight requirements for new recruits—Stewart was five pounds (2.3 kg) under the standard. To get up to 148 pounds, he sought out the help of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's muscle man and trainer Don Loomis, who was noted for his ability to add or subtract pounds in his studio gymnasium. Stewart subsequently attempted to enlist in the Air Corps, but still came in under the weight requirement, although he persuaded the enlistment officer to run new tests, this time passing the weigh-in,[31][N 2] with the result that Stewart enlisted and was inducted in the Army on March 22, 1941. He became the first major American movie star to wear a military uniform in World War II.[32]
Stewart enlisted as a private[9][33] but as both a college graduate and a licensed commercial pilot applied for an Air Corps commission and pilot rating. Soon to be 33, he was almost six years beyond the maximum age restriction for aviation cadet training, the normal path of commissioning for pilots. Stewart received his commission as a second lieutenant on January 19, 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, while a corporal at Moffett Field, California. He also received a pilot rating, although the circumstances are unclear, since he did not participate in the standard pilot training program.[N 3] Stewart's first assignment was an appearance at a March of Dimes rally in Washington, D.C., but Stewart desired assignment to an operational unit rather than serve as a recruiting symbol. He applied for and was granted advanced training in multi-engine aircraft. Stewart was posted to nearby Mather Field to instruct in both single- and twin-engine aircraft.[33] [34]
File:Winning Your Wings.ogv

James Stewart in Winning Your Wings (1942)
Public appearances by Stewart were limited engagements scheduled by the Army Air Forces. "Stewart appeared several times on network radio with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, he performed with Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Walter Huston and Lionel Barrymore in an all-network radio program called We Hold These Truths, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights."[35] In early 1942, Stewart was asked to appear in a film to help recruit the anticipated 100,000 airmen that the USAAF would need to win the war. The USAAF's First Motion Picture Unit shot scenes of Lieutenant Stewart in his pilot's flight jacket and recorded his voice for narration. The short propaganda film, Winning Your Wings, appeared nationwide beginning in late May and was very successful, resulting in 150,000 new recruits.[36][37]
Stewart was concerned that his expertise and celebrity status would relegate him to instructor duties "behind the lines."[38] His fears were confirmed when after his promotion to first lieutenant on July 7, 1942,[39] he was stationed from August to December 1942 at Kirtland Army Airfield in Albuquerque, New Mexico, piloting AT-ll Kansans used in training bombardiers. He was transferred to Hobbs Army Airfield, New Mexico, for three months of transition training in the four-engine B-17 Flying Fortress, then sent to the Combat Crew Processing Center in Salt Lake City, where he expected to be assigned to a combat unit. Instead he was assigned in early 1943 to an operational training unit, the 29th Bombardment Group at Gowen Field, Boise, Idaho, as an instructor.[33] He was promoted to captain on July 9, 1943,[39] and appointed a squadron commander.[34] For Stewart, now 35, combat duty seemed far away and unreachable and he had no clear plans for the future. However, a rumor that Stewart would be taken off flying status and assigned to making training films or selling bonds called for immediate action, because what he dreaded most was "the hope-shattering spectre of a dead end."[40] Stewart appealed to his commander, 30-year-old Lt. Col. Walter E. Arnold Jr., who understood his situation and recommended Stewart to the commander of the 445th Bombardment Group, a B-24 Liberator unit that had just completed initial training at Gowen Field and gone on to final training at Sioux City Army Air Base, Iowa.[41][N 4]


World War II bomber pilot in 1943
In August 1943, Stewart was assigned to the 445th Bomb Group as operations officer of the 703d Bombardment Squadron, but after three weeks became its commander. On October 12, 1943, judged ready for overseas movement, the 445th Bomb Group staged to Lincoln Army Airfield, Nebraska. Flying individually, the aircraft first flew to Morrison Army Airfield, Florida, and then on the circuitous Southern Route along the coasts of South America and Africa to RAF Tibenham, Norfolk, England. After several weeks of training missions, in which Stewart flew with most of his combat crews, the group flew its first combat mission on December 13, 1943, to bomb the U-boat facilities at Kiel, Germany, followed three days later by a mission to Bremen. Stewart led the high squadron of the group formation on the first mission, and the entire group on the second.[43] Following a mission to Ludwigshafen, Germany, on January 7, 1944, Stewart was promoted to major.[43][N 5] Stewart was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions as deputy commander of the 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing on the first day of "Big Week" operations in February and flew two other missions that week.[45]
On March 22, 1944, Stewart flew his 12th combat mission, leading the 2nd Bomb Wing in an attack on Berlin. On March 30, 1944, he was sent to RAF Old Buckenham to become group operations officer of the 453rd Bombardment Group, a new B-24 unit that had just lost both its commander and operations officer on missions.[46] As a means to inspire the unit, Stewart flew as command pilot in the lead B-24 on several missions deep into Nazi-occupied Europe. As a staff officer, Stewart was assigned to the 453rd "for the duration" and thus not subject to a quota of missions of a combat tour. He nevertheless assigned himself as a combat crewman on the group's missions until his promotion to lieutenant colonel on June 3[39] and reassignment on July 1, 1944, to the 2nd Bomb Wing, assigned as executive officer to Brigadier General Edward J. Timberlake. His official tally of mission credits while assigned to the 445th and 453rd Bomb Groups totaled 20 sorties.


Receiving French Croix de Guerre with Palm in 1944
Stewart continued to make missions, uncredited, flying with the pathfinder squadron of the 389th Bombardment Group, with his two former groups, and with groups of the 20th Combat Bomb Wing.[47] He received a second award of the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions in combat and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He also received the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. Stewart served in a number of staff positions in the 2nd and 20th Bomb Wings between July 1944 and the end of the war in Europe, and was promoted to full colonel on March 29, 1945. Stewart was one of the few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years.]

---

I mainly think he's a badass because he probably could have gotten out of the draft, didn't. Could have just been a recruiting symbol, didn't. Could have gotten a cush office job, didn't. Could have used his fame to just push war bonds and training, didn't. Could have made a big deal to the media, didn't.

Don't make them like that any more.