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The Mongols Dined Atop their Live Enemies and Other Fascinating Historic Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 2, 2020 36 min

Battle of the Kalka River - Mongol Empire — Mongols feasting atop captives. Pintrest

9. Ludwig Hoge Fought in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam

Ludwig Hoge is among the relative few who can say that they saw front line service in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. He is among an even rarer fraternity of servicemen who went through all three conflicts without suffering a scratch. The secret, according to him, was prayer: “Pray every chance you could get. And by that, I think it saved my life. I really do“.

Hoge began a three-decade military career when he was drafted into the US Army in WWII, and ended up fighting his way across Europe with the 36^th Infantry Division. He remembers all the times that bullets whizzed by, and shrapnel screamed around him. He lost many friends along the way, but ended the war physically unscathed, and with a Bronze Star. America’s next war found Hoge, a music lover, serving in the 45^th Infantry Division’s band as a percussionist.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.