The Three Soldiers (also known as The Three Servicemen) is a bronze statue, on the Washington, DC National Mall commemorating the Vietnam War. It was created and designed to complement the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, by adding a more traditional component to the Memorial.
This well-known sculpture by U.S. artist and sculptor Frederick Hart portrays three young U.S. fighting men, completely dressed and outfitted in uniforms and equipment used by U.S. infantrymen in the Vietnam War. While the military attire is meant to be symbolic and general in nature, the personal combat equipment displayed is actually quite specific in representing the figures as serving in either the U.S. Army, or U.S. Marine Corps.
Of the three fighting men, the lead figure (in the middle) represents a Marine, as he wears a Type M-1955 body armor vest, which was worn exclusively by Marines in Vietnam. He is armed only with a Colt M1911A1 .45 caliber automatic pistol, which is carried in a Government Issue (GI) M-1916 leather pistol holster, positioned on the right hip. The M-1916 holster is attached to an M-1956 GI pistol belt, and a small GI .45 pistol magazine pouch is carried on the belt's left front. The M-1911A1 .45 caliber pistol was used by Marine enlisted, NCO, and officer ranks, so its depiction is consistent with a Marine of any rank. The Marine wears no shirt, and his body armor vest serves as his only upper-body clothing. His remaining combat attire consists of Tropical Combat Trousers, and Tropical ("jungle") Combat Boots; he wears no headgear. Like his comrades, he carries a pair of plastic GI 1-quart canteens, carried in two M-1956 canteen covers that are attached to his pistol belt, and situated at the rear center hip.
Three Soldiers is a 1920 novel by the American writer and critic John Dos Passos. It is one of the key American war novels of the First World War, and remains a classic of the realist war novel genre. H.L. Mencken, then practising primarily as an American literary critic, praised the book in the pages of the Smart Set. "Until Three Soldiers is forgotten and fancy achieves its inevitable victory over fact, no war story can be written in the United States without challenging comparison with it--and no story that is less meticulously true will stand up to it. At one blast it disposed of oceans of romance and blather. It changed the whole tone of American opinion about the war; it even changed the recollections of actual veterans of the war. They saw, no doubt, substantially what Dos Passos saw, but it took his bold realism to disentangle their recollections from the prevailing buncombe and sentimentality."
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" or "Moe, Larry, and Shemp," among other lineups. They started as "Ted Healy and his Southern Gentlemen" which comprised Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard. This original trio did one feature film entitled Soup to Nuts after which Shemp left the group to pursue a solo career, and was replaced by his brother Curly Howard. This incarnation of the team was the first to be known on film as The Three Stooges.
Shemp rejoined the group after Curly suffered a debilitating stroke in May 1946, reinstating the original line-up until November 1955, when Shemp died of a heart attack. In order to complete four Shemp-era shorts, film actor Joe Palma was used as a temporary body double to Shemp, before Joe Besser became the long-term replacement as the third Stooge. Ultimately, Joe DeRita (nicknamed "Curly Joe") replaced Joe Besser by 1958. The act regained momentum throughout the 1960s as popular kiddie fare until Larry Fine's paralyzing stroke in January 1970 effectively marked the end of the act proper. Moe tried, unsuccessfully, one final time to revive the Stooges with longtime supporting actor Emil Sitka filling in for Larry. Larry ultimately succumbed to a series of additional strokes in January 1975, followed by Moe, who died of lung cancer in May 1975.
The Shore is an American rock group founded in Silver Lake, CA by frontman Ben Ashley. The Shore are heavily influenced by psychedelic bands like The Byrds, The Beatles, Coldplay, and The Beach Boys as well as Britpop groups Oasis and The Verve.
In the spring of 2002, Ashley wrote a series of songs with producer Rick Parker. Parker assembled a group of local musicians, including Kyle Mullarky (bass), Cliff Magreta (guitar), and John Wilmer (drums), to record a series of demos. The demos came to Scott Austin, a Maverick A&R Executive, and the band was given a major contract only a few months after their initial recordings. The Shore returned to the studio with Parker to record their first album. The Shore recorded the album over a period of three months. The Shore EP was released on New Year's Day of 2003. Their full length album, The Shore, was released in August 2004. After guitarist Wayne Faler toured with the band, he was added as a permanent member in December 2005. It was about this time that The Shore parted ways with Maverick Records to pursue a better record deal.
Owain Phyfe is a vocalist, instrumentalist, composer, and the founder of Nightwatch Recording, which concentrates on Renaissance and Medieval music.
Phyfe grew up in a bilingual family with Welsh as a second language. Nourished by his grandparent's appreciation for song, Phyfe's study of languages in college and his travels abroad to England, France, and Spain as well as his experience later as a musician in New York City's Greenwich Village led to finding his own Renaissance spirit.
In the mid-1980s, Phyfe and his wife Paula became festival performers at the Michigan Renaissance Festival. Spellbound by early music, Phyfe decided to develop a "singer of songs" persona. While researching late medieval and renaissance music, he found himself favoring faire life over the automotive engineering company he had started in 1983. "It became my dream to present the beauty of Renaissance music," Phyfe explained, "not as a documentary, but as a living expression."
He teamed up with the magical Renaissance Fair jam band CANTIGA in 1990 to form The New World Renaissance Band, specializing in the performance of ancient music in English, Spanish, Italian, Welsh, German, French, Provençal and Latin. He plays many traditional instruments including recorders, viola, cello, fiddle, and harp. He has performed across the U.S., and his music has aired worldwide and on over 250 radio stations across North America. He has performed and offered workshops at many medieval recreationist, musical and Neo-Pagan events including the S.C.A.'s Pennsic War, the Michigan Renaissance Festival, Sirius Rising, Pagan Spirit Gathering and the Starwood Festival, both as a soloist and with the New World Renaissance Band.