History's greatest badasses

[KCHAR]

Post up who you think are the badasses past to present.

[Forever_frost]

Me.

[CyaNide]

Mr. Bean

CN

[Moose242]

Meet Jean Thurel.











Monsieur Thurel was born in Burgundy in 1699. He enlisted at the age of 17, like many of you who have served. However, this guy took it not only to the next level, but took being a soldier to such an extreme that he was awarded with three Medal of Veterancys. After doing some research, this man truly led an amazing life as a soldier until the day he died.... at the ripe old age of 107 in 1807.

"Jean Thurel was a fusilier of the French Army with an extraordinarily long career that spanned over 90 years of service. Having been born during the reign of Louis XIV and died during that of Napoleon I, Thurel lived in three different centuries and served three different monarchs.

Thurel was severely wounded in battle on two occasions. In 1733, during the siege of Kehl, he was shot in the chest with a musket. At the battle of Minden in 1759, he received seven sword slashes, including six to the head. Three of his brothers were killed in the battle of Fontenoy in 1745. One of Thurel's sons was a corporal and a veteran in the same company; he died at the Battle of the Saintes, a naval battle that occurred on 12 April 1782 off the coast of Dominica, West Indies during the American campaign.

A well-disciplined soldier of the line infantry, Thurel was only admonished once during his entire career, during the 1747 Siege of Bergen as the French troops occupied the citadel. He was admonished because, the doors of the fortress being shut, he scaled its walls to gain entry so that he would not miss muster. Another example of Thurel's discipline and physical fitness occurred in 1787. When his regiment was ordered to march to the coast to embark on ships of the French Navy, he was given the opportunity to travel in a carriage due to his advanced age. The 88-year-old Thurel refused the offer and marched the entire distance on foot, stating that he had never before traveled by carriage and had no intention of doing so at that time. His humility is evident in his steadfast refusal to accept any promotions; he remained a low-ranking fusilier for his entire military career.


In hopes of improving re-enlistment rates, Louis XV established the Médaillon Des Deux Épées (Medal of the Two Swords) by a royal decree in 1771. This was the first military decoration in France for which an enlisted man could be eligible. This medal was initially awarded to soldiers who had served in the French Army, as a reward for their longevity of service. The decree was extended in 1774 so that sailors of the French Navy were also eligible to receive the medal. A soldier or sailor would have to serve for 24 years to be eligible for the Médaillon Des Deux Épées. Thurel was awarded two Médaillon Des Deux Épées in 1771, the year the medal was established, in recognition of the two 24-year periods of time (1716–1740 and 1740–1764) during which he had served up until then. On 8 November 1787, Thurel was presented to the royal court at the Palace of Versailles. The 33-year-old king of France addressed the 88-year-old Army private in a respectful manner as "father", and asked whether Thurel would prefer to be awarded the Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint-Louis (Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis) or a third Médaillon Des Deux Épées medal, in recognition of the period from 1764–1788. This was a highly unusual request—not only because enlisted men and non-commissioned officers were not normally eligible to receive the Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint-Louis, which was reserved for commissioned officers of the Army or the Navy—but also because Thurel still had four more months of military service to complete before being eligible for a third Médaillon Des Deux Épées medal. Thurel opted to receive a third Médaillon Des Deux Épées, on the condition that the king himself attach the medal to his uniform. Louis XVI granted Thurel his wish. The king also granted Thurel an annual pension of 300 livres. Very few men have completed the 48 years of military service required to receive a second medal. Thurel is the only one ever to have received it three times.

On 26 October 1804, at the age of 105, Thurel became one of the first recipients of the newly established Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur (National Order of the Legion of Honor), the highest decoration in France. Napoleon I also rewarded him with a pension of 1,200 francs. He was later appointed as the "oldest soldier of Europe". He remained healthy in body and spirit throughout his remarkably long life. He died in Tours on 10 March 1807, at the age of 107, after a brief illness."

[SMKR]

Lou zamperini

[93LXHORSE]

Mike Tyson. End of story.

[turboford]

Ok. you can stop there. Thats all i needed to read. He wins.

[helosailor]

Probably between one of two gentlemen.
First, Colonel Robert Howard.
THREE MOH nominations, awarded one (could only be awarded one at that point).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Howard




Second, Lt. General Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller.
FIVE Navy Crosses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesty_Puller

[SlowLX]

https://www.justtrails.com/great-adventures/badass-hugh-glass/

Like most epic adventure stores, there are several versions and no one knows which version is historically accurate so with today’s podcast I’ll point out some discrepancies in his tale.

Our story begins in 1822 when Glass, who was a fur trapper, links up with other trappers such as William Sublette, Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith for a trip to what was to become Yellowstone. On the way there, Glass got into a little bit of trouble.

So Glass, who was an experienced frontiersman, was all alone when he accidentally surprised a Mama Grizzly with her two cubs.The bear charged Glass, lifted him up off of the ground and then threw him down. Glass grabbed his knife and started stabbing the bear, but the bear kept on attacking. Eventually some of the other trappers heard Glass, came to the rescue and together they killed the bear.

Glass, however, was in rough shape after the bear attack. His body was a bloody tangled and mauled mess from his scalp to his leg. He blacked out and his trapping partners did what they could to nurse him back to health. They had to move on so they carried him along for a few days and then decided that he was soling them down and he was going to die so they so they left two men, Jim Bridger and John Fitzgerald behind with him. For a week Bridger and Fitzgerald stayed Glass but he showed no signs of life. So when some hostile Indian warriors showed up Bridger and Fitzgerald took Glass’s rifle, knife and gear and bolted. Bridger and Fitzgerald eventually met up with the rest of their trapping party where they reported that Glass was dead.

Meanwhile, Glass had regained consciousness. When he came to he assessed his injuries realizing that most of the flesh on his body had been torn. He also had a broken leg and open wounds on his chest and back. Glass also realized that he didn’t have any weapons or equipment, nothing but the bear’s hide which he had been laying underneath. Glass knew that he was about 200 miles away from help. Now here’s where we see a few different versions of the story.

According to one account, he set his own leg, and started crawling toward help.

Another account says that before he began crawling for help he moved over to a rotting log to have maggots eat the infection from his back. And another claims that he killed a rattlesnake with a rock, and the meat from the snake gave him the strength he needed to start crawling toward Fort Kiowa.

Regardless, he knew that he was in rough shape and that he needed to get to help.

One story claims that at one point the gangrene on his wounded leg became so terrible that he stopped, put his leg into a rotting log and let maggots eat away his dead flesh. It doesn’t really matter what version of this story is true, or if maggots feasted on the rotting flesh of his back or leg, what matters is that Glass was no wimp.

To sustain himself while he crawled and eventually limped to civilization, Glass ate wild berries and roots. One time he chased two wolves away from a dead bison calf and feasted on the meat. He was also almost crushed in a buffalo stampede and barely missed being attacked by a hostile party of Indians.

One version of the story claims that eventually Glass met up with Cheyenne Indians who sewed a bear hide to his back to cover his wounds, gave him weapons and helped him make a raft to float down the Missouri river to reach Fort Kiowa.

Glass went on to heal but he wasn’t very happy about Bridger and Fitzgerald abandoning him in the wilderness, in fact he made a vow to kill both of them. Eventually he caught up with Bridger but spared his life, some say it’s because Bridger was young, only 17 or 18 at the time. When he found Fitzgerald he learned that he had joined the Army and the punishment for killing a soldier was death so Fitzgerald got to live.

I don’t know if Glass sustained any long term effects from his bear attack and cross-country crawl but I do know that he went on to continue trapping, having more adventures and run ins with Native American tribes, both hostile and friendly. Eventually he was killed by Indians by present day Billings Montana in 1833.

[trblshooter]

Bad Ass because he helped shape the modern world through warfare.

http://www.clausewitz.com/

[Moose242]

[Strychnine]

Teddy Roosevelt

[SMKR]

Bad mofo wallet, he deserves one...

[line-em-up]

Norman Schwarzkopf


In the Vietnam War, Schwarzkopf served as a task force adviser to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Airborne Division.[19][38] He was promoted to major shortly after arriving in Vietnam. After an initial orientation at Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), headquartered in Saigon, Schwarzkopf was sent north to Pleiku in the central highlands, in the II Corps Tactical Zone.[39] He got his first combat experience on 3 August, when he was the senior adviser to a force of 1,000 South Vietnamese paratroopers sent to relieve a beleaguered South Vietnamese Army camp in Duc Co. The paratroopers took heavy casualties and a second, larger force was required to relieve them. That force too came into heavy contact on 5 August. Schwarzkopf and his group fought continuously for several days. At one point, he braved heavy North Vietnamese fire to recover and treat a handful of wounded South Vietnamese soldiers and escort them to safety.[40] By 17 August the 173rd Airborne Brigade arrived and broke the siege, ending the Battle of Đức Cơ. General William Westmoreland later arrived to review the incident and congratulate Schwarzkopf. For his leadership in the battle, Schwarzkopf was awarded the Silver Star.[41][42] On 14 February 1966, Schwarzkopf led an ARVN paratrooper assault on a Viet Cong position, during which he was wounded four times by small arms fire. In spite of this, he refused medical evacuation or to relinquish command until the objective had been captured. For this, he was awarded a second Silver Star and a Purple Heart.[43]

[YALE]

Both my grandfathers. One was a bubble gunner on a B24 in the pacific. When he got promoted to radioman, the first run out, his replacement got strafed, "basically into pieces," so he had to pull the guy out, and take over for him. He also came from nothing in the dustbowl up in the Red River country, and built a chain of furniture and department stores. The other was a career man in the army. He got shot in Korea, and they thought he was dead. They put him on a body pile, and were preparing to evacuate the area, and when the last guy was leaving to catch a transport, he sat up out of the pile and asked that guy for a cigarette. He wasn't a big guy, be he was impervious to pain and hardship. He would occasionally do crazy things, like punch a cow so hard it got woozy for stepping on him, and running himself over with the tractor. He had an old Ford 8N, and something was wrong with the PTO. He was pulling the bush hog when he was 60, and it bucked and knocked him off, and mashed him into the ground. It drove on and crashed into a stand of trees, and he just got up and walked over and shut it off. Aside from being bruised, he was ok. A few years later (1995ish), he cut some shrapnel out of his leg from the '68 Tet Offensive that he didn't know he had, on the back porch with a pocketknife because it was bothering him. It had worked loose from under his calf, and pushed out next to his shin.

I guess if I really had to pick, I pick Genghis Khan. That motherfucker was hard as a coffin nail.