Word: spruced
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Army rations were not always so sumptuous. During the Revolution, a soldier was issued daily (if he got it) 1 Ib. of meat, 6 oz. of bread, 1 pt. of milk, rice, 1 qt. of spruce beer. He had to do his cooking himself. The War of 1812 added another item to the list: vinegar, which was mixed with sugar and water to make a highly regarded tonic. In the Civil War, Union soldiers got 20 oz. of beef, 22 oz. of bread,* 2½ oz. of beans, rice, green coffee, sugar, vinegar. Pepper was added to the menu...
...young-54. His superiors think him bright: he first came to public view in 1938 when he jumped 100 seniority places to become Director of Military Operations and Intelligence. He looks and sounds like a man with the juice of command in him: short, stocky, broad-shouldered, spruce, calm-voiced, neat, a pipe-smoker. He is a man of few words-"a most precise fellow," says a colleague-but the words are peppery and to the point; he once reported a three-hour Imperial war conference in eight lines...
...Moscow make a first-class military cemetery. The land is mostly flat, some of it gently rolling. To the northwest there are numerous swamps, now partly frozen. To the north there are great, patchy forests, which even in winter are good cover because they consist mostly of pine and spruce. All around is a net work of rivers-Volga, Moskva, Oka, Sherna, Protva, Ugra, Ruza, Yauza-which are now mostly frozen...
...behind the Navy's ordnance program is tall, spruce, 51-year-old Rear Admiral Blandy, whose consuming passions are ordnance and gunnery. When he was gunnery officer on the U.S.S. New Mexico from 1927 to 1929, the battleship twice won the Battle-Efficiency Pennant ("Meatball" to the sailors) as well as a pair of gunnery trophies and two turret Es. Says a pal: "Spike's idea of a perfect target practice was to shoot the masts off the target ship from 8,000 yards, starting with the top and working down. Throwing shells into the hull was shooting...
...village teeming with overland adventurers (coureurs des bois), boatmen (voyageurs), townsmen (habitants). "There were spruce military men from the American garrison which had been placed over the village when it passed from French rule four years ago. ... To a Quaker it was strange for a town to boast a dozen billiard rooms and only one small church. . . . Most astonishing to Shreve were the warehouses where he had to select his furs. . . . Pelts were stacked high on every side . . . and heaped in hills about the floor, hung from rafters and bulging from the adjoining sheds...