Military Facts

Iceland has no railway system or army!

The US Air Force researched a “Gay Bomb”: A non-lethal bomb containing really strong pheromones that will make the enemy forces attracted to each other. It won the 2007 Ig Nobel Prize.

The U.S. army packs Tabasco pepper sauce in every ration kit that they give to soldiers.

During World War II, the company that would become Uncle Ben's supplied rice to the U.S. Armed Forces under a government contract—their parboiled rice was prized because it could be air-dropped to troops without weevil infestation and cooked faster than regular rice.

A homing pigeon shot through the breast with one leg hanging by a tendon flew 25 miles to save 194 men trapped behind enemy lines. The survivors carved him a wooden leg. He still stands at the Smithsonian today.

During the Cold War, the US had planned to detonate a nuclear weapon on the moon.

A stray puppy was smuggled onto a troopship in a coal bin in 1917. He served 18 months in the WWI trenches, warned his regiment of mustard gas attacks, located wounded men in No Man's Land, and bit a German spy's leg until soldiers arrived. He is the most decorated war dog of WWI and the only dog promoted to sergeant through combat. His body is at the Smithsonian.

Nils Olav, a king penguin at Edinburgh Zoo, is the official mascot of the Norwegian King's Guard. The name and rank have passed down through three penguins since 1972 - knighted by King Harald V in 2008 and made Major General in 2023. At the 2023 ceremony, over 160 soldiers paraded past him so he could inspect the troops.

In 1963, the US Military created an artificial ring around Earth, similar to that of the planet Saturn. The ring was made of copper needles and was used for worldwide communications in the case that the Soviets disabled all other methods of communication.

Samsung is also a full time weapons manufacturer.

In 1948, Costa Rica abolished its military and spends the money on education and culture instead.

The first McDonald’s drive-thru was opened near a military base in Arizona “to serve soldiers who weren’t permitted to get out of their cars while wearing fatigues.”

In 2021, KPMG offered accountant Scott Ruskan a full-time job. He said no and joined the Coast Guard instead. On his very first mission as a rescue swimmer - the July 2025 Texas rising waters - he saved 165 people at a summer camp. He was the only rescuer on scene for four hours.

The US military spent $2.7 billion on a giant missile defense blimp called JLENS. On its second day of active duty, it broke free. It dragged 6,700 feet of cable across Pennsylvania. Knocked out power to 30,000 people. F-16s were scrambled but couldn't stop it. It deflated in a field. State police secured it. The program was quietly shelved.

Harold Jellicoe Percival died alone at 99 with no family to attend his funeral. The care home placed a four-line notice in the Lytham St Annes Express asking anyone to come. Someone tweeted a photo of it. On Armistice Day at 11am, over 200 strangers packed the crematorium and scores more stood outside in the rain.

Before he played Dracula, Saruman, and Count Dooku, Christopher Lee served as an RAF intelligence officer attached to Britain's Special Operations Executive - and spent the final months of the war hunting Nazi war criminals. He was fluent in five languages, sworn to secrecy for life, and once corrected Peter Jackson on how a stabbing actually sounds. The man who played 200 villains had hunted real ones.

A 4-pound Yorkshire Terrier named Smoky was the smallest soldier in the Pacific during WWII. At Lingayen Gulf, engineers needed telephone wire threaded through a 70-foot pipe buried under an active airfield - too narrow for any person to enter. Smoky crawled through in minutes, saving an estimated 250 ground crew from three days of digging in open enemy fire, with 40 planes parked nearby.

In 1989, the Soviet Union traded Pepsi 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer in exchange for Pepsi products. For a brief moment, PepsiCo had the 6th largest submarine fleet in the world. Pepsi's CEO told the National Security Advisor: "We're disarming the Soviet Union faster than you are."

Pepsi ran a commercial showing a Harrier jet for 7 million Pepsi Points. A business student named John Leonard did the math, raised $700,000, and mailed Pepsi a check demanding the jet. Pepsi said no. He sued. A judge ruled "no objective person could reasonably have concluded" the offer was real. Pepsi re-aired the ad with the price changed to 700 million points and a "Just Kidding" disclaimer.

On September 26, 1983, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov was alone at a nuclear command bunker when the early-warning system showed 5 American missiles inbound - confidence level: HIGHEST. Protocol demanded he report up the chain immediately. He decided the computer was wrong and reported a false alarm instead. The USSR reprimanded him for the paperwork.

Simon the cat was smuggled onto the Royal Navy frigate HMS Amethyst as a stray kitten in 1948. In 1949, Chinese forces fired on the ship and Simon took four pieces of shrapnel. He kept hunting rats and visiting sick sailors through 100 days trapped on the Yangtze River. The Navy awarded him the Dickin Medal - the highest honor any animal can receive. He died before the ceremony.

Allen Parton came home from the Gulf War in 1991 unable to walk, talk, or remember his wife and children. Doctors told Sandra to leave him. A Labrador named Endal - rejected from service training - learned 200 commands from Allen's gestures and rebuilt his capacity to feel. When a car knocked Allen out in 2001, Endal put him in the recovery position, retrieved his phone, and ran to a hotel for help. Endal was best man when they remarried.

The SR-71 Blackbird was built from titanium the CIA secretly bought from the Soviet Union - the very nation it was made to spy on. The airframe was 92% titanium, and the vast majority came from Soviet ore. The panels were fitted loose on purpose: on the tarmac the plane dripped fuel, and only Mach-3 friction heat expanded them tight. JP-7 fuel also doubled as a coolant, absorbing heat from the skin.

The Taj Mahal was disguised three times to protect it from bombers. In 1942, British engineers wrapped the dome in bamboo scaffolding. Without GPS, it looked like a building site from the air. India used the same trick in 1965 and 1971. In 1971, over 18,000 lbs of green jute were draped over the marble. Not one bomb ever fell.