Sweetwilliam > Recent Status Updates

“…General Allen went over there crossed the line to meet with the Russians. He and a General from the Russians they had a big night. They tried to drink each other under the table. I think Terry beat him”

On May 7th, Allen received word that…that…the German high command had signed the unconditional surrender of all the German forces in Europe….The following morning brought the official VE-day

P222 Patton's message insisted that Terry's relief be without prejudice. Ike agreed to the stipulation that Allen upon return to the states would receive an equivalent command. Because Ike had not agreed to similar conditions for Roosevelt, Patton followed up with a telegram, "I specifically said that unless they both could be relieved without prejudice I would not ask for their relief."

P22 - Although Patton and Allan had clashed...it was obvious that Patton respected his former cavalry comrade and polo adversary as qualified to lead a division in combat. They differed in their combat philosophy: Patton seemed to think in purely military terms....Allen, no less aggressively minded, also considered the cost to soldiers...Ammunition is cheaper than soldiers' lives. Fire away.

If it had been up to Eisenhower and Bradley, Allen and Roosevelt would have been shipped home. Bradley was vocal on Allen's Problems. "I was not happy with Allen..." But Patton valued Allen's battlefield swagger and insisted on keeping him 'at least until the initial phase of the operation is consummated.' I [Bradley] agreed reluctantly meanwhile persuading Patton to tone down a commendation he was writing for Allen

Bradley admitted that Allen enjoyed intense loyalty from his troops. Despite the disaster of the Tine, the men were convinced he would not jeopardize him without just cause. Liebling quoted a young West Pointer on his staff saying, “There are some Generals that if they find the enemy in a strong position, they will go ahead and get you killed. But old Terry will find a way around and kill them all.”

After a softening-up barrage by the 7th artillery, the soldiers left the line of departure shortly before dawn. They reached the first objective in less than 3 hour; there was no contact. The men warily moved further; again no resistance. The Germans had abandoned their Kasserine offensive. entirely.

Richard the Lionheart and the third crusade has taken Acre and while moving up the coast to Joffre, defeated Saladin at a decisive battle at Arsuf and is poised to move toward Jerusalem. It is the summer of 1191.

The other unassailable truth of Jerusalem's conquest is that the crusaders were not simply driven by a desire for blood or plunder; they were also empowered by a heartfelt piety and the authentic belief that they were doing God's work...dusk on 15 July 1099 saw the Latins ...thanks to God. After years of desperate suffering and struggle, the First Crusaders' terrible work was done: Jerusalem was in Christian hands."

After Dorylaeum, crusaders mounts, and pack animals died of thirst: Historians emphasized the military advantage enjoyed by crusader knights because of their larger, stronger, European horses, but in truth, most of these died before Syria was reached. A Frankish eyewitness later noted that because of this 'many of our knights had to go as foot soldiers, and for lack of horses we had to use oxen as mounts'.

The once fashionable myth that crusaders were self-serving, disinherited, land hungry younger sons must be discarded. Crusading was instead an activity that could bring spiritual and material rewards but was...both an intimidating and extremely costly activity. Devotion inspired Europe to crusade.... their most powerful weapon was a shared sense of purpose and indestructible spiritual resolution. (Page 47)

The foot soldier has a special feeling for the ground. He walks on it, sleeps on it...the ground shelters him under fire; he builds his home in it. But mines and booby traps transform that friendly, familiar earth into a thing of menace, a thing to be feared as much as machineguns and mortar shells. The infantry knows that at any moment the ground he is walking on can erupt and kill him...if he's lucky.

Franklin returns to London for a 3rd time in 1765. This time he will promote his Albany plan. If you choose to tax us, give us members in your legislature, and let us be one people.

Mass invited Indians to study at Harvard. The Indians replied that they had sent some of their young braves to study there years earlier, but on their return “they were absolutely good for nothing, being neither acquainted with the true methods for killing deer, trapping beaver, or surprising the enemy.” They offered instead to educate a dozen or so white children in the ways of the Indians “and make men of them.”

“The sirdar waited patiently on his horse for full daylight to come, knowing that he had reached the current climax of his career... Before the men had started their night-march the previous afternoon, he had sent a message round to all units: The sirdar is absolutely certain that every man will do his duty. He has only these words to say: ‘Remember Gordon. The men before you are his murderers.’”

Gordon could have easily left Khartoum had he wished to do so, but evacuating himself would have meant betraying those he had sworn to protect. What troubled him most, indeed, was the knowledge that had he not been there, the population could have surrendered to the Mahdi’s mercy. They had endured endless hardship for his sake: thousands of troops had died defending them…it was his duty to share their fate

Not realizing that Camel’s soft pads are custom-made for walking on sand, the army had actually sent out a number for shoeing-smiths….They did not know it’s capabilities or limitations….Few British soldiers got past the idea that the camel was a joke.”
…as the would-be cameleers approached the animals. Anyone who stood in front of an irritated camel was likely to get splattered by evil smelling vomit”

The tribes received him [Gordon] with delight only because he had announced an end to the ban on the slave trade. Once it was generally known that his intention was to remove the garrisons and abandon the Sudan, they would join the rebellion. The evacuation route would be blocked, the telegraph line would be cut and he would be isolated in Khartoum. He had opened Pandora’s box.

Many have suggested a close parallel between Gordon and the Mahdi, yet the comparison does not hold up to close analysis. In fact, while the Mahdi was in some ways a soldier masquerading as a mystic, Gordon was a mystic masquerading as a soldier

One of the Egyptian officers declared he had no money...Khalid had him marched outside and flogged repeatedly - for the next three days he was given 1000 lashes a day. Every stroke made Hamada more determined not to yield...Khalid ordered the lashing stopped and had Hamada's ruined body handed over to his jailors. His guards poured a solution of salt water and chili peppers at over his open wounds at intervals.

A poison or pollutant is always a combination of substance and dose. If someone mentions just a substance to scare you, independent of the context or the dose, he has given you meaningless, misleading information. He is assuming or expecting you to believe if something is dangerous in some dosage, it is dangerous in all dosages.

Actually, it is the top environmentalist intellectuals who lack climate wisdom. Because they are unwilling to think in an unbiased way about the benefits and risks of fossil fuels according to a human standard of value, they are blinded by the fact that the fossil fuel industry is the reason that they are alive and not "helpless at the mercy of the wind in the middle of some such plain."

What if there was a climate danger? We would not oppose the only globally scalable CO2 free form of energy ever invented: nuclear power...doomsayers shouldn't be hostile to it. ditto for large scale hydroelectric power, which is also widely fought.

Clearly, doomsayers are not really focused on minimizing CO2.
Clearly, human life is not their operating standard of value; non-impact is.

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method...we'd like to see the world a better place...To do that we need to get some broad-based support to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts that we might have.

Bullard's doughboys were still holding - many in scanty trenches, some in isolated outposts, others lying in blast craters wounded or shaking from "shell-shock," and all exhausted..."By night everything was quiet...." His arm was numb, the bleeding had somehow stopped, and his sharpest pains were now hunger and thirst. He had no reserve rations, had drunk the last from his canteen...and now clung to the hope

Hubbard and his team "went to the spot where the wounded men were,"...But as they began to render aid, "another shell exploded in the same place killing all seven men." Only the remains of four could be identified, carried out after dark and buried back near the orchard hedge. But Lt Gray, in just his second hour commanding the company, had disappeared. "There was," one private later reported, "nothing left to bury."