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Post by fred on Sept 3, 2014 9:02:33 GMT -6
Tom,
In my opinion, the RCOI was called to vindicate Reno. To me, it is the most important document associated with the LBH. I have found no out-right lies, at least none that meant anything. Yes, there may have been some distortions or stretches and there were certainly a number of issues elided or simply not discussed (when they could have been), but it was still the most honest rendering of the battle, with more truth than we see in later-year accounts. The goal was achieved and the caveat inserted at the end.
Those who claim otherwise, simply have an agenda and if you speak to them or read what they write, that agenda always pops up immediately.
Again, my friend, that ain't history, so why bother?
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by fred on Sept 3, 2014 9:58:08 GMT -6
For the record, I'll just say Capt. Weir's "goods" bag was potentially lethal enough to threaten great harm both inside and outside military circles, and that is a basis for at least considering foul play. I tend to doubt it. I have the Whittaker letter to Libbie and all he does is equivocate. I believe the worst that would come out in any sort of "Weir" letter or account or testimony, would have been that Reno was entertaining the idea of pulling out and leaving the wounded behind. Weir and Reno were sequestered together during the night of the 25th and if Reno presented that half-baked idea to Benteen, he may have done the same thing with Weir, especially since the two were probably tippling a bit. And don't start with Reno being "drunk." A drink or two can loosen the tongue; it doesn't mean anything else. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by Mulligan on Sept 8, 2014 4:46:02 GMT -6
Gentlemen, you are all serious men. I'm a lightweight floating in from the Ethernet just wanting to discuss Custer and the Indians, and maybe fill in a few gaps for myself regarding the LBH battle. I'm well aware that my style is more Hollywood than West Point. It hasn't taken me too long to realize I'm sharing the room here with high achievers, keen intellects, and the occasional military hero. It would be an understatement to say that this sometimes leaves me feeling awkward. Case in point, Captain Thomas B. Weir. For me, a newbie board member, he was an abstract, one-dimensional character. I was drawn to his story as if it was an exciting television play. It was so easy to forget he was a fine American military officer, and someone's son, and a man who soldiers from any era might identify with and appreciate on a level far exceeding my understanding. The bag of "goods" he had on Reno and Benteen? I suspected that QC would frame them as matters involving the MCOC and argue that they had no merit, and that Captain Weir was therefore in no position to benefit from them, or use them against anyone. It was my thought that the unknown "goods" need not have actual merit to threaten harm, or that Captain Weir have any intention of using whatever "goods" he thought he might have, or if he thought that way at all. In those early months, before any official inquiry or court martial, when the newspaper circus was at its peak, individuals that feared some type of exposure or consequence -- or their loyal confederates -- might have believed Captain Weir possessed potentially damning information. These could be fellow soldiers, or those in loftier positions of command. They need not even be persons restricted to the military. They could be officials or bureaucrats wishing to avoid fallout from a possible political calamity. That someone might use Captain Weir's predilection for excess consumption of alcohol as an opportunity to quickly silence him -- as a "preventive" measure -- is too un-original a plot device to even be considered pulp fiction. Nevertheless, you can just smell the stinking alleyway, and see the dark, shadowy figures pouring several bottles of bad whiskey into Captain Weir's already drunken body. Any police detective worth his badge -- in my television play -- would start investigating. ~~~ Being immersed into the icy presence of cool, reasoned minds not given to such theatrical impulses has sobered my own thinking. I regretted jumping into the "Suicide" thread and the bag of "goods" idiocy before I was halfway through writing my second post on the subject. I've said too much, now, when I said I would wait. But that's my "goods" theory. Nonsense from a dated episode of the Chuck Connors cavalry series, Branded. Or, more precisely, Branded meets Columbo. In a year will my "goods" story still sound like a good script for a television show? Perhaps. In a year will I look back with no small amount of embarrassment on my first attempts here to draw attention to myself? What do you think? Mulligan
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Post by lilbow73 on Oct 5, 2014 14:38:00 GMT -6
Last night I was browsing a web site about a few of the battle survivors and I was shocked with the number of suicides. Has anyone ever figured out the rate of suicide for the soldiers on that campaign? Or an estimate to how many basically drank themselves to death. I wonder if the numbers are about the same as the current rate with soldiers returning home from war. Beth Hi Beth,I recall reading that a number of British survivors of Rorkes Drift took their own lives in the years following The Anglo Zulu War.One was often bayonetting the washing hung outside his house on the way back from the local gin palace.Seems to be close to what you have been reading on LBH survivors. John.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Oct 5, 2014 17:53:34 GMT -6
Right off, I do not know. But, it is my impression from age and reading that suicide has always been significantly higher than stats showed among civilians and soldiers both. Suicides were simply not admitted back in the day absent impossible to deny circumstance; churches would not bury you etc., so lie about it. Irony in spades.
Vonnegut always referred to smoking as the accepted American way of suicide, and given that we knew from Mark Twain (who denied it) on that smoking was really bad for health, that had to be a willing ignorance. Then, drink, of course. And being a soldier in combat, if we can believe bad and good literature, offered a death to be sought for centuries, which I view as a comment upon how uninspiring life was for people through the years.
There is something really weird about the role of a military in a democracy, and it's important to be viewed and discussed. If someone hangs themselves forty years after a war when having a flashback or drinking and driving, is that really due the war? Strikes me pain management was poor back then, and just the exhaustion of pain from a wound could nudge a guy into the dark. There are a lot of the Boomer generation who will most likely suicide rather than decay just to stop being a burden to the kids and having to endure pain for no future respite in this life. But today, we have syndromes and names for all these things so it seems like we have more suicides when, actually, we may not.
It's the Glossary of Terminology; when is risk suicide? Suicide by cop, neighbor, biker gang, jumping off a cliff, climbing a cliff with no rope, has duplication in Norse myth where the idea was to die in combat or willingly being at risk, primarily because there wasn't much else. They thought they'd be remembered, but statistically zero of them are remembered past a generation except maybe by misspelled name but with all the facts wrong.
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Post by tubman13 on Oct 6, 2014 3:33:10 GMT -6
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Post by Beth on Oct 6, 2014 12:49:49 GMT -6
Thanks for sharing that article.
Beth
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Post by tubman13 on Oct 6, 2014 14:03:49 GMT -6
For the blue flowers, I enjoy them. It is an old article, but might help on some search or another.
Regards, Tom
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Post by magpie on Oct 1, 2015 19:53:56 GMT -6
QC: I have marked the calendar, September 1, 2015. Maybe the "goods" bag contents will surprise us both. Mulligan Hey it's October, 2015 where's the goods?
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Post by magpie on Oct 1, 2015 20:01:51 GMT -6
OK It's a date. But just so we can be on an even playing field I will say that there was no "goods" to be had So that both of our positions can be evaluated a year hence what do you say this day that those goods were, in finite detail if you please. There will be no discussion on my part for the agreed upon period. I ask you this so that you position today may be on record, and to see if there is any change in that opinion a year from now. It's past D -Day it's October, 2015 let the games begin. I'm with you. Reno had some moves on the battlefield. The other guy would have hit the ditch been pulled of their broken horses and had their brains beat out by teeny boppers with a stone cobble earning their first feathers.
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Post by magpie on Oct 4, 2015 18:27:47 GMT -6
I now recall reading that suicide rates fell during war time for WW1 and WW2. Proven so, not debatable. This is for the civilain population during the War not after.
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