Wise Up!
War
By David Bruce
May 27, 2008
• In World War II, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery ordered the troops in England to take a 5-mile run. Of course, many soldiers figured they wouldn’t actually do the run. They would fall to the rear, then drop out of the run, find a quiet place to rest until the other soldiers came back, then rejoin the soldiers and run into camp. However, Field Marshall Montgomery had thought of that. He ordered everyone to be loaded into trucks, driven five miles into the country away from camp, then dropped off. The only way to get back into camp was on your own two feet.
• During World War II, many major league baseball players such as Joe DiMaggio went into the Armed Forces, and people weren’t sure that major league baseball could continue during the war. To ensure inexpensive sports entertainment during the war, Philip K. Wrigley (owner of the Chicago Cubs and manufacturer of the chewing gum) started the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. When the teams lined up on the baseball field for the singing of the national anthem before a game, they always lined up in a V formation because “V is for Victory.”
• Many of the people who have won the Nobel Peace Prize have been hated. Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, was a pacifist during World War I. Because of this, Theodore Roosevelt called her a “silly, vain old maid” and the Daughters of the American Revolution expelled her. After the war was over, she worked to provide food to children who had suffered from the war — including German children. In return for these efforts, she was called “the most dangerous woman” in the United States. Nevertheless, Ms. Addams won the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize.
• Playwright Lillian Hellman was born in 1905, and she was a young girl when the United States fought Germany in World War I. Determined to help the war effort, she and a friend went looking for German spies in Manhattan. They spotted two men wearing raincoats. One of the men carried a violin case, which young Lillian thought might hold a machine gun. She reported the two men to a police officer, who investigated and discovered that the two men were a concert violinist and a college professor.
• Emperor Sing-un’s country was on the verge of war. The emperor prepared his country as much as possible by training soldiers, storing supplies, and stockpiling food, then he asked Buddhist priest Si-tien for advice about waging war. Si-tien advised, “Go, and watch carefully the matches between heavyweight wrestlers and heavyweight boxers.” Emperor Sing-un asked, “Why heavyweights?” Si-tien replied, “They hit seldom, but with much consequence.”
• Reading can educate people. Author Walter Dean Myers once received a letter from a teenager who had been watching television coverage of the Persian Gulf War and was so excited that he could hardly wait to turn 17 so he could join the Army and fight in a war. However, after reading Mr. Myers’ realistic war book, “Fallen Angels,” he decided that he did not want to fight after all. “Fallen Angels” was a tribute to Mr. Myers’ younger brother, Sonny, who died two days after being sent to Vietnam.
• The first official Christian nation in the world is Armenia. When King Tiridates III (died 330 C.E.) became a convert to Christianity, Armenia’s citizens soon converted, also. They were serious about their religion. When the Persians conquered part of Armenia and ordered the Armenians to convert to Zoroastrianism, which the Persians followed, the Armenians rebelled. After 20 years of war, the Persians relented and permitted the Armenians to remain Christian.
• While serving in the Vietnam War, Colin Powell was shocked when he learned that South Vietnamese soldiers were using machine gun fire to cut down trees. He spoke to Captain Vo Cong Hieu, the leader of the South Vietnamese troops, and told him how much each machine gun bullet cost. Captain Hieu quickly figured out on his own how wasteful cutting down trees with machine gun fire was, and he quickly stopped the practice.
• During World War I, a friend of flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker died after jumping without a parachute from a burning plane. Therefore, Mr. Rickenbacker tried to get the government to issue parachutes to pilots, but the government refused. Why? It said that if pilots had parachutes, they would parachute to safety, leaving crippled but expensive aircraft to crash. But if the pilots did not have parachutes, they would fight to land their expensive aircraft.
• Famous detective Allan Pinkerton served as a spy and did intelligence work during the Civil War. Unfortunately, he consistently overestimated the size of Confederate forces, leading General George McClellan to be overly cautious. Mr. Pinkerton’s sources included very frightened men who overestimated Confederate forces, and he took their inaccurate reports at face value.
• The Native Americans who lived at Mesa Verde in the southwestern corner of Colorado lived in pueblo villages built in the shallow caves of sandstone cliffs. To get into one of these villages was very difficult. To get into the village known today as Balcony House, people had to climb 30 feet down a steep cliff, then go through a 12-foot-long tunnel that was easily defended against enemies.
• During World War II, people were frugal. A popular motto was, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”
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