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Post by Beth on Jan 31, 2019 1:42:17 GMT
walking bean or detasseling corn. Dream jobs! and both jobs are now done by machines. |
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Post by Beth on Jan 31, 2019 1:45:41 GMT
My wife's mother and uncles grew up in Marshalltown and did those tasks. Regards, Tom I didn't realize you had a Marshalltown connection. I'm not from there but we lived their for 5 year--both girls were born there. Many kids earned their state farm money thats to walking beans or detasseling. |
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Post by rebcav on Jan 31, 2019 14:06:43 GMT
Thanks ......Boy I would have liked to have had a drink and swapped stories with that guy......
Aloha,
Duane
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Post by Beth on Jan 31, 2019 21:16:54 GMT
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Post by rebcav on Feb 1, 2019 16:44:05 GMT
I have......Not a bad read. One just has to take Mr. Ambrose with a grain of salt.
Hope everyone hasn't frozen,
Duane
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Post by Beth on Feb 2, 2019 2:22:07 GMT
I'm in Texas, it has been so cold that I've actually had to put shoes on to go out on the patio. It's just brutal.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 3, 2019 15:22:05 GMT
Sue couldn't get into the car on Friday as the doors were frozen shut, when we unlocked the doors the side windows were also frozen so she could open them to see if any traffic was coming as he revered out of the drive.
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Post by Beth on Feb 3, 2019 20:35:55 GMT
Sue couldn't get into the car on Friday as the doors were frozen shut, when we unlocked the doors the side windows were also frozen so she could open them to see if any traffic was coming as he revered out of the drive. I take it that this is really unusual weather for you? |
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 4, 2019 19:42:28 GMT
Yes it is Beth, we don't get really bad snow and frost like that as we are protected to the north, east and south by mountains, any bad wind and rain usually comes from the west and a lot of the bad weather burns itself out over Ireland.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Feb 13, 2020 12:15:51 GMT
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Post by rebcav on Dec 30, 2020 0:05:04 GMT
I just got Mr. Wagner's "The Strategy of Defeat at The Little Big Horn"....Had to get a note-pad to keep up with the times and who and what and when....But It DID clear up the whole "Ford D" thing for me. And although NOBODY can say what EXACTLY happened once Lt. Col. Custer headed past Medicine Tail Coulee, some guesses are better than most. I feel I understand the whole battle better in the sense of a whole bunch of things happening simultaneously. For some reason, other books kind of make you think of Reno's Attack, the retreat to Reno Hill, the meet up with Benteen and Lt. Col. Custer getting wiped out as kind of "isolated" events...Now I see it more like a juggler....Lot's of balls in the air, if you will. All I can say now is- (To paraphrase George C. Scott in "Patton") "Wagner.....You magnificent bastard.....I read your book!" Here's wishing everyone here a wonderful new year. Off to read another book I got for Christmas- "To Hell On A Fast Horse: The Untold Story of Pat Garret and Billy The Kid". Yeah, I'm a book dork. But at least I'm easy to shop for.....
You guys rock, Duane |
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Post by quincannon on Dec 30, 2020 1:48:58 GMT
There is nothing wrong with a good reasonable guess Duane.
What can be wrong is when you subscribe a time to your guess, and further when you calculate a time between one piece of guess work and another.
It is also a mortal sin, in my opinion, to label your guess as fact, or its twin brother, making something seem like it is accepted fact, by the style with which you write, when the subject you write about is far from it. Wagner needs a trip to the confessional.
Even the title is misleading. There was no Strategy. There was hardly any of the operational arts in practice. The larger point is that regimental commanders do not, nor are they allowed, to set STRATEGY. That is the purview of the National Command Authority (in this instance Grant), and no one else. Custer only had the power and authority to practice the tactical skills, which of course he did poorly. So if Wagner does not even know the difference between STRATEGY and TACTICS, the rest of his book goes down hill from there in my view. Knit picking some may call it, but professionals know the difference, and the two are not now and never where the same.
To put it in simplified terms. It was a STRATEGIC decision made by Roosevelt and the Joint Chief of Staff to land on Iwo Jima. It was the practice of the OPERATIONAL ARTS to collect the forces from far and wide, and assemble the shipping to the point where the task force was a mile off the beach. How the hell the ground commander decided to assault Suribachi was in the TACTICAL arena, and I assure you that FDR did not give a rat's ass how he did it, only that he do it. Had Wagner decided to title his tome TACTICS OF DEFEAT it would have both been more accurate, and he would not have made a fool of himself in front of people who know better, and do it needlessly out of ignorance, or inattention to detail, both of which are cardinal military and literary sins .
Yes, Duane you guessed correctly. I do have a bone to pick with Wagner. I don't like him personally, but this is not personal, as others have accused me of being on this matter. Wagner rose to the rank of Major in the United States Army before he resigned his commission. IF he does not know the difference between TACTICS and STRATEGY by the time he reached field grade, he must have slept though his active duty years. It is that basic. If he does not realize that the battlefield is a fluid place where nothing can be timed with any degree of accuracy then he must have failed basic logic at Georgetown. It cannot be done, even today, much less 1876. If he does not understand that movement between one place and another is subject to too many variables to accurately determine a time./distance - expended/covered quotient then he fibs to himself and should be expelled from his branch, the Transportation Corps, for malfeasance in office after the fact. STRATEGY of DEFEAT is from a military perspective a study in claptrap and codswallop.
Patton never said that except in the movies. I read Rommel's book, and from what I read, it is a long way from Rommel's Infantry theory (which is quite good) to Tunisia, armored warfare, and the Battle of El Guettar. The theory was there, but no one on the Allied side, including Patton, had yet developed the theory into workable operational doctrine, except Rommel of course. Truth is that the Allies had more of everything and Rommel ran out of steam after Kasserine.
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azranger
Brigadier General
Ranger
Posts: 1,824 
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Post by azranger on Dec 30, 2020 20:38:11 GMT
Rebcav
I agree with your opinion of Fred's book. If you don't attach times to a timeline, they are worthless, in my opinion. You would call it a sequential events list. What is more important is that Fred used concurrent running timelines so you can see what was occurring simultaneously. The times were developed from many sources, with the majority from participant accounts.
Tom and I have a friend Gerry who portrays Pvt Peter Thompson. I met George Kush one day while he was looking at Gerry's scroll. Gerry has several lines of different persons and movements. It is in pencil, and the lines move horizontally so that a vertical line would represent a specific point in time. Gerry came over to the 7th Ranch, and we sat around and shared with Icers and other board members such as BC. Brett is a prosecutor from Kansas, if I recall correctly.
The inclusion of distance was one factor used to determine a time to use if recall correctly. It would be no different than what we do in law enforcement. We can eliminate a suspect based on up to two known locations and the time it would take to travel between them.
Not only is it a timeline per see, but it also includes distances between points and an overall rate of travel, plus concurrent timelines that had to have some simultaneous events. For example, Benteen's, Custer's, and Reno's timelines are concurrent and simultaneous just below the divide. That would also include the rear guard and pack train. They diverge from there with only Reno and Custer at the same time until the separation in Reno Creek.
If you can use a timeline like Gray's, it originates from a fixed 4 mph march down Reno Creek. He eliminates all accounts that don't fit his 4 mph overall travel speed.
I think an issue such as did Custer divide the 5 companies at MTC can be looked at by Indian accounts, locations, and travel rates.
Again I agree with you; it paints a picture that is easier to follow. If you use Bill Rini's participant timeline, it increases the time spent on Reno Hill before Benteen moved further. So unless you pick a time for a base, you end up with +/- minutes, which is hard to visualize for me. I would rather know they were all at some location at 2:00 PM then they were H+ 4 hours.
Regards
Steve
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Post by yanmacca on Dec 30, 2020 20:59:09 GMT
There is a lot can get missed when evaluating time lines, if you just say that the company or battalion, moved from a to b at a trot or even personally riding any supposed route, you have take care because they could have halted on various locations Enroute. Did they halt in MTC? Did they form a skirmish lines on Luce and later N/CR? Other things to factor is halts to evaluate and issue orders as many different options may have needed sorting when first entering MTC to BRE.
Having said that, I enjoyed Fred’s book. As I have said, I don’t feel comfortable in the theory of leaving Keogh and three companies behind on battle ridge, whist Custer loses his appetite for a full-scale battle and decides to recon the area north, that I don’t like, but Fred is not alone in this theory, many others have also said that Keogh stayed back.
I use any time lines as a guide, and use them in conjunction with Fred’s distances, he measured all the land marks in relation to each other and I personally have found these more helpful than time lines. |
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Post by rebcav on Dec 30, 2020 21:26:05 GMT
Mr. Quincannon:
Your points are duly noted. And yes, by the bitterness in your response I get the fact that you have a bone to pick with Mr. Wagner. Maybe you should write a book rebutting his points. I'd be interested to hear them.
One thing I won't stand for is being misquoted or someone putting words in my mouth as you did regarding my quote from the MOVIE "Patton".
If you read may post CAREFULLY, you'll see that I quoted George C. Scott IN the movie "Patton". I NEVER said that was a statement made by the General. Save your vitriol for Mr. Wagner. I concede that you may have more "expertise" in warfare than Mr. Wagner, and outrank him. Regardless, I enjoyed the book and found it helpful.
Back in my Beloved Corps, one of the Traits of Leadership was "Tact".
Did they have that in your Branch of Service?
Don't ever put words in my mouth or misquote me again.
Especially when you use words I never said to back up one of your rants or use as ammo in some feud (real or imagined) you may have with someone else.
Have a nice day,
Duane.
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