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Post by yanmacca on May 25, 2018 22:34:24 GMT
Thin skin you must be joking mate, it has been my thick skin that has got me through the last year. I have been in the trenches with you so I know how you operate pal so don't try to play me like you have done with other posters.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on May 25, 2018 22:53:31 GMT
Let's cut to the chase, it does not matter a wit who saw GAC or the Grey Horse troop, unless it was Reno, or it was reported to him and he could ascertain what that sighting meant to his situation, Comeon.
Regards, Tom
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Post by quincannon on May 26, 2018 0:17:01 GMT
Ian: If I wanted to play you, you would be well and duly played.
When I attempt to bring things to your attention, you resent it, as if it was some hidden military effort conspiring to make you look foolish. You even have said that you believe such a cabal exists with comments like you military guys all stick together. What would you expect us to do? We all went to the same school. That feeling on your part even carries over to your own countryman Justin. You never paid any attention to what he had to say either.
In between this second and the last paragraph in this post was a rather long rendition of why you sometimes drive me up the wall with frustration so much that I could scream. The more I wrote the more angry I became. Upon reflection though I edited it out, and replaced it with this.
For as long as I have known you I have tried to give you the benefit of what little I know. What I know was gained by experience an intensive study over at least the last sixty years. If you do not wish to take advantage of that, please let me know, and I will resist answering any of your posts. You may ask me any question you desire, and I will answer you to the best of my ability. You may rest assured that I give you my best shot at an answer the first time around. If you don't understand my answer, I will entertain any follow up you have as long as it is phrased in the form of a question. If you don't like my answer move on, but don't you dare argue with me or any of my answers ever again, for I will neither tolerate it or respond to it.
You owe me an apology for that last remark. Regardless of whether I get it or not, please act like an adult, and finally come to realize that there is no conspiracy designed to make you look foolish, except in your mind. I know I am not the first person to say that to you, but you don't ever seem to listen. Why is that?
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Post by yanmacca on May 26, 2018 9:23:24 GMT
Let's cut to the chase, it does not matter a wit who saw GAC or the Grey Horse troop, unless it was Reno, or it was reported to him and he could ascertain what that sighting meant to his situation, Comeon. Regards, Tom Tom, you just hit the nail on the head my friend, all I did was to respond to a post made by Mac, that was all and then I get dragged down this path of having to explain my posts over Varnum, the other EMs and other nick picking shite.
To be honest I am sorry I even read Macs request, thinking back I wish that some other member would have taken the time out to research that info for him instead of me as info like that need finding.
I will thinking twice in future and if one of my friends needs some info, then I will send to them via PM, that way my life would be much easier.
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Post by yanmacca on May 26, 2018 9:39:00 GMT
Ian: If I wanted to play you, you would be well and duly played. When I attempt to bring things to your attention, you resent it, as if it was some hidden military effort conspiring to make you look foolish. You even have said that you believe such a cabal exists with comments like you military guys all stick together. What would you expect us to do? We all went to the same school. That feeling on your part even carries over to your own countryman Justin. You never paid any attention to what he had to say either. In between this second and the last paragraph in this post was a rather long rendition of why you sometimes drive me up the wall with frustration so much that I could scream. The more I wrote the more angry I became. Upon reflection though I edited it out, and replaced it with this. For as long as I have known you I have tried to give you the benefit of what little I know. What I know was gained by experience an intensive study over at least the last sixty years. If you do not wish to take advantage of that, please let me know, and I will resist answering any of your posts. You may ask me any question you desire, and I will answer you to the best of my ability. You may rest assured that I give you my best shot at an answer the first time around. If you don't understand my answer, I will entertain any follow up you have as long as it is phrased in the form of a question. If you don't like my answer move on, but don't you dare argue with me or any of my answers ever again, for I will neither tolerate it or respond to it. You owe me an apology for that last remark. Regardless of whether I get it or not, please act like an adult, and finally come to realize that there is no conspiracy designed to make you look foolish, except in your mind. I know I am not the first person to say that to you, but you don't ever seem to listen. Why is that? A lot has past over the last year or so, hell our youngest even got married and I even became a grandad again, and I thank all of my friends for their kind words. So I am sorry to them for dragging this site into disrepute but having said that I have to respond to any posts which virtually single me out to explain stuff and put me in a corner.
QC; Now back to your reply, none of this has got anything to do with military questions or even Justin [how the hell you dragged him up is beyond me]. It has got to do with how you pick holes in anything I write, hell I could write the best posts ever on this board and you wouldn't batter an eye lid, but if I say one word wrong then you are all over it like a rash. You also don't like being questioned which is rather one sided as you question me enough. So lets just drop it and I will carry on working here in a advisory role, helping people with maps and images, that way we will stay clear of each other because this all reminds me of my time dealing with DC and Wild on the black board. I like posting here because it is enjoyable and I like the people here, if that enjoyment goes, then I will have to find something that I will enjoy.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on May 26, 2018 9:45:51 GMT
Ian, you must remember Varnum's perspective would have been better than others. Varnum had been over near the pony herd and came back, so viewing the bluffs would have been much easier even though further away. I have been in that valley area the closer you get to the river/timber the angle increases and your sight line diminishes. Just common sense.
Regards, Tom
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Post by yanmacca on May 26, 2018 9:53:04 GMT
Yes Tom, he was on Reno's left and also would have been clear of all the powder smoke, he does say in that article I posted, that rejoined his company, which was company A. This unit was operating in the center of Reno's skirmish line.
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Post by quincannon on May 26, 2018 15:30:11 GMT
This started by me asking you a simple question, how do you rate the first four and how do you rate Varnum. You answered by saying that Varnum told his story under oath, and what a good scout and responsible officer he was. That was the hole that you left in your answer.
Telling something under oath does not make what is said truthful. Neither does being a good scout or responsible officer. What seems to make a man truthful is being in a position as Tom says above where he could observe, what he says he saw. You take being in a position to observe, and add to it his being a good scout (with all that entails) and a good and responsible officer, telling all this under oath, and the end product is a reliable witness. That is what separates him from the others on the scale of reliability.
I told you the same thing Tom did for two days, and you would not listen. The only conclusion I can draw then is that you are not receptive to what I say. Tom is also a reliable witness, in that what he said is absolute truth. I know it is truth for I too have been in that valley and viewed those same bluffs, and the further away from them you are, the easier it is to see what is on top of them.
As to the water hole or stream you are looking for. Were you familiar with the American west you would come to understand that a stream or body of water that is there today, may be a mud puddle tomorrow, not be there the day after tomorrow, and not reappear for twenty or more years, if ever. All of these bodies of water with the exception of large creeks and rivers depend on the annual snowfall and seasonal rains for their very existence. The end result of that is that you can look for that stream where they watered until dooms day and still not be sure that it is the right stream, for the right stream may no longer exist. Did you then ever stop to think that the reason it is not on the maps is that no one knows where it is. All we have is a general area where this event occurred, and that will have to suffice. If you insist wasting your time searching for the holy grail, be my guest.
Any comment made on the open portion of this board is fair game for anyone to comment on regardless if it was addressed to a specific person or not. If you want to address a specific person, and no other, it should be done via PM. The question is then, if you address all of your comments to a specific person, does that not defeat the purpose of this board being a place for the free exchange of information among us all.
If you don't like holes poked in your informational product, eliminate the holes before you post by a thorough review of what you are going to say, before you say it. That will save you a lot of future resentment when supposedly someone tears you post apart, only motivated by wishing to get out the most accurate information possible.
You are correct. You could write the best and most accurate posts ever seen on this board, and I would not say a word, nor bat an eyelid. By the same token if you say one word wrong I am all over it like a rash. The difference is that what you said was wrong, not that it was you saying it. I expect you to be right. I expect everyone to be right. I also expect everyone to thoroughly review what they say before they say it to insure that they are right, and to avoid any misunderstanding after what they say is posted. I also expect the same from anyone if what I post is found to have faults, and I expect to be called on it for further explanation. In short I set the same standard for myself as I do for others. I expect the best from everyone including and especially you, for the simple reason that you, unlike many who come here have the research resources to get it right the first time. So use those resources and the brain God gave you to cross every T, dot every I, and parse every sentence of testimony in the search for truth before you post, and don't complain about the lack of due diligence errors you make that someone shines light on.
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azranger
Brigadier General
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Posts: 1,824
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Post by azranger on May 27, 2018 11:07:36 GMT
Martin says he was within 600 yards of MTC before being sent back. One witness equals no witness for the historian. Some statement that cannot be independently verified is eliminated, until verification is made. That does not mean he was not truthful? No, it means that it cannot be verified to the point where the statement can be confidently placed in any historical narrative. Chuck where did you find the rules for historians that has a higher standard than a criminal court. Sorry but my high school history book had the entire 7th Cavalry wiped out so I don't place much confidence in any "historical narrative". There is a lot more political correctness in history books rather than facts.
In this case in one instance alone there are three witnesses with Camp following the route of Custer. Kanipe, Curley, and Martin for the route they took. Once you place Kanipe's turn around point it eliminates moving up further east leaving SSR, Cedar Coulée, and Middle Coulée.
The question from Mac was in regards to the direction Custer moved after crossing MTC. I believe he was asking me if that would change my opinion of the route Custer took to MTC.
Regards
Steve
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azranger
Brigadier General
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Posts: 1,824
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Post by azranger on May 27, 2018 11:34:43 GMT
I am not so sure we can not figure out the route to some degree out of MTC. I rode with the Real Bird's twice and they are great riders but do not have a lot of interest in exact route and details like we like to discuss. So we ride along the bluffs to the fence on NPS land turn around at it and ride down Cedar Coulée. When we reach MTC there is one obvious place to climb out. So being horsemen Hamley and James take us across MTC and up the other side. There is no discussion of where we are at until we ride to the marker of Sgt Butler. A few years later we ride with Chip Watts who bought Weibert's ranch and it is now the 7th Ranch. On these rides we were specifically looking for Weibert sites from his book. The route the Real Bird's took because it is obvious from across MTC is the same route you take to get to the archeological finds on NC. I think if we could be on the edge of MTC and looking where to climb out on the other side it would be a little more obvious that there is not many preferred choices. A lot of it is bluffed up and impossible to ride.
The map showing the split is also along the archeological finds over time. That thin line of markers paralleling the river is about the same as the line on the RCOI Maguire map.
Regards
Steve
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Post by quincannon on May 27, 2018 15:04:52 GMT
It is found in the Army Historians manual "One Witness equal No Witness"
When will you understand that not everything in life revolves around police work or has the same rules. This rule is designed specifically to prevent the same things happening again, that happened at LBH and other places, that have no independent way of being verified. The Army plays by its own rules, not those of Arizona or anywhere else. A person is presumed guilty until proven innocent in a court martial as well.
Ian posted an extract that contained that dictum, and I commented on it at the time.
The reason the rule was adopted and followed is that the Army, and the other services write history, while most of what you are are exposed to is someone's version or opinion of history. There is a difference, and while history is dry as a desert and not a bit entertaining to wade trough it is completely factual. If there are not two or more witness to the same event it is not considered to be included in what the services put out in their multi volume histories. The Marine Corps follows the same rules as the Army One witness- no witness, and as far as I know the other services do as well.
The next time you question my voracity and knowledge of U S Army historical practices please recall I did nearly a year TDY at The U S Army Center of Military History, know or have met many of their former and current historians, and also know of and have put into practice the procedure in question as well as other rules regarding style and content. So don't tell me about your goddamned high school history book. Mine said the same thing.
For those of you who are ill informed, or have the temerity to question what I said or say in this matter concerning One witness- no witness, I would refer you to Hugh Cole's "Ardennes - The Battle of the Bulge" specifically page 136 and I quote
"The story of the 106th Infantry Division and the attached 14th Cavalry Group is tragic. It is also highly controversial. Since a major part of the division was eliminated from combined operations with other American forces on the second day of the German counteroffensive, information from contemporary records is scanty and, as to particulars, often completely lacking. The historian , as a result, must tread warily through the maze of recriminations, and highly personalized recollection which surrounds this story. It should not be concluded that reminiscence by those caught up in this disaster is consciously tendentious. But the officers and men of the 106th Division who so narrowly escaped the German trap or who spent months in German prisons would be less than human if they did not seek to discover the cause of this debacle in either human error or frailty. Since the author has been forced to depend in so great degree on human memory, unaided or unchallenged by written record, the scholar's rule "one witness, no witness" has been generally applied. Even so, some relaxation of the rule is necessary if a sustained and sequential narrative is to be presented. Fortunately, the picture as seen from the German side of the Schnee Eifel is fairly complete and can be applied as a corrective in most of the areas of controversy and contradiction"
This is the exact same post Ian posted awhile ago. Don't you people read what he goes to the trouble of posting and perhaps a better question might be do you not comprehend the written word or retain what you read in your memory so I will not again have to embarrass you.
Steve if you believe there is political correctness in Army history publications then you are completely delusional and without redeeming quality. Have you ever read an Army or Marine Corps history, and by that I mean one published by either of those two services? Are you intimately familiar with how they do their business? I suspect the answer is no to both questions, and it is not because the material is not available to you. In that light then your ignorance that is on display in the first sentence of your first post above is appalling. The next time you want to engage me in these matters of style, substance, and procedure, you should at the very least come armed.
If you think I took offense to your arrogance, you would be correct.
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azranger
Brigadier General
Ranger
Posts: 1,824
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Post by azranger on May 28, 2018 15:53:40 GMT
It is found in the Army Historians manual "One Witness equal No Witness" When will you understand that not everything in life revolves around police work or has the same rules. This rule is designed specifically to prevent the same things happening again, that happened at LBH and other places, that have no independent way of being verified. The Army plays by its own rules, not those of Arizona or anywhere else. A person is presumed guilty until proven innocent in a court martial as well. Ian posted an extract that contained that dictum, and I commented on it at the time. The reason the rule was adopted and followed is that the Army, and the other services write history, while most of what you are are exposed to is someone's version or opinion of history. There is a difference, and while history is dry as a desert and not a bit entertaining to wade trough it is completely factual. If there are not two or more witness to the same event it is not considered to be included in what the services put out in their multi volume histories. The Marine Corps follows the same rules as the Army One witness- no witness, and as far as I know the other services do as well. The next time you question my voracity and knowledge of U S Army historical practices please recall I did nearly a year TDY at The U S Army Center of Military History, know or have met many of their former and current historians, and also know of and have put into practice the procedure in question as well as other rules regarding style and content. So don't tell me about your goddamned high school history book. Mine said the same thing. For those of you who are ill informed, or have the temerity to question what I said or say in this matter concerning One witness- no witness, I would refer you to Hugh Cole's "Ardennes - The Battle of the Bulge" specifically page 136 and I quote "The story of the 106th Infantry Division and the attached 14th Cavalry Group is tragic. It is also highly controversial. Since a major part of the division was eliminated from combined operations with other American forces on the second day of the German counteroffensive, information from contemporary records is scanty and, as to particulars, often completely lacking. The historian , as a result, must tread warily through the maze of recriminations, and highly personalized recollection which surrounds this story. It should not be concluded that reminiscence by those caught up in this disaster is consciously tendentious. But the officers and men of the 106th Division who so narrowly escaped the German trap or who spent months in German prisons would be less than human if they did not seek to discover the cause of this debacle in either human error or frailty. Since the author has been forced to depend in so great degree on human memory, unaided or unchallenged by written record, the scholar's rule "one witness, no witness" has been generally applied. Even so, some relaxation of the rule is necessary if a sustained and sequential narrative is to be presented. Fortunately, the picture as seen from the German side of the Schnee Eifel is fairly complete and can be applied as a corrective in most of the areas of controversy and contradiction" This is the exact same post Ian posted awhile ago. Don't you people read what he goes to the trouble of posting and perhaps a better question might be do you not comprehend the written word or retain what you read in your memory so I will not again have to embarrass you. Steve if you believe there is political correctness in Army history publications then you are completely delusional and without redeeming quality. Steve if you believe there is political correctness in Army history publications then you are completely delusional and without redeeming quality. Have you ever read an Army or Marine Corps history, and by that I mean one published by either of those two services? Are you intimately familiar with how they do their business? I suspect the answer is no to both questions, and it is not because the material is not available to you. In that light then your ignorance that is on display in the first sentence of your first post above is appalling. The next time you want to engage me in these matters of style, substance, and procedure, you should at the very least come armed. If you think I took offense to your arrogance, you would be correct. Chuck Aren't you attempting to do the same thing by condemning police work experience then referring to an Army Historian manual for your support of "One Witness equal No Witness". In all of the books that I have could you point out one that may have been written by an Army Historian and followed the guideline you suggest that I have relied upon for forming an opinion? Further more my point had nothing to do with any experience in police work. I am glad that I have books that give first person accounts without someone else witnessing the same thing. I would think the Army Historian writing about what happened to Custer after crossing MTC is not very informative.Myself I don't agree to play by Army rules and I am not constrained from commenting what one witness states they observed. In Vietnam on my base I was in put tower 9 and there is only one Marine in that tower. They relied on what one Marine observed to take appropriate action. Real life is more important to me than any constraint placed by an Army Historian for me. Two people can lie just as well as one in my opinion. Seems odd that a sole survivor of a battle would not be able to tell what happened and have it go down in Army History.As far as veracity if we were using US Army Historian information only then I would accept that I erred. Myself unless I have missed something I don't recall discussing that we use only Army Historian approved history. Where does JSIT stand then? Kanipe, Martin, Curley, and Thompson all go out the window for their observations are on different events and each witness individually. So the only thing we really have from them is the route to bluffs and that it was near Cedar Coulée. They were there with Camp and agreed to that. Steve if you believe there is political correctness in Army history publications then you are completely delusional and without redeeming quality. I don't think we are using Army history publications here so I am not sure what point you are trying to make. I would agree and don't question anything regarding US Army Historian publications. But my point is at least for an enlisted Marine when I look at an official publication issued to me to study history for WWI for example it leaves a lot to be desired.
Above is the source and below is the history for WWI. As far as delusional when exactly do you think that I was discussing "only" Army Historian publications for this battle? I don't know that I have ever read an official Army Historian publication for this battle. The PC statements I referred to what my self and our children are being taught in school. I don't think they use Army Historian publications when they want to make their PC statements. Which is my point. Regards Steve
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Post by quincannon on May 28, 2018 17:16:31 GMT
You may form your opinion any damned way you please. I don't really mind if you get what you know about LBH from a Daffy Duck comic book.
My standards for determining truth, are in fact higher than a court of law, and One Witness, No Witness is the standard I was taught and practice in these matters. You insulted me by bringing that standard into question, You made that insult all the worse by the fact that the same statements has been made here several times, without comment by you or anyone else save myself. What you do not seem to understand is this. The people you read on this subject are offering only their opinion, and you lap their opinion up like a dog. Army history does not countenance opinion when they set out to record an event. They do it only armed with verified fact, or they don't do it at all. The only thing you have been correct about in two days of trying is that the Army historians rendition of the Custer part of the battle would not be very informative, being that they only rely on known and verified fact. It would at most be a short paragraph, three or four sentences. It would not be a basis with which you could form an opinion, nor is it intended to be. It would be strictly known verifiable fact. So you, and many others here and elsewhere form your opinions based on the opinions of others. Opinion is a far reach below fact. The fact that you, and others, form such opinions based upon the opinions of others is a form of mental plagiarism. I do not choose to go down that road.
Your obsession with political correctness is absurd. You mistrust everything. That is your problem.
I don't, and never have condemned police work. What I do condemn, is looking at everything through the eyes of a policeman. When you are involved in police work use their standards. When I am speaking of matters concerning the military, you must allow me to use the only standard I know, which is a search for truth and excellence, by the application of a very rigid system of rules.
So if I have a choice in the matter of deciding who knows what about historical research and style, and who can comment on it with authority I can follow the standard of the Army, expressed quite clearly by a Colonel in the U S Army, who holds a PHD in European Military History, who was Theater Historian in the European Theater of Operations, and has written two of the official histories of the United States Army, and at the time he wrote the last book was on the Operations Research staff at Johns Hopkins, or I could become a disciple of a game warden in Arizona. The choice is not all that hard, if I desire factual accuracy of reportage, which I do.
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azranger
Brigadier General
Ranger
Posts: 1,824
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Post by azranger on May 28, 2018 18:51:11 GMT
I am still not following you Chuck. You can apply any standard you wish. What I would like to see is any US Army historian publication that we can review regarding this battle. Nothing we have discussed here rises to criminal law standards which you seem to be stating as my police view. If we applied that standard nothing except the RCOI would be evidential. The whole battlefield is contaminated both with removals and placements. So I am not sure why you think that is a police view. I do this to get away from police work.
At best we have civil law standards here in my opinion and we chose individually how to weigh the various things based upon a more likely or not standard. If we apply criminal law standards there is nothing here to discuss since the rules of evidence would exclude almost everything we have been discussing.
I don't come here to do a criminal investigation and I don't accept that I need to have such a standard or higher to discuss this particular battle.
In Arizona we are all peace officers and held to AZPOST standards. The agency you work for determines your title. In my Department they also have a four year degree requirement for some of our law enforcement jobs. Some jobs only require being an AZPOST certified officer. Those jobs can be filled by officers from other agencies and we have many that have moved to our Department. Other states have titled Game Wardens and some have similar jobs. We are a full service law enforcement agency with our officers primary duties in Wildlife, Watercraft, and Off Highway Vehicles. In Utah for example their officers split wildlife from watercraft and have different state agency headquarters.
If being a Game Warden means you get to be paid to ride horses, drive 4-wheel drive trucks, operate boats such as a Safeboat with God, Country, and Fast Boats on the side, operate PWCs, drive quads and dune buggies, fly in airplanes and helicopters then what is the down side?
Regards
Steve
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Post by quincannon on May 28, 2018 20:48:46 GMT
Once more into the breech
Do you still not understand the point that Colonel Cole was making in the explanatory quote from his book. Let's see if simple words written by a simple man can explain it to you on the third try
The premise of One witness, no witness is that no one person's story can be taken as evidence, that is truthfully suitable to include in the official history of an Army operation. That is not to say that these statements made by individuals are not taken down by Army combat history teams, one of which Colonel Cole commanded, and filed. Colonel Cole tells you himself that any given statement may be biased by any number of factors. He also tells you that any given statement may be truthful and white as the driven snow, but it is useless unless it can be independently verified by another source. Lack of verification is the deciding factor on what to include, and not the truthfulness of the story originator.
Under that standard, the stories of Kanipe, Martini, and Thompson would never be permitted to be in any theoretical Army LBH book. Who gave Kanipe an order would not appear, as it cannot be verified independently. His only mention would be that he showed up back at the pack trains. Where Martini started from, what he saw on his way up and way back would be eliminated. It cannot be independently verified. Again the only mention of him would be that he carried a note written by Cooke. I doubt if anything suggesting the note was from Custer or approved by Custer would ever appear in Army pages. It cannot be independently verified. With Thompson, after a couple of hours laughing their asses off and rolling on the floor with glee, at the sheer fantasy of Thompson's tale, they would eliminate any mention of him other than he was one of four stragglers from Company C, that were picked up by Reno and Benteen. I am sure they would be particularly amused by saving that squaw.
When you go into a criminal court and a witness gives his testimony, it is up to the jury to decide what is given credence to, with the ultimate objective of proving beyond reasonable doubt, guilt or innocence. When you go into civil court the standard of guilt or innocence is lower, preponderance of evidence. Those are the rules. When the Army sets out to publish an historical document, they have a similar rule. There is no jury, so the rule is, if something cannot be independently verified it is excluded. That is the meaning of one witness, no witness.
It is only when that person's story is verified by at least one other witness that it is a candidate for inclusion in such a history. That witness may be a person or it may be someone's written record. In each case the verifying witness must be someone other than the originator of the story. In the illustration Colonel Cole presented in his explanatory note he tells us that he verified and de-conflicted many of the stories concerning the 106th Division by looking at German records. Keep in mind, while many of the people involved with the 106th Division survived, none of the records of the two captured regiments did, and the surviving records of the division headquarters had much of what one would think as normal content missing as well. On the other side the records of the 18th Volksgrenadiers were preserved and are presently in the possession of the United States Government and housed in the Archives in Washington DC. I know this to be absolute fact because I have read them. In fact I helped obtain copies of the 18th VGD for a friend of mine who did his C&GS paper requirement on the Schnee Eifel battle. I recall him remarking to me that the difference between what was available on the 106th was universally poor and unverifiable, while the 18th VGD's records were superb and complete in every respect. He ended up doing his paper from the German viewpoint, because of the absence of verifiable factual material on the American side.
I don't really care what you have to do to become a police officer of any type. I am sure you are well qualified in what you do, and would never think otherwise.
By the same token all those things you list riding, boating, flying, and the rest do have a down side, that being that none of those activities qualify you to speak with authority on the subject at hand, Army history standards.
You will never read a U S Army history on LBH.
No, you do not need any standard, criminal or civil law or any other to discuss this battle. You may discuss it until the Second Coming of Christ as far as I am concerned. You may also ride every trail, examine every artifact, examine every map drawn by those not there during the Custer battle. At the end of that journey riding all those trails, examining every artifact, perusing every after the fact map, you will still have done nothing that would even qualify for inclusion in any book or document, published by the United States Army. The reason is that what you might produce is still speculation and you cannot verify one single fact. No one else can either.
I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand. The best speculation is not a substitute for fact. As such the Army is not interested in your speculation or mine when it comes to meeting their standard for publication. On the other hand any Tom, Dick, or Harry can write anything they wish about LBH pass it off as fact, cash the royalty check, and laugh at the fact that there is a sucker, that will buy what they write, born every minute.
There is history, and there is popular history. One is the official record of events, dry and boring as hell. The other is history for mass consumption, and if it is to fulfill its goal it must tell someone's version of the story. Someone's version may be fact or fantasy, or a combination of both. It is meant as a form of entertainment. If you want the absolute truth of what is known (and unknown) you go to the official record. If you want to be entertained you go to Wagner, Philbrick, Donovan, Donahue, Stewart, et all. If you chose the latter over the former I guarantee that in most cases you will be entertained, but you will come away with nothing but opinion, in most cases passed off as fact. Stephen Ambrose died a millionaire by pulling the wool over the eyes of fact, and while most are not low life scum sucking crap like Ambrose and his earlier fellow traveler S.L.A. Marshall they have but one objective, that being to take your money, giving little of historical value in return, save speculation.
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