bluegargantua

Hi,

A sudden question has popped into my head:

What, if any, military service was on the resume of the founding fathers? Just being "Commander-in-Chief" doesn't cut it, you need to have actually been a part of the army. It doesn't matter if you saw action, it doesn't matter if you served under the British or other non-American army. How many soliders are in the roster?

George Washington -- too extensive to summarize here.

John Adams -- none as far as I can tell. Lawyer and Diplomat.

Thomas Jefferson -- Another Lawyer/Diplomat.

James Madison -- I believe he briefly commanded an artillery battery as the British marched on Washington. I'm going to count that, although I'd put an asterisk by it.

Alexander Hamilton -- Artillery Captain. Definitely counts.

Benjamin Franklin -- Pretty much did everything but fight.

John Jay -- Seemed mostly associated with espionage and intelligence among the Patriot rebels. Again, I'll count this, but with a very big asterisk.

George Mason -- None.

Samuel Adams -- Unclear, but I'm leaning towards no. Even as part of the rebel movement, he didn't appear to take direct action or be part of the chain of command.

John Hancock -- Commanded Massachussetts militia during the Revolutionary War.

All this gleaned from a quick perusal of Wikipedia and is cheerfully open for peer review. It's quite possible that all of these men were part of a local militia and I just don't know about it.

But it does appear that out of the 10 men listed, 3 definitely have a military record, 2 are suspect and 5 never served in uniform. Now, all of these men probably did a lot of work for the Revolution and may have co-ordinated a lot of rebel activity. But it doesn't appear as though they acted as part of the rebellion's "military wing".

Huh, interesting
Tom

Hi,

jeregenest and robotnik you'll especially like this:

OK, so the US used to maintain a base in Eritrea called Kagnew Station. It was a listening post back before satellites were readily available and aside from listening in on conversations it also tracked Soviet rocket launches.

The US was leasing the site from Ethiopia who basically owned Eritrea at the time. Ethiopia needed more money and weapons to fight the Eritrean rebels. They'd been begging the US for more and more aid and no matter how much they got, it was never enough. The US was getting fed up with it and relations were sour.

Suddenly, Ethiopia said "Screw you, we're going to go with the Soviets. You have four days to pack up and get out". They mentioned this on a Saturday to make the evacuation that much more difficult.

Keith Wauchope is the guy in charge. He has to work out a plan to remove or destroy everything at Kagnew station in four days (six after some international pressure comes to bear). Anything left behind will be scrutinized by the Soviets.

He gets a plan worked out. He gets his people going and as he's clearing everything out, he mentions something brilliant:

"When we leaft the consulate, we placed the instructions to the game Dungeons and Dragons amongst the procedural papers, just to sow confusion."

Considering this was the 1977 edition of D&D the confusion must have been considerable. :)

later
Tom

Dear Napoleon,

As one megalomaniac to another, listen to me when I tell you that this whole "invasion" thing isn't going to work out. You've already lost a third of your troops and you haven't actually engaged anyone. Your supply chain is in shambles and it's July. I hardly have the heart to keep reading about how much worse it's going to get come the winter.

You gotta prioritize here. If Britain is your foe, get your navy whipped in to shape. If Russia is your foe, legitimize the Kingdom of Poland and free the serfs. But you can't hack fighting them both *and* deal with Spain. In fact, just stiffen up the Prussian states and get the Spanish question settled.

And maybe don't be such a dick to the people you clobber. That'd help too.

Sincerely,
Tom