Favorite Military Tradition (1 Viewer)

[Bob]

One of my (and just about everybody's) favorite British military stories is the Charge of the Light Brigade. Of the two Tennyson poems about Balacava, I prefer the Charge of the Heavy Brigade, particularly a line that describes one of my foreign policy beliefs:

"Involving ours--he needs must fight
To make true peace his own.
He needs must combat Might with Might
Or Might would rule alone..."

It’s said that when Alfred Lord Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate he took the role seriously and so he wrote the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Heavy Brigade and my favourite Tennyson poem – The Revenge, a Ballad of the Fleet.
I used lines from the poem as a paragraph header for a piece on Wake Island –
"But they dared not touch us again,
For they feared that we still could sting,
So they watched what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain".

A dozen times they came and a dozen time we shook the off, as a dog shakes off water.

And looking up Tennyson I came across something older than Heredotus however still a living tradition.

3000 years ago (around 1375 B.C.) Akhenaton wrote of battle and honour –
"Say not that honour is the child of boldness, nor believe thou that the hazard of life alone can pay the price of it:it is not to the action that it is due, but to the manner
of performing it."

Or as we learnt at school “it is neither the winning nor the losing but how you play the game”.

 

[Currahee Chris]

Or as we learnt at school “it is neither the winning nor the losing but how you play the game”.

Pish Posh- give me Vince Lombardi "Winning isn't everything- it's the only thing!!"

 

[sirsydney]

Pish Posh- give me Vince Lombardi "Winning isn't everything- it's the only thing!!"

Another thing about winning. If it wasn't important, then why keep score?

 

[Currahee Chris]

I know that they have a bad rep now, but the IDF has more than proved that they have the warrior ethos and that Jews can fight. Especially there armour and paras.
Steve

Yeah, I have been negligent in my keeping up with the IDF. I do need to get back into the loop there. I saw a show on the History Channel a year or so ago that was very engaging that discussed their highly succesful use of the Uzi in the A-I wars of 67.

 

[Louis Badolato]

Yeah, I have been negligent in my keeping up with the IDF. I do need to get back into the loop there. I saw a show on the History Channel a year or so ago that was very engaging that discussed their highly succesful use of the Uzi in the A-I wars of 67.

I was watching "Dogfights" and found out that the all time leading jet ace is an Israeli Mirage pilot. The IDF are some tough customers.

 

[Currahee Chris]

I actually work with a guy who was a Top Shirt with the IDF!! Of all places- he is a CPA with my firm who works in our Philly office (he's out now of course). I ran into him at a conference for new hires. We got to talking and he told me he was from Israel and I was stunned!! He certainly didn't look the part- he was kind of round, little beady eyes and glasses and balding at the top, not a very commanding presence still though he had some really interesting stories about the West Bank.

I forgot all about that dude till I read your post Louis- must be my 35 year old memory failing me again

Yeah, the Israelis are a hot topic. I have spoke to various members of our military who have opinions that run the spectrum- still a lot of bad blood over the USS LIberty........

 

[Bob]

Pish Posh- give me Vince Lombardi "Winning isn't everything- it's the only thing!!"

Never having heard of Vince Lombardi I looked him up and read his personal statement which you quote in part.
Does not match the words engraved on the wall of Lords

 

[Bob]

Another thing about winning. If it wasn't important, then why keep score?

But what do we keep score off? Not the winner as there is only one winner. We count “the losers”
When we thrill to the story of the Stand of the Last Eleven does anyone count the opposition or even care – they had “lots”, who cares for the exact number
When I read of The Alamo it’s not the thousands and I don’t know how many thousands there were on the Mexican side – it is the small number of losers.
And why do we talk about the Three Hundred Spartans instead of the Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Persians.
I don’t know how many Japanese soldiers there were in the Task Force that attacked Wake Island, or the full composition of that Task Force – however I do know the strength of the garrison that was overrun.
What are we counting

 

[Currahee Chris]

Never having heard of Vince Lombardi I looked him up and read his personal statement which you quote in part.
Does not match the words engraved on the wall of Lords

I think we have a mixed signal here- Vince Lombardi was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers- a US Football (American) coach- he was a legend and is often quoted here in the States. Sir Sydney was squaring me away there- the "If winning isn't important, than why keep score"- that was a Lombardi quote as well.

His actual quote, and yes, I was off, to which I was referring was "Winning isn't everything but wanting to win is" another favorite Lombaridi-ism

"I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious

 

[jazzeum]

It's by no means settled that Coach Lombardi said that. What he apparently said is that "winning isn't everything but wanting to win is." The statement attributed to him "it's the only thing" implies winning at all costs, with no morality or scruples. Coach Lombardi was a religious person. I don't believe he would have subscribed to that credo.

I much rather like Grantland Rice's maxim as to how you play the game that counts.

 

[Currahee Chris]

Ahhh. I see. Well, Coach V was before my time. One fun story about Coach V here in Pa- Coach Joe Paterno- our beloved Penn State Football coach actually coached against Vince Lombardi in a high school game.

GO BIG BLUE!!

 

[jazzeum]

He finished coaching just as I was becoming a football fan. The biggest mistake the Giants made was letting him go to the Packers. He was a tough guy but on his second Super Bowl title when the players took him off the field you could see the love between him and his players. He was a tough guy but all his players speak and spoke of him with reverence. They don't make guys like him anymore. When he spoke you listened.

In a way Gil Hodges, when he was the Mets manager, reminded me of him. When Gil spoke you listened. I'll never forget the day when he didn't think the team was trying hard enough, he left the dugout and proceeded to walk out onto the field. The pitcher thought Gil was coming to take him out but he kept on walking. The shortstop thought Gil was coming to take him out but he kept on walking until he got to left field and removed Cleon Jones, escorting him back to the dugout. Really shook the team up but he made his point. Of all managers the Mets have had, Gil was the best. It's a different game nowadays, both in football and baseball.

 

[Currahee Chris]

It's a different game nowadays, both in football and baseball.

Yes- unfortunately, it is- funny thing Brad- didn't you think "spying on one's enemy (opponents)" was something to be strictly the purview of all things military- doesn't sound too "Patriotic" to me

 

[jazzeum]

Chris,

Getting an edge on your opponents has been a long tradition in sports. Stealing signals is/was an art form in baseball. Not the same exactly as spying however. Also, there were allegations that the 1951 baseball Giants knew what pitches were throwing in the playoff series against the Dodgers. Allegedly someone was hiding in the scoreboard or at the top of the Polo Grounds with binoculars. I think it's the norm, not the exception.

 

[maddadicus]

A good question was brought up, as a response to the original military tradition inquiry.......Why do we remember the " losers " as more heroic or inspirational, than the winners ,just because they were outnumbered and in a hopeless situation..I have become fixated on one of the great heroic and sacrificial Naval battles in U.S.history where the outnumbered actually won...History channel did a wonderful dogfight episode on the same battle of Samar where 3 U.S. destroyers and 4 destroyer escorts charged a Japanese Fleet of 4 Battleships, 8 Cruisers and 11 destroyers and at the cost of their own lives eventually routed the enemy fleet.....recieving an unit citation..

I am also a Custer buff

How about the Birkenhead drill.......?

Isandlwana?

Michael

 

[Currahee Chris]

Good points Michael:

I can tell you from my position- I get caught up in the esprit de corps of the "outnumbered" forces there is something truly awe inspiring about the fatalistic, outnumbered forces who shoot, punch kick and curse their way to their fate.

To me, the Spartans and the Samurai displayed a true warrior ethos about them- I would even include the Scottish rebels to some degree in that group as well (ie Bannockburn, Wallace Bruce era).

But I am also completely amazed with the professional efficiencies of some of the other fighting forces who approach a dire combat situation not so much in the same fatalistic attitude but more in a "I am a professional, this is what I was trained to do and I have absolute faith in my training" To me- this is characteristic of the Romans, the British- a great example is the Rourke's Drift scenario, yes, the German military tradition and of course, my own countrys- great example of that being Black Hawk Down- complete and total professionalism.

So, that is basically it- I think we as humans just have a tendency to want to root for the little guy. I will probably take some lumps for this but I see the Soviet army from WW2 as highly courageous (Stalingrad) though not neccesarily the most proffesional lot on the battlefield.

Just my take on this.

CC

 

[Bob]

A good question was brought up, as a response to the original military tradition inquiry.......Why do we remember the " losers " as more heroic or inspirational, than the winners ,just because they were outnumbered and in a hopeless situation..I have become fixated on one of the great heroic and sacrificial Naval battles in U.S.history where the outnumbered actually won...History channel did a wonderful dogfight episode on the same battle of Samar where 3 U.S. destroyers and 4 destroyer escorts charged a Japanese Fleet of 4 Battleships, 8 Cruisers and 11 destroyers and at the cost of their own lives eventually routed the enemy fleet.....recieving an unit citation..

I am also a Custer buff

How about the Birkenhead drill.......?

Isandlwana?

Michael

By a coincidence I was reading the Birkenhead story yesterday morning. What makes that story even more magnificent is the fact that the troops were raw recruits – new drafts for the 43rd and the AS&S.
Queen Victoria had a wreath of Laurels engraved on one of the pillars at the Royal Hospital when she heard the story – still there to be seen 150 years on. The King of Prussia, preparing his army for the war with Austria had the story read to every one of his regiments.

I was also thinking about the story that Napier told his friend Sir Patrick Doyle when he returned from the Sindh. Doyle turned it into his epic The Red Thread of Honour however what is interesting is not the courage of the British soldiers – the “Eleven Men of England” as Doyle calls them – it is the honour given to them by their enemies. It is the hillmen who give them the red thread.

And your comment about ships charging reminds me of the story of Monck, standing in his cavalry top boots ordering his ships to wheel and charge, much to the amusement of his sailors.

Isandlwana we lost however it was not the Great Colonial Defeat - that was Adowa

 

[Tex]

By far the best quote, and one that defines my attitude on winning and losing is Theodore Roosevelt's The Man in the Arena quote:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."


Good stuff.