Infinite Wisdom

Fighting Battles is like courting girls: Those who make the most pretensions and are boldest usually win.

Rutherford B. Hayes, Brig. Gen. of Volunteers, the Civil War.

La Triviata

• The noted German military theoretician Dietrich Heinrich von Bulow (1757-1806) believed that the optimal uniform for the combat soldier was that used by the Iroquois Indians, a loincloth.
• In anticipation of the participation of a Commonwealth Corps in Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu, planned for the spring of 1946, British military authorities requested that the U.S. provide, among other things such as tanks, planes, and guns, 1.7 million cotton underwear, 16 million razor blades, and 1.6 million toothbrushes.
• The U.S. Armed Forces will not accept recruits who are taller than 6'10".
• In 1943 the German Wehrmacht requisitioned 6.2 million ink stamp pads to facilitate the processing of red tape, amounting to roughly one pad for every person in the armed forces.
• Fully 40% of the men who volunteers for service in the British Army during the Crimean War were found unfit to bear arms by reason of physical, intellectual, or moral failings.

Short Rounds

"The Colonel is Right, You Naughty Fellows!"

During the Mexican War, Col Alexander W. Doniphan led a column of American troops on an epic 2,000 mile march from Missouri into New Mexico, and from there on across the Rio Grande into northern Mexico. The troops skirmished often with Indians and fought two pitched battles with Mexican forces. They suffered much from thirst and cold and heat. Rations were often short. In order to insure the passivity of the population in the areas through which the column marched, Doniphan insisted that anything taken from the local inhabitants be properly paid for, and enforced that rule.

One day, with the column resting at Chihuahua, nearly at the end of its trek, Doniphan chanced upon some of his rowdy volunteers stealing chickens from a poor Mexican farmer. The colonel promptly drew his saber and began beating the perpetrators with the flat, demanding that they cease their depredations instantly. One of Doniphan's troopers added his voice to the colonel's, shouting, "It's very wrong for you to kill all the Mexican poultry."

Unfortunately, just as the man was approaching a crescendo in his righteous denunciation of the chicken thieves, a feathered being of that ilk, "feeling uncomfortable under his blanket, squalled out and exposed his captor."

A Sleigh Ride with the Tsar

Tsar Paul of Russia (reigned, 1796-1801) was taking a turn in the Imperial sleigh one fine winter's night when he chanced upon a private of the Guard standing sentry duty. The Tsar stopped the sleigh by the young soldier. "Get in, Sergeant!" he ordered
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