Thursday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

After being confronted by Xerxes, the head of the Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae Pass, Leonidas the leader of the Spartans was told by Xerxes that if he would acknowledge him as king of the world, he would make Leonidas the ruler of Greece. Leonidas, an acknowledged hard-ass, said “I would rather die on my feet with my countrymen than to serve on my knees”. By the way, Leonidas would slaughter every messenger that came from Xerxes, and send a Greek back with his answer. Like I said, a hard-ass.

By the way, when Leonidas was informed about the arrival of Xerxes and his gigantic army and agreed to lead the Hoplites (acknowledged to be the meanest combat soldiers in the world) against the Persians he knew he would not return and told his wife, “Find a good husband and have good children.” He indeed did not return, however the Persians beheaded him but recognized his courage and bravery and retrieved Leonidas' corpse and sent it back to Sparta for a hero's burial.

I have a friend that owns a restaurant in Greenville, SC. This man is Greek and only one generation from immigrants. His ancestors and he are from Sparta, Greece. He owns a house near Sparta that he visits on occasion. Behind this house there is a mountain that has a pretty steep cliff on one side. This cliff is protected and no one is allowed to visit this site. According to legend, many years ago if a Spartan child is borne that was not perfect in shape and form, it would be carried to this cliff and left to die. The Spartans had a very, very vigorous training program for every male beginning at the age of 8 and continuing until the staff of trainers were satisfied that he was ready to enter a combat unit. They wanted perfect female children also so it would be more likely that they would bear perfect children.  Nobody attacked Sparta for obvious reasons...except Athens. There was a war between these two from 431BC to 404BC known as the Peloponnesian War . Athens led a group of city-states that existed over on the Aegean Sea and Sparta led a group of city-states over on the Peloponnesian peninsula in southwest Greece. The war broke out when Athens tried to exert influence on some of the city-states under the umbrella of Sparta. They fought for 27 years. Eventually all of this nonsense came to an end when the Athenians received a severe ass-kicking at the battle of Aegospotami in 405BC. The Athenians asked for a treaty and one was signed and that slaughter of humans for power was ended. By the way, they did it the hard way then...axes, swords, lances, knives, etc. The Athenians did have “Greek fire” then. This was a flammable material, probably naptha, that was put into clay jars, set on fire and launched at the enemy with catapults. The clay jar would break and spread the flaming liquid. This method was excellent from ship to ship because of the slow moving vessels but maneuvering a catapult on a battlefield against fast moving troops, especially cavalry on horseback, was too unwieldy...so they did it the hard way as previously described.         

      This Date in History    October 23

1965  The 1^st Cavalry division launches Operation Silver Bayonet in an attempt to drive the North Vietnamese Army out of II corps (Central Highlands) in Vietnam. They met up with the North Vietnamese 33^rd and 66^th regiments. It was a week long bitter struggle and ended up being one of the bloodiest of the War. The fleeing North Vietnamese Army decided to make a stand and protect one of their supply depots on the La Trang Valley. This three day battle with the 7^th Cavalry engaged was the most savage of the operation. The final result was 834 North Vietnamese killed on this battlefield alone. In a related attack, 500 NV soldiers fell upon a company of American Soldiers waiting at a landing zone and were annihilated. The final result of this operation was 1771 North Vietnamese and 241 Americans/South Vietnamese killed. 

1864    CSA Gen. Sterling Price attacks US Gen. Samuel Curtis’ infantry unit near Westport, Missouri. Price had entered Missouri from Arkansas and had raided several small Union detachments before reaching Westport in an attempt to draw away some of the Union forces from the Eastern theatre. The war was not going well for the Confederacy and President Jefferson Davis ordered Price to try and spread out the Union Army. Price’s attack on Westport went well at first but he was unaware of US Gen. Pleasanton’s cavalry was closing in fast from another direction and he was going to be trapped and possibly forced to surrender. Price orchestrated a skillful withdrawal and escaped. The exhausted Union units failed to follow but if they had, the war would have been over sooner. There were about 1,500 casualties on both sides but this represented about 10% to the Union forces but 20% to Price. As usual, the Confederates were outnumbered about 2 to 1.

42BC    One of the conspirators in the assassination of Julius Caesar, Marcus Brutus, committed suicide after losing the 2^nd battle of Philippi. Brutus and Cassius had formed an army in an attempt to re-institute the Republic of Rome rather than an empire which was the reason for the assassination. They were opposed by Octavian and Marc Antony who wanted to preserve the empire. This was the same Marc Antony that got hung up with Cleopatra. Anyway, the first major engagement between these two armies was at Philippi at which Octavian and Antony defeated the army lead by Cassius and Cassius committed suicide. Then came the 2^nd Battle at Philippi and with Brutus in command and he was defeated also and committed suicide. After a while Octavian and Marc Antony started squabbling and they split up with Octavian taking the crown under the name of Augustus and the rest is history.

1983    A coward pig sucking Arab drove an explosive laden truck through three blockades into the lobby of a hotel in Beirut, Lebanon and lit it off destroying the hotel and killing 241 American military personnel that had been using the hotel as a barracks. We had troops there to try and stop the civil war that had been raging for some time between the Palestinians and the Christian militia for the control of Lebanon. I have an acquaintance in Greenville that is an immigrant from Lebanon and was a member of the Christian Militia. His solution for the war in Iraq is a simple one. Get rid of the media and take care of business, meaning kill any and all suspected insurgents wholesale giving no quarter. That means take no prisoners. I like it.

1942    Author Michael Crichton is born in Chicago. Mike evidently was from a pretty affluent family because he graduated from Harvard Summa Cum Laude. After this he went to Cambridge in England and taught anthropology. In the mean time he had turned out some fairly successful books and decided that writing was his calling and started doing it full time. This man cranked out some of the best books ever written by a modern day American author in: “Andromeda Strain”, “The Terminal Man”, “Congo”, and “The Great Train Robbery”. He wrote and directed the movies: “Binary”, “Westworld”, “Jurassic Park” and “Rising Sun”, at one point in 1993 he had four books on the best seller list. He is a very wealthy man and deservedly so.

Births and deaths:

1869    US Football coach John Heisman, for which the trophy is named, is born. John once said “It is better to die as a young man than to fumble”. He was a hard man.

1920    The Mayor of Philadelphia John Rizzo is born. John once said “A conservative is a liberal that just got mugged the night before.” I concur.

1976    Actor Ryan Reynolds is born. John had to kiss an older woman as part of a movie scene. When asked about it he said “You have never had an experience until you have a mature tongue darting in and out of your mouth.” Indeed.

1942 English writer Anita Roddick is born. She once said “If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.”

       Thanks for listening    I can hardly wait until tomorrow