Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
“The
inherent vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the
inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”
Winston
Churchill
Trivia
question of the day:
What
is the only father/son winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor?
Answer at the end of the blog.
9/11
is a special day so I will issue one on this day. I addition to the
history lesson I will include the greatest display of dedication and
courage ever documented to remind us of what mankind is capable of
when fighting the Arabs.
Marathon and
Thermopylae
In
490 BC the Persian (present day Iran and Iraq) army/navy was led by
their king Darius I on a mission to conquer Greece. In September of
that year the Persian fleet landed in the Bay of Marathon, Greece
with his 300 warships and 300 cargo ships Darius disembarked and
arrayed his infantry of an estimated 60,000. The Athenian army was
already there with a force of 11,000. The Athenians met the Persians
at waters edge with their army split into three sections, a central
force and two wings, one on each side. After the battle began the
Athenian central section began to fall back in an apparent retreat.
The Persians pulled in their flankers and put them in the front to
pursue the retreating Athenians. The Athenians then stopped their
retreat in the center and attacked with both wings simultaneously and
the Persians were caught in a double envelopment with their backs to
the sea. They panicked and began running right and left into the
awaiting swamps and soon were drowned not mention the three Athenian
infantry divisions in their familiar phalanx arrangement that waded
into the panic stricken Persians and used their spears and swords
with great effect. The end result was 203 Athenians killed to 6,400
Persians who also had 7 of their ships captured. Darius went back to
his ships and sailed his young ass back to Persia. It is a legend
that the Athenians sent a runner named Phidippides back to Athens
that was 26 miles distant to tell of the victory. After reaching
Athens he was to suppose to have dropped dead after uttering “We
are victorious”. This legend is where the famous foot races called
marathons originated. The first of present day Olympic marathons was
in 1896. There is evidence the games similar to the Olympics were
held in Greece before 770BC.
With
all of this in mind, I will move on to Thermopylae. Darius’s son
Xerxes decided that he would avenge his father’s defeat at Marathon
and initiate another assault on mainland Greece. So after four years
of preparation, in the spring of 480BC Xerxes left Persia with the
fleet of 1,207 ships and 300,000 infantry hell bent on conquering
Greece. Xerxes’ infantry and navy followed coastline of the Aegean
Sea so the infantry could be supplied by the navy. In fact Xerxes
had enough ships that they could make a bridge of ships across the
Hellespont and his infantry marched over from Asia to Europe rather
than having to be shuttled over with ships. I looked at this area
from a satellite view and measured the distance and it is about 1.3
miles at the closest point. The Hellespont is a narrow body of water
that separates the Mediterranean Sea from the Black Sea and it is in
present day Turkey. After getting his infantry across, Xerxes
continued to follow the coast of the Aegean Sea over to Greece with
his navy close aboard. While all of this was going on, the Greek
city-states got together to decide what they were going to do about
those pesky Persians that they knew were coming again. Everybody
looked to the Spartans for leadership in this arena. The
professional Spartans soldiers (Hoplites) were acknowledged to be the
fiercest in the known world. So the Greek city-states assembled an
army of 7,000 led by Leonidas and his 300 Hoplites. Leonidas knew
that it was unlikely that he or any of the Greeks would return from
the upcoming battle. It was the law of the Hoplites that they would
never retreat and Leonidas told his wife that after he left this time
“to find a good husband and have good children”. The Greeks
decided that the best place to try to stop or delay the Persians was
a narrow path on the Aegean coast named Thermopylae Pass. This Pass
had a sheer cliff rising hundreds of feet on one side and the Aegean
Sea on the other. They also knew that Xerxes would be very reluctant
to leave the coast and go inland and be out from under the umbrella
of his navy. The Pass was so narrow that two chariots could barely
get through side by side meaning that the pass was about 20 feet
wide. On August 11, 480BC the 7,000 Greeks met the Persian army of
300,000. Xerxes sent an emissary to talk with Leonidas promising him
that if he came over to the Persian side he would be named the King
of all Greece. Leonidas sent this message back “If you knew what
is good in life, you would abstain from asking for foreign things.
For me it is better to die for Greece than to be a Monarch over my
compatriots.” The next day the infuriated Xerxes sent another
message demanding that Leonidas and his army surrender their weapons.
Leonidas sent the immortal message back “Come and take them.”
This took Xerxes somewhat aback knowing what such a small force he
was facing and he waited four days hoping that Leonidas would change
his mind. Nothing happened and on the fifth day Xerxes sent in
20,000 troops. The lightly armored Persians were no match for the
heavily armored, well disciplined Greeks arranged in their typical
phalanx with their long spears. During the first attack, a Greek
soldier spoke with a Hoplite named Dienekes and said that the
Persians had enough men to send over enough arrows to block out the
sun. Dienekes responded with “So much the better, we will fight in
the shade.” Because of the terrain the Persians were unable to
surround or flank the Greeks and the narrowness of the Pass made
superior numbers useless. Wave after wave of Persian infantry
attacked and was slaughtered until the dead were head high in front
of the Greeks. Leonidas knew that there was no way that the Greeks
could win this battle so he sent all the Greek army away except for
his beloved Hoplites numbering 300 knowing they would be annihilated.
Then a strange thing happened. A division of Thespians numbering
about 700 led by one Demophilis decided to stay, Demophilis said that
he was not going to leave the Spartans here to die alone. The
Thespians were typical of Greek armies. They were not professionals
like the Spartans; they were soldiers when they needed to be. In
fact Demophilis was an architect by trade. This act of bravery has
been overlooked by historians but it was not overlooked by the
Spartans who exchanged cloaks with them and vowed to be allies for
eternity. 50,000 Persians attacked on the second day with the same
result as before in spite of Persian officers standing among them and
lashing those that retreated. Xerxes finally sent in his personal
body guard of 60,000 named “The Immortals” and they were
slaughtered also. As their numbers fell, when the Spartan/Thespians
broke their spears, they pulled out their short swords and kept
fighting and when they broke they fought on with their hands, teeth
and nails. Xerxes finally found a seldom used path over the cliffs
and attacked the Greeks from the rear and killed with arrows what few
Greeks remained, including Leonidas. The final total was 1,100
Greeks killed to 24,000 Persians. Xerxes had lost two brothers in
this short battle and pulled Leonidas’ body aside and beheaded him.
His body was later given to the Greeks and he was buried in Sparta
with full honors. This battle allowed the rest of the Greek city
states to prepared further for the war against the Persians that
ended with the sea battle of Salamis and the land battle of Palatea.
After these stunning defeats, the Persians once again got aboard
their ships and sailed their young asses back to Persia never to
return. About 150 years later a young Greek named Alexander paid
Persia a visit and exacted a terrible revenge.
There
is a monument at the site of this battle with a Greek inscription
that says “Friend, tell the Spartans that on this hill, we lie
obedient to them still.”
This
Date in History September 11
2001
Arab
terrorists primarily from Saudi Arabia skyjack 4 US airliners and
crash 2 of them into the twin towers of the World Trade center in
lower Manhattan completely destroying them, crash one in the Pentagon
and one of the skyjacked plane’s pig sucking coward terrorist are
overcome by the passengers and the plane crashes into a field in
central Pennsylvania. There were no survivors in any of the crashes.
These pig sucking coward terrorist are supposedly sponsored and
financed by Saudi national Osama Ben Laden and his network of pig
sucking cowards known as al Qaeda. America was/is under attack and
is in fact at war to this day. I just go to bed at night secure in
the knowledge that America has sent out its own version of
“terrorists” like A-Teams, Marine Recon teams, Air Commandoes,
Seal teams and Delta teams who are out there in the world and are
covertly capping those coward pig sucking sons-of-bitches and their
families faster than a dog can trot.
Answer
to the trivia question:
The
only father/son winners of the Congressional Medal Of Honor is Arthur
and Douglas MacArthur. Arthur for the Civil War and Douglas for
WWII.
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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