Sam Spade
09-28-2008, 18:38
So, this being a lounge and all, I'm a bit in my cups. Thought I'd tell a story. Every so often, I get questions about my sig. I apologize in advance for pontificating; what follows is the origins and the background of the lines.
For the mere words, they're an excerpt from the Forward in a collection of SF short stories. The book, "Hammer's Slammers" is by David Drake. IMHO, it's okay. The forward, on mercenaries and military virtue, is by Jerry Pournelle. He's one of my favorites, and his "Mercenary" series is excellent. To put the paragraph in contex:
The depressing fact is that history is remarkably clear on one point: wealthy republics do not last long. Time after time they have risen to wealth and freedom; the citizens become wealthy and sophisticated; unwilling to volunteer to protect themselves, they go to conscription; this too becomes intolerable; and soon enough they turn to mercenaries.
Machiavelli understood that, and things have not changed much since his time - except that Americans know far less history than did the rulers of Florence and Milan and Venice.
For mercenaries are a dangerous necessity. If they are incompetent they will ruin you. If they are competent there is always the temptation to rob the paymaster.
Why should they not? They know their employers will not fight. They may, if called a national army, retain loyalty to the country - but if the nation despises them, and takes every possible opportunity to let them know it, then that incentive fails as well - and they have a monopoly on the means of violence.
After all, it should be clear that no one fights purely for money; that anyone who does is probably not worth hiring. As Montesquieu put it, "a rational army would run away." To stand on the firing parapet and expose yourself to danger; to stand and fight a thousand miles from home when you're all alone and outnumbered and probably beaten; to spit in your hands and lower the pike; to stand fast over the body of Leonidas the King; to be rear guard at Kunu-ri; to stand and be still to the Birkenhead drill; these are not rational acts.
They are often merely necessary.
Through history, through painful experience, military professionals have built up a specialized knowledge: how to induce men (including most especially themselves) to fight, aye, and to die. To charge the guns at Breed's Hill and New Orleans, at Chippewa and Cold Harbor; to climb the wall of the Embassy Compound at Peking; to go ashore at Betio and Saipan; to load and fire with precision and accuracy while the Bon Homme Richard is sinking; to fly in that thin air five miles above a hostile land and bring the ship straight and level for thirty seconds over Regensberg and Ploesti; to endure at Heartbreak Ridge and Porkchop Hill and the Iron Triangle and Dien Bien Phu and Hue and Firebase 34 and a thousand nameless hills and villages.
It's a rather remarkable achievement, when you think about it...
Let me comment on two of the three incidents that come up in my extract---I'd hope no introduction to Leonidas and Thermopylae is needed, but like I said....I'm in my cups and generally down on the state of things.
The "Birkenhead Drill" comes from the events on HMS Birkenhead. This is one of the entries that wiki got right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_(1845)
In short, the troopship set sail without enough lifeboats. As was the custom at the time, it wasn't just a military transport; families, women and children were present, too. The ship struck a rock and began to sink. While the crew tried to off-load the women and children, the majority of the soldiers, nearly 500 of them, were assembled on the poop deck. Others were manning the pumps or had been drowned below-deck. The ship broke apart and started under, and the Captain called "all those who can swim jump overboard, and make for the boats". The senior officer saw the danger of the soldiers swamping the small boats, and ordered the troops to stand fast. They did; most drowned or were taken by sharks.
Every women and child was saved.
Kunu-Ri is a lesser known event from the Korean War. The Chinese descended on the 8th Army in massive numbers. As they began the retreat to what would become the stalemate near the 38th Parallel, the 8th's rear-guard was 2ID. Things were confused and there were a lot of small unit actions, but 2 Engineers ended up as 2ID's rearguard. The fight at Kunu-Ri lasted maybe two days, 11/30 to 12/1, as 5 Chinese divisions tried to destroy the American 2ID. From the official history:
On 1 December the 2d Engineer Battalion, which had an authorized strength of 977, had an actual strength of 266. Captain Farnum commanded the battalion as the battalion commander, executive officer, S-1, 3, and 4--all the company commanders were lost.
Most of 2ID made it out, and an even larger percentage of the rest of the Army. As a side note, Sergeant Charlie Rangle (yes, that Charlie Rangle) was awarded the Bronze Star when he led about 40 men out of an encircled position at Kunu-Ri. At the end, South Korea was saved as a nation. Oh, there's far more on that little dust-up in time: The amazing actions of the Turkish Brigade, a dozen little actions here and there where all were lost....
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is some of our history. Gimmie a few and I'll tell you more.
For the mere words, they're an excerpt from the Forward in a collection of SF short stories. The book, "Hammer's Slammers" is by David Drake. IMHO, it's okay. The forward, on mercenaries and military virtue, is by Jerry Pournelle. He's one of my favorites, and his "Mercenary" series is excellent. To put the paragraph in contex:
The depressing fact is that history is remarkably clear on one point: wealthy republics do not last long. Time after time they have risen to wealth and freedom; the citizens become wealthy and sophisticated; unwilling to volunteer to protect themselves, they go to conscription; this too becomes intolerable; and soon enough they turn to mercenaries.
Machiavelli understood that, and things have not changed much since his time - except that Americans know far less history than did the rulers of Florence and Milan and Venice.
For mercenaries are a dangerous necessity. If they are incompetent they will ruin you. If they are competent there is always the temptation to rob the paymaster.
Why should they not? They know their employers will not fight. They may, if called a national army, retain loyalty to the country - but if the nation despises them, and takes every possible opportunity to let them know it, then that incentive fails as well - and they have a monopoly on the means of violence.
After all, it should be clear that no one fights purely for money; that anyone who does is probably not worth hiring. As Montesquieu put it, "a rational army would run away." To stand on the firing parapet and expose yourself to danger; to stand and fight a thousand miles from home when you're all alone and outnumbered and probably beaten; to spit in your hands and lower the pike; to stand fast over the body of Leonidas the King; to be rear guard at Kunu-ri; to stand and be still to the Birkenhead drill; these are not rational acts.
They are often merely necessary.
Through history, through painful experience, military professionals have built up a specialized knowledge: how to induce men (including most especially themselves) to fight, aye, and to die. To charge the guns at Breed's Hill and New Orleans, at Chippewa and Cold Harbor; to climb the wall of the Embassy Compound at Peking; to go ashore at Betio and Saipan; to load and fire with precision and accuracy while the Bon Homme Richard is sinking; to fly in that thin air five miles above a hostile land and bring the ship straight and level for thirty seconds over Regensberg and Ploesti; to endure at Heartbreak Ridge and Porkchop Hill and the Iron Triangle and Dien Bien Phu and Hue and Firebase 34 and a thousand nameless hills and villages.
It's a rather remarkable achievement, when you think about it...
Let me comment on two of the three incidents that come up in my extract---I'd hope no introduction to Leonidas and Thermopylae is needed, but like I said....I'm in my cups and generally down on the state of things.
The "Birkenhead Drill" comes from the events on HMS Birkenhead. This is one of the entries that wiki got right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_(1845)
In short, the troopship set sail without enough lifeboats. As was the custom at the time, it wasn't just a military transport; families, women and children were present, too. The ship struck a rock and began to sink. While the crew tried to off-load the women and children, the majority of the soldiers, nearly 500 of them, were assembled on the poop deck. Others were manning the pumps or had been drowned below-deck. The ship broke apart and started under, and the Captain called "all those who can swim jump overboard, and make for the boats". The senior officer saw the danger of the soldiers swamping the small boats, and ordered the troops to stand fast. They did; most drowned or were taken by sharks.
Every women and child was saved.
Kunu-Ri is a lesser known event from the Korean War. The Chinese descended on the 8th Army in massive numbers. As they began the retreat to what would become the stalemate near the 38th Parallel, the 8th's rear-guard was 2ID. Things were confused and there were a lot of small unit actions, but 2 Engineers ended up as 2ID's rearguard. The fight at Kunu-Ri lasted maybe two days, 11/30 to 12/1, as 5 Chinese divisions tried to destroy the American 2ID. From the official history:
On 1 December the 2d Engineer Battalion, which had an authorized strength of 977, had an actual strength of 266. Captain Farnum commanded the battalion as the battalion commander, executive officer, S-1, 3, and 4--all the company commanders were lost.
Most of 2ID made it out, and an even larger percentage of the rest of the Army. As a side note, Sergeant Charlie Rangle (yes, that Charlie Rangle) was awarded the Bronze Star when he led about 40 men out of an encircled position at Kunu-Ri. At the end, South Korea was saved as a nation. Oh, there's far more on that little dust-up in time: The amazing actions of the Turkish Brigade, a dozen little actions here and there where all were lost....
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is some of our history. Gimmie a few and I'll tell you more.
