IWW2 Dispatches

Here is a concrete example of what I contributed to the induction effort. Certain truths permeate an army rapidly, little facts about little things that everyone seems to know. The flow of these facts – where they come from, who transmits them – that could fill volumes. Understand that and you would be well on your way to understanding the human social mind. But I digress. Ask anyone who went through the process, especially after President Prescott’s call to arms. Ask them what they remember most about the first days of induction. I would wager that a universal anecdote would emerge: Everyone got a uniform of the wrong size. Tall men received short pants. Lanky men received billowing jackets. But no one will ever admit to you of receiving a uniform that fit the first moment he put it on. Think about that:

Not a single soul received a uniform which fit him.

Doesn’t that intrigue you? Obviously any hastily-assembled bureaucracy will make mistakes, perhaps more often than not. The chaos of mobilization after twelve years of institutional denial certainly amplified this tendency. But consider the odds. Hundreds of thousands of men inducted in the first twelve months. Not a single case of a well-fitting uniform. Surely a great industrial nation could find its way to fitting properly at least some of its men, but America did not. Why not?

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Tags: academic by Abram Rookhardt
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After the Black Smoke scare, the troops all started to get antsy. You can focus a man to a razor’s edge, but you can’t keep him like that for hours, much less days. After the first night came and went – we could still see the sky glow of Atlanta burning – someone up in the brass decided it was time for action. We needed facts.

On our way through Maryland, we’d picked up an elite cavalry company. Nowadays that would mean Zeds and PFs, but this was still the start of the war. Cavalry still meant horses. On the morning of July 9, the brass had them assemble for a reconnaissance in force. As it happened, the marshalling grounds wasn’t that far from where my spiderhole was. So, even though it wasn’t quite regulation, I got Deek to cover for me and I snuck back to watch them get ready. It was pretty stirring. I mean, I’ve seen troops on horses, but never more than a few at a time. The cavalry didn’t mix with us grunts, even during war games, and I hadn’t run across them before.

Now I watched, almost in awe, as the men in deep blue mounted up. They all wore a stern look on their face, a look of ages whether they were twenty or fifty years old. These were the best of the best and they knew it. They didn’t have time for the everyday. A bugle played a long, drawn-out tune, something with the pep of reveille but serious. The troop moved off, trotting in tight formation, not a single one looking back.

I scrambled back up to my little patch of Pike Hill. It was something, I told Deek. These guys meant business. As soon as they’d made contact with the enemy, we’d be in for it.

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Tags: Gwinnett, campaigns by dmacelroy
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From the discovery of the Red Weed Field, it was obvious to any thinking person what was ahead. Despite how it is portrayed in the low media, being a highly-ranked general or a powerful congressman does not preclude high intelligence. We are no longer in the world of King Arthur, after all. No one establishes himself through physical feats of arms anymore. The path to success is more convoluted than it once was, and the competition keener and more indirect. Surviving to reach the pinnacles of power requires intelligence, or at least, a certain cunning regarding your own survival.

No, once those reports came back from South America, there was only one way to remain ignorant of what we would be facing: You had to choose to stay so. Of course, most men can’t face the unpleasant future and retreat from it any way they can – by denial, if at all possible. So indeed many who should have known better chose not to see the crucible in which this nation found itself. But not all, not all. Some of us had our eyes opened, and we kept them that way. We began to plan, unofficially, behind the scenes.

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Tags: academic by Abram Rookhardt
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