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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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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From Desperation, Deception, and Daring: The War Between E-Day and the Foothold; University of East Urbana Press: Urbana, 1940.

Asteroid CTO 12, christened “Gibraltar” and inevitably nicknamed “the Rock” by the spacers stationed there, constituted the primary staging area for Operation Foothold. Troops and materiel were shuttled to Gibraltar during its slow (approximately nine month) transit to Mars. Placed in a low-energy transfer orbit, the Rock nonetheless could not be readied before its first approach to the enemy planet. With supply lines stretching, the Service simply could not continue to resupply, much less augment, the base on Gibraltar.

In one of the most daring deceptions of the War, SACFEF convinced the Martians that Gibraltar had been intended as a planet buster that had failed to achieve the necessary orbital parameters. The base was reduced to a state of “hibernation” during its treacherous four-month swing through the Martian sky. The skeleton crew lived daily with the threat of the Martians piercing the deception and demolishing the base.

In light of the psychological stress inherent in such a situation, the few incidents on record become much more comprehensible…

Tags: Gibraltar, academic by Patrick Chesterson
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