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Angry Staff Officer

@pptsapper

17 Jun

Ya know, there's birthday drunk and then there's engineer birthday drunk

Engineer birthday drunk is like birthday drunk except you really want to set off some demo

Goddammitall, I'm trying to tell a story here, so shuttup and siddown. Unruly pack of walruses. Ok. So. I got my gin. I got a rudimentary and tenuous grasp on some historical facts that may or may not be changing in my head. And we've got a day ending in y for #drunjhistory

Ok so it's 1779. No, not right NOW, but, like, sometime. There was once a time when it was that date. And that's what's important here for this story.

The RevWar is four years old at this point - like all good toddlers, its got an attitude, it doesn't wanna sleep, & it's noisy

Read 30 tweets

Angry Staff Officer

@pptsapper

16 Jun

So on this date in 1775, the infantry and artillery branches are feeling pretty good about themselves, having been established by Congress two days ago. Lots of hoisting of glasses and toasting things, etc. Lots of bon vivant. Time to go teach those redcoats a lesson!

But...

"How do we get there, we've got no maps?" bemoaned the infantry.

"These roads are too rough for my precious guns," cried the artillery. "Plus, I need platforms and revetments built!"

"And who's going to clear all those enemy obstacles?" wailed the infantry.

Sadness reigned.

From some dark corner smelling vaguely of booze and mud, Richard Gridley stepped forward.

"I'll build your damned redoubts and platforms, come on, follow me."

From behind him, Tadeusz Kosciusko says, "And I'll map your way so you don't get lost. Well, not much"

Read 6 tweets

Angry Staff Officer

@pptsapper

3 Jun

https://twitter.com/StevenBeynon/status/1400538843267440641

https://twitter.com/StevenBeynon/status/1400538843267440641

Doesn't help when you've had a year where we've been:
1) not drilling, bc COVID
2) activated, bc COVID
3) activated, bc civil unrest
4) activated, bc JAN 6 fallout
5) activated, bc CTCs
6) activated, bc deployments

My company's ACFT training plan went to shit

We were able to run a diagnostic last fall, with a good core of unit cadre certified to Level 1 to administer the test. But that was only because we pushed to make training a priority. Aaaaaaand subsequent ACFT training went to shit bc of the DC deployment

Read 4 tweets

Angry Staff Officer

@pptsapper

31 May

Thoughts for #MemorialDay

"We had with us, to keep and to care for, more than five hundred bruised bodies of men,--men made in the image of God, marred by the hand of man, and must we say in the name of God? And where is the reckoning for such things? And who is answerable?...

"One might almost shrink from the sound of his own voice, which had launched into the palpitating air words of order - do we call it? - fraught with such ruin. Was it God's command we heard, or His forgiveness we must forever implore?"

Joshua Chamberlain, "Passing of the Armies"

Chamberlain has a way of writing that makes you stop and read it four or five times, often with eyes that mist over with emotion. He so clearly struggles with the horrors of war and his duty of leadership in a visceral and soul-rending way.

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Angry Staff Officer

@pptsapper

22 May

@SMH_Historians

Am I having a fanboy moment listening to Mark Grotelueschen talk about changing historiography in regards to St Mihiel?

Yes. Yes, I am.

#SMH2021 @SMH_Historians

Mark G is explaining how German documents show that German Army Group C in the pocket was not actually planning a withdrawal - that the German assertion that they were already withdrawing when the Americans attacked was post-war propaganda. So damn fascinating.

#SMH2021

The Germans HAD ordered their artillery to remain, but the artillery was not in place properly and we're moving when the AEF bombardment began. German divisions were disorganized and not occupying the positions they had been ordered to. In short, the Germans screwed up

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Angry Staff Officer

@pptsapper

9 May

I'm 3 gins in and so I therefore assume that you all want to hear about the time that the president of the united states got so annoyed with the lack of action from his commanding general that he planned & executed his own amphibious invasion?

Bc yolo, I guess
#drunjhistory

So, it's May, 1862, and ol Abe Lincoln is on his way to go see his asspain of a general, George McClellan, who with his enormous army is INCHING his way up the VA Peninsula so cautiously that anyone with logs painted as cannons could stop him

As they repeatedly did

Lincoln, ol beardy buckeye Sec War Stanton, Salmon "I'm not a fuckin fish" Chase, and Gen Egbert Ludovicus Viele, who I assume was there because they needed an engineer with a batshit insane name, well, they're all en route to Fort Monroe, a big ass fort on the VA Peninsula

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