The Wheel Goes Round

Looking for something light but entertaining and engrossing to read, some fiction not too dire or heady, nothing that involves too much wattage of the brain, nothing that will twang too sharply upon my frayed emotional strings, I picked up Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World last week. I am already around page 200, or about a quarter done with it.

Eye is Book One of an endless shelf of thousand-page doorstops of fantasy novels. Jordan published it in 1990, wrote about a dozen more, died, and, I believe but don’t quote me, other writers are continuing the saga. I first read it over the span of two months way way back in 2001 when me and the Mrs. were living out life down in beautiful Silver Spring, Maryland. Those were my IT help desk days, and I forever associate troubleshooting ID10T problems with that work (as well as Gene Wolfe and Cordwainer Smith novellae). Flashbacks are a-poppin’ as I’m traveling through this wheel of time.

“Wheel of Time” is actually the title of the series, like “Songs of Fire and Ice” is the title of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Throne series of cinder blocks. Jordan’s book is a pleasant, good-natured rip-off of or homage to Tolkien. Pure and simple. If you get easily offended by blatant Tolkienisms in the works of other authors, this is not the book for you. I originally purchased it about five years ago, got offended, thought about chucking it but saved it for Patch to read when she gets a little older (after she reads Lord of the Rings, of course). Then I read something recently that mentioned the book and decided to give it a go. Now I’m surprisingly enjoying my revisit.

The item I read was that “The Wheel of Time” is to Buddhism what The Lord of the Rings is to Catholicism. I don’t know if I’d go that far so early in the novel, but it seems true, though not as deep. Both stories hide their, er, philosophy (?) Theology (?) Religiosity (?) Dunno, but it’s there. Hidden, buried gems, though I think the vein is veritably vaster with Tolkien. But I am but a Jordan novice.

As far as the rip-off is concerned, I also read that Jordan was aware of, shall we say, similarities between the two works, both with theme and plot and characters good and bad. And he said it was a tribute to Tolkien. So that is the spirit in which I am re-reading The Eye of the World. As a tribute to the Master, Professor Tolkien. With that attitude, I am pleasantly pleased.

More depth in a review to follow in about a month or so.

Book Review: The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer

© 1977 by Douglas C. Jones

I’m not a big consumer of alternative historical fiction – although I should be.

For someone who loves reading martial history, I’ve discovered that historical fiction cements what one has learned. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane taught me better than any nonfiction work what it was like to be behind the lines during the Civil War. As did Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer winning The Killer Angels. (Red Badge is said to detail the Chancellorsville battle; Shaara’s explicitly describes the Gettysburg fight.) And, of course, Shaara’s son Jeff makes a living following in his dad’s shoes with historical novels: Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure. He’s expanded into other American conflicts, though of those I’ve only read his books on World War II.

But those are all non-alternative historical fiction. Alternative historical fiction always begins its premise with the words: “What if?”

The only alternative historical fiction I’ve read was Worldwar: In the Balance. That book began with the delightful phrase, “What if aliens invaded the earth right as World War II was heating up all over the globe?” It was okay. I tried another one, Agent of Byzantium, whose premise was, “What if the Byzantine Empire never declined?” That was a little too removed from reality, and I couldn’t really get into it.

And that was it.

By an absolute random chance of a glance, I spotted Jones’s ancient and gnarled book in a discount bin at a used book store for a buck, and was immediately smitten by the thought of Lady Providence gazing down upon me. For had I not just read two nonfiction works on General Custer and his ill-fated battle, seven hundred pages or so, and authored a rather lengthy blog post on the subject? I’d know this material inside and out. The “What if” was – “What if Custer had survived Little Bighorn, and was put on trial for the disaster?” I had to pick it up, and it bumped all the other books clamoring amongst themselves in the On Deck Circle.

I breezed through the 375-page paperback in a week, with the bulk being read over two days. So it has the “readability” box checked off in bold.

There’s inherent drama in the court room tale: the protagonist and the antagonist, facing off, sparring, life and death on the line, all refereed by a man in black. Or in this case, a military tribunal, upon which sits such Civil War luminaries (well, perhaps “luminary” does not quite apply considering the results they obtained) as John Pope, Irwin McDowall, and John Schofield. And the “what really happened” is pieced out, teased out, or forcibly drawn out as they case may be, and it is up to not only the jury (or the military tribunal) but to you, dear reader, to draw conclusions for yourself.

The novel begins with a couple of short introductory higher-level chapters. General Sherman, in command of the Army, is trying to wrangle a court martial against lone survivor Custer in an attempt to forestall negative publicity and the threat of cut funding from a hostile Congress. He has but convince President Grant – no fan of Custer, who has testified hearsay against him and his brother on the stand and in the newspapers. Sheridan is along for the ride, gruff, explosive Philip Sheridan, another who despises the Golden Boy but has too often grudgingly admitted he gets results.

From there were go to a wintry Manhattan, November 1877, Governor’s Island, where the trial, er, court martial, is to be held. We meet the 40-year-old Major Gardiner, selected as the de facto “prosecutor,” keenly aware that he has never led men in the field nor fired a weapon at another human being. Then Custer’s defense attorney, Mr. Jacobson, lame, and older, a self-assured legal whiz trying his first military case, doing this pro bono as he works for the firm in which one partner is Custer’s father-in-law.

And right from page 50 or so to the very end, 325 more pages, it is mostly court room fireworks. To lesser or greater degrees.

The novel tested me, in a good way. It was extremely beneficial to listen to the characters on the stand – kind of like a pop quiz of sorts, forcing me to recall the factual declarations the historian-authors of the previous two books I read. I’d be parsing witness testimonies to see what agreed with what, uh, had now over the past century been agreed upon. Plus Jones does a real nice job giving these names personalities and pulling out emotions of all sorts under interrogation. All except one, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Though I forget the exact wording (the novel has Gardiner recite the exact terms for court martial in all its splendid legalese), Custer is basically charged with the militant equivalent of gross negligence. Disobeying the letter (if not the spirit) of his orders. Dereliction of duty by failing to take in all available intelligence, dividing his forces into three groups, and recklessly charging in with full abandon.

In other words, the technique that has previously won him glory in half a dozen other battles and skirmishes.

All the historical stuff was great. If I had to quibble, I’d say that though Jacobson is very well fleshed out, the real protagonist, Gardiner, doesn’t seem so. Or maybe he’s not the “real” protagonist, because we do experience events through Jacobson’s eyes at times. But Gardiner’s is presented first, and more often. I’d have liked twenty or so pages-worth of backstory for the Major. Both men had assistants, too, which I was surprised were not given larger roles. Today we’re used to the “team” of quirky helpers and researchers, from the Grisham novels to the movie A Few Good Men. I think Jones wasted an opportunity here.

As far as historical figures go, all the enlisted men became human to me. For officers, Reno and Benteen seemed to have been given kid-glove treatment by the author. Not sure why. Potential for a lot of drama there, as each man despised Custer. Yet each appeared on the stand relatively early in the novel and stayed up there not as long as I expected. Sheridan also makes an appearance, which kinda confused me as he seemed to be testifying for Custer, and eventually neither prosecution nor defense benefits by his testimony. But maybe I missed something.

There was one person whose appearance on the stand was anticlimactic. Yep. Custer. Now, Custer is suffering from debilitating wounds (or is he? It’s hinted that he’s out partying and machinating when court is in recess). Gardiner has the opportunity to go after him and win a conviction. Er, a court martial. Custer did make mistakes. It is up to Gardiner to convince the tribunal those are worthy of being cashiered out of the service and possibly further prosecuted. But perhaps I’m expecting too much. Perhaps I’m just a product of my time. We’re used to Tom Cruise demanding Generals admit they gave the order. Gardiner is calculating based on getting five of the nine men to rule in his favor. He needn’t be so over the top.

I won’t spoil the ending by revealing the verdict. I was neither happy nor unhappy. But the real ending of the book, a few pages later, the fate of Custer in particular, was unexpectedly poignant for me. Indeed, it brought the book up immensely in my estimation and redeemed it beyond the point of a simple academic exercise.

Do I personally think Custer should have been court martialed had he lived? No. No, for the same reason some character in the novel mentions: Bad precedent. The country can’t court martial every general every time he fails. Both Grant and Lee failed, too, at various points in their campaigns.

But I think the mental exercise, and this book, should be read by those who have an interest in this field.

Grade: B-plus.

In Memoriam

Over the past ten days or so, a trio of men who’ve been of peripheral interest to me over the years have left this swiftly tilting planet and ventured on toward the Maha Beyond.

The first was a man named Stanton Friedman. He’s the guy you may have seen while channel surfing if your surfing has taken you past the History – uh, Alien – Channel. Friedman was a legitimate physicist in the 50s and 60s, working on many advanced and classified projects, who got taken in to the whole UFO thing. He was one of the first to publicize the whole Roswell saucer crash and “broke” the story on MJ-12, a group of a dozen high-ranking American men who formed some sort of secret saucer supervisory specialists. I read it all back in the 80s, not entirely convinced, even less so today. He also appeared as a “consultant” on that Abduction in Lake County found-footage teevee special first aired in January of 1998, the first show I watched with my future wife in which she jumped a foot off the couch at the scare at the end.

In honor of Mr. Friedman’s passing, I present a short post on the weird thing I saw in the night-time sky as a young lad in 1980, here.

Next I noted that eminent writer Herman Wouk had permanently put down his pen, unless perhaps God is in need of some funny and/or riveting tales of World War II. The Caine Mutiny is possibly my favorite WW2 movie, and I read the book back in 2015 and was a thousand percent taken in by it for a week I didn’t want to end. A great work, better even than the movie, and highly recommended. I have his Winds of War on the shelf behind me, and may crack it open this summer, perhaps on vacation down in Hilton Head in August.

I thought I had reviewed The Caine Mutiny but it seems I never did. A pity. Instead, I offer you some reasons why you should read histories of war (with westerns chucked in). Or at least some reasons why I do. Here.

Finally, Murray Gell-Mann has found all his answers to the great mysteries of the microcosm. Who is Murray Gell-Mann? An American physicist from the golden age of the 50s who won the Nobel Prize in 1969 for his earlier work on a theory of quarks. In my physics heyday in the mid-90s, I attempted his book, The Quark and the Jaguar, but did not get too far into it, and I don’t quite remember why. Maybe a second go at it a quarter century later might do the trick. Particle physics always held a special fascination for me, and I thought at the time I might want to specialize in it.

On a side note, I always associated Gell-Mann with Tolkien’s Second Age Elven King Gil-Galad. Not sure why, but this dual intersectionality of nerddom has always pleased me.

Here, a list of some great questions of physics I’ve always wanted answers to. No doubt finally revealed to Dr. Gell-Mann, and if not, I’m sure he’s fast at work in a laboratory in some other dimensions figuring it all out.

Rest in peace, men!

Morning Song of Senlin

IT is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning          

When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,        

I arise, I face the sunrise,       

And do the things my fathers learned to do. 

Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops           

Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,          

And I myself on swiftly tilting planet           

Stand before a glass and tie my tie.   

 

Vine-leaves tap my window, 

Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,  

The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree           

Repeating three clear tones.   

 

It is morning. I stand by the mirror    

And tie my tie once more.     

While waves far off in a pale rose twilight      

Crash on a white sand shore. 

I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:           

How small and white my face!—      

The green earth tilts through a sphere of air  

And bathes in a flame of space.           

There are houses hanging above the stars      

And stars hung under a sea... 

And a sun far off in a shell of silence

Dapples my walls for me....   

 

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning             

Should I not pause in the light to remember God?    

Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,  

He is immense and lonely as a cloud.

I will dedicate this moment before my mirror           

To him alone, for him I will comb my hair.     

Accept these humble offerings, clouds of silence!    

I will think of you as I descend the stair.      

 

Vine-leaves tap my window, 

The snail-track shines on the stones;  

Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree       

Repeating two clear tones.     

 

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,

Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.         

The walls are about me still as in the evening,           

I am the same, and the same name still I keep.            

The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,    

The stars pale silently in a coral sky.  

In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,

Unconcerned, and tie my tie. 

 

There are horses neighing on far-off hills        

Tossing their long white manes,         

And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,

Their shoulders black with rains....    

It is morning, I stand by the mirror    

And surprise my soul once more;         

The blue air rushes above my ceiling,

There are suns beneath my floor....    

 

...It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness 

And depart on the winds of space for I know not where;    

My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,    

And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.        

There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,   

And a god among the stars; and I will go     

Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak           

And humming a tune I know....           

 

Vine-leaves tap at the window,         

Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,

The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree           

Repeating three dear tones.   

Nice musical musings from American poet Conrad Aiken (1889-1973), first come to my attention during the day’s lunch break.

Pulled in a Million Directions

There is a scene from John Frankenheimer’s 1962 cold war thriller, The Manchurian Candidate, that has always stuck with me. A sweaty, paranoid Frank Sinatra is explaining away the pile of books on a table he’s studying, enraptured with, fascinated by, drawn to:

Principles of Modern Banking

The History of Piracy

Paintings of Orozco

Modern French Theater

The Jurisprudential Factor of Mafia Administration

Diseases of Horses

The Novels of Joyce Cary

Ethnic Choices of the Arabs

Now, Sinatra, as Major Bennett Marco, is playing a Korean War vet struggling with partially-revealed aftereffects of psychological warfare and brainwashing.

What’s my excuse? In the past month I’ve been studying, enraptured with, fascinated by, drawn to:

General George Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn

Fascist Buddhism

The exact authorship of Lennon-McCartney song compositions

Sherlock Holmes short stories

Various Interpretations of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

I’ve always been like this. In a given year I’ll be all over and all about the Dewey Decimal system, over and over, like a bee with ADD pollinating a patch of clover in a flowerbox. But it’s frustrating, and tiresome. Just once I’d like to wake up and say, authoritatively and with unfathomable certitude: “I must commit the rest of my life to the History of Piracy!” Or fascist Buddhism. Something. Anything.

I’m pulled in a million directions and like anything pulled in such a way, I feel diluted. I am diluted.

Or I can just be sleep-deprived.

That’s probably it. Went to bed past midnight last night, and got up a little before five this morning.

I’ll have to read up on sleep habits, REM sleep, lucid dreaming, how to get better quality shut-eye, sleep techniques of ancient Tibetans.

Yes.

Add that to the pile.

DEFCON

This struck me as interesting today during my lunch-time reading.

So often we hear the term “DEFCON”, mostly in the entertainment media but occasionally in the news. I realized I never knew exactly what it defined. I knew it was a kind of “battle-readiness,” but what do the levels signify, and what is the highest level we’ve ever reached?

Turns out there are five levels, ranging from normal readiness, DEFCON5, up to maximum readiness (i.e., nuclear war is gonna happen), DEFCON1. “DEFCON” is militaryspeak for “defense readiness condition.” Way back in November of 1959 this system replaced a more complicated matrix of three readiness levels, Normal, Increased, and Maximum, each of which were further subdivided into eight further conditions. Developed by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, it is controlled by the President and the Secretary of State, through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Thankfully, we have never been at DEFCON1.

Three times US forces rose up to DEFCON3. (At level 3, the Air Force can mobilize in 15 minutes.)

The first time was during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israel. Nineteen days after the initial outbreak of hostilities, in fact. The fear was that the Soviet Union would enter the fray. They did not, and three weeks later readiness was lowered.

The second occurred in August of 1976, after two US soldiers were killed by North Korean forces. The US and South Korea retaliated and North Korea backed down. The initial incident is known as the Korean Axe Murder Incident and the response is Operation Paul Bunyan. It’s incredibly interesting and incredibly surreal, as most North Korean stuff is. I encourage you to google it.

The third time we went to DEFCON3 was the three days period following the September 11 attacks.

Twice US forces have been escalated to DEFCON2.

The first time happened on Day 8 of the twelve-day Cuban Missile Crisis (October of 1962). The US Strategic Air Command went to DEFCON2 while all other armed forces remained at DEFCON3.

The other time was during the initial phases of Operation Desert Storm, January 15, 1991.

Now, all this DEFCON stuff got me thinking.

What is Hopper’s own defense readiness condition? My own personal DEFCON?

Well, being an introvert, every time I step out my front door I go to DEFCON4. I’m only at 5 when I’m engrossed in a good book, pecking away on the laptop at my desk, or sound asleep.

What gets me to DEFCON3? Hmmm. Toilet bowl clogging. Cocktail parties. Garbage truck beeping outside at 6 am while I’m still in bed instead of the usual 8 am drive-by. Discovering my youngest ate the last bit of ice cream as I’m creeping into the kitchen late at night in my pajamas. Any time my oldest daughter talks “boys.”

Tax Season keeps me maintaining a multi-day DEFCON3 level of alertness. This is why I’m so exhausted from late January to the middle of April. I even went to DEFCON2 late March when an angry and bitter divorced woman showed up to have me do her deceased father’s multistate estate return after mysteriously disappearing from appointment calendars of everyone else in the office.

I also go to DEFCON2 around the third week of every month, when the wife’s credit card statements appear in my mailbox.

DEFCON1? Thankfully, I don’t think I’ve reached that condition of battle-field readiness.

Actually, on second thought, I have.

Four years ago today some jerk boss at Honda laid me off. On the ride home I went into DEFCON1 and soon overhauled my life in a multitude of ways. Finished my book and self-published it, got out of the car business and into the care business, started that tax thing on the side for extra cash and something to fall back on, re-built long-unused muscles on my body (currently buried under some fat, but the fat’ll come off), and got a whole heckuva lot healthier in other ways.

Maybe just to do some tweaking around here I’ll go up to 2 for the next couple of days …

Custer Resources

Looking to learn about something completely different yet tangential to what I’ve been reading off and on for the past few years, I decided to investigate Little Big Horn. The first step I did was a google search to find out what interested parties out there considered the best books on the subject. I jotted down a half-dozen, then went to Amazon. I perused the reviews, generally discounting the five-star and one-star reviews, and let my gut tell me which ones to read.

I selected two fairly recent books: The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of Little Bighorn (2011) by Nathaniel Philbrick, and A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn – the Great Battle of the American West (2009) by James Donovan.

Both apparently follow modern publishing trends by cramming as many phrases and clauses into a title that can possibly fit on a cover.

Both also were engrossing, fast-paced quickreads. I burned through both books in seven days apiece, probably averaging an hour a day, 40 or 50 pages a sitting. I found both difficult to put down. Both drew me in and fascinated me with facts, and feeling on that hill with Custer and his men, I could not get the thought out of my head how I would have reacted in that situation.

The only problem was I read them in the wrong order: I read Philbrick before Donovan when I should have read Donovan before Philbrick.

Donovan’s book was more straightforward, fact-driven, military-minded. He doesn’t pick winners or losers. Just the facts, ma’am. Yes, he critiques some of the decisions made during the battle and the lead-up to it. Actually, a lot is critiqued. But he doesn’t pre-judge Custer. Nor his men, both the courageous and the cowardly, nor the Indians, both the honorable and the downright savage, nor the politicians, both the honorable and the downright savage (see what I did there?). This book held more of what I wanted to know: the mission, the events of the day, the order of battle, armaments, maneuvers, the personalities of the warriors on both sides. Plus a little background, but not overkill and under too powerful a magnifying glass. This book did not disappoint. I gave it a solid A.

Philbrick’s work was more poetical, more of a narrative (in that the author himself had a narrative he wanted to follow). Dreams, the interconnectedness of characters, the intertwining of lives by fate and accident. It is a more politically-correct book, and as a result, Custer is pre-judged. Now, Philbrick does not savage his main character as I’ve seen in other works (such as that Don’t Know Much About History guy), but neither does he step back into the 19th century to walk in his shoes. Sitting Bull gets probably more pages than he should, and though he’s not portrayed as an angelic being, he does come off better than the General. But Philbrick’s story does work if you can get past all that. I enjoyed a prior book of his, Why Read Moby Dick? and the man is good with a pen and a turn of a phrase. I graded the book a slight B-minus.

So if you’re interested in the topic of the Last Stand, I suggest reading both for a balanced view and a view that gets fully fleshed out. Donovan is the skeleton, Philbrick is the tissue. But I’d read them in that order.

I'm Only Sleeping

My default ground state these past three post-tax-season weeks.

Should have more energy and better time management to post new stuff soon. Working on a lot of angles here. Not just merely sleeping.

Little Bighorn

I decided to spend this spring reading up on historical stuff I really never learned before. One of those things is the Battle of Little Bighorn, or, as it used to be more popularly known as, Custer’s Last Stand. I burned through two vastly different books on the subject these past two weeks. Continuing this “filling in the gaps” reading, I’m currently about a hundred pages into a book on the Vietnam War, but that’s a subject for another post.

So partly to fill in the gaps for you, and partly to record my takeaway for a future re-reading, I’m going to post a summation of the battle here. A very rough, non-expert synopsis of two very different books I just read (and I’ll review later). You can read through this and be confident that you will soon know more about the Battle of Little Bighorn than ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the general public.

1. The Battle of Little Bighorn takes place June 25-26, 1876, a little over a week before the nation’s Centennial birthday bash. Custer’s annihilation at the hands of the Sioux will shake the nation to its core. A scandal-plagued President Grant is in his final year of his two-term presidency, and when news of the defeat reaches the east, it dims the unbridled optimism of the months-long celebration.

2. Little Bighorn is a river in southeastern Montana not far north of the Wyoming border. It is a smaller tributary of the Bighorn River. It lies to the west of the Black Hills of South Dakota. Two years prior an expedition discovered gold in the Black Hills, prompting a rush of white miners into the region, which belongs to the Sioux by treaty. The expedition was led by General George Armstrong Custer.

3. Custer is 36 years old at the time of the Battle of Little Bighorn. Thirteen years earlier he was named a General at the tail end of the Civil War, the youngest man to be awarded such a rank at the time. His cavalry played a key role in preventing Lee’s escape from Petersburg, climaxing at the surrender at Appomattox. After the Civil War he participates in major Indian battles (such as at Washita) and several skirmishes. He has written a best-selling autobiography and is America’s best known “Indian fighter.” He is also contemplating serious money on a speaking tour and possibly running for President.

4. Custer is passionately in love with his wife, Libbie. They are, however, childless. Libbie has troubling, foreboding dreams right before Custer leaves with his men in the late spring of 1876, including a vision of his unit, the Seventh Cavalry, marching off into the sky. She will live as a widow for over half-a-century, writing books defending her late husband’s reputation and actions during the Battle of Little Bighorn.

5. Two brothers, a brother-in-law, and a nephew accompany Custer to the battle. They all perish with him.

6. Big-picture background: Tensions quickly grow between the Sioux Indians and the rapidly increasing numbers of white miners and settlers rushing in to the Black Hills. After the Sioux reject a government offer to purchase the Black Hills, Grant chooses the lesser of two evils, and decides to pressure the Indians rather than the white “invaders.” At the time there are various reservations in operation, where Indians are encouraged to relocate. There they are provided food, shelter, clothing, and are taught farming skills. Some tribes willingly go, some prevaricate, staying only during the harsh winters, other tribes flat out refuse. A great “Sun Dance” convenes in late spring of 1876, and a large band of Indian tribes gather, possibly larger than anything seen before. Thus the government decrees that any Indian who refuses to relocate to a reservation be declared a “hostile.”

7. “Sioux” is a derogatory French term for the Lakota Indians, “Lakota” being an umbrella term for a half-dozen tribes speaking a common tongue. Present at the Sun Dance, and later at the Little Bighorn, are Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Well past the age of warriorhood at 45, Sitting Bull is an Unkpapa Lakota and the spiritual leader of the Sioux. Crazy Horse is an Oglala Indian, a short quiet man renowned for his fighting skills and, truth be known, more than a tad eccentric.

8. Picture an upside down triangle, with the Little Bighorn River somewhere near the center. The army decides on a three-pronged search-and-destroy mission from each corner of the triangle. From Fort Fetterman in the south, marching north, are 1,500 men under the leadership of General Crook. From Fort Ellis in the west, heading southeast, ride troops under General Gibbon. And from Fort Lincoln in the east, heading southwest, are forces under the command of General Terry.

9. Terry is technically Custer’s superior, but he’s a desk man, ordered into the field for this mission. Thus he’s probably grateful when Custer breaks off with his force of 700 men to scout ahead. Custer has a well-deserved reputation as an aggressive tracker of Indians, known on more than one occasion to ride straight into an Indian camp with guns blazing. As he’s looking for this to be his last field mission before greater things (book tour, speaking engagements, bid for the Presidency), he’s looking to retire in glory.

10. He is also subordinate to Terry because he’s in Grant’s dog house, so to speak, having recently testified to corruption in the military and in the Indian Department specifically. He almost does not receive permission to go into the field, and has to lobby the President and the cabinet pretty hard to do so.

11. A day after breaking off from Terry’s column, Custer’s scouts, primarily Crow and Arikara Indians, foes of the Sioux, spot a large gathering of Indians in the Little Bighorn valley. Rather than await Terry’s forces or rendezvous with the other prongs led by Crook and Gibbon, Custer decides to attack. The great fear is that the Indians will scatter upon detecting his approaching regiment.

12. Picture the Little Bighorn as a squiggle running roughly south-north (the direction of water flow). Custer and the Seventh Cavalry approach from the south-southeast. The Indians are located off the northwest bank in an open plain. Just south of the Indian camp a forest hugs the river’s west bank. The eastern bank consists of a range of hills and valleys, most hills about a hundred feet above the river below. This will be the battlefield.

13. Custer decides to split his forces for the attack into three wings. He will command one and the two other wings will be led, unfortunately, by men who hold grudges against him: Major Reno and Major Benteen. Reno is an alcoholic of mediocre military ability and probably has been in a depression since his wife died three years prior. Benteen is an officer who never gets along with his superiors and has been disparaging Custer anonymously in newspaper dispatches back east. Both are career military men who are older than the boy general.

14. The plan for attack is this: Reno will cross the river and advance up the west bank to attack the southern end of the village. Simultaneously, Custer and Benteen will advance north on the east bank over the hills. Benteen will hold back for possible reinforcement and to guard the supply train while Custer will cross the Little Bighorn above the village and attack downward. The village will be caught in a pincer movement (Reno up from the south, Custer down from the north). Custer will also attempt to capture fleeing women and children to hold as hostage, and tactic he’s used successfully in the past.

15. Now everything goes wrong.

16. Reno attacks the southern part of the village but is dismayed upon seeing that the Indians are not fleeing – they are massing and attacking. He lays down a skirmish line (where three out of four men lie down to shoot spaced 15 feet apart, with the fourth holding the reins of all four horses behind the line), but panics at the aggressive response he’s encountering. A scout is killed right beside him and the major sprayed with blood and bone. He calls for retreat, but not an orderly one, into the timber bordering the river. Men see him drinking out of a flask. His force is overwhelmed – many are killed, many hide in the woods, many attempt to flee back across the Little Bighorn, about a hundred feet wide at this point and four feet deep.

17. Because Reno can’t pin the Indian warriors down, they are able to rally and head north to counter Custer’s attack. Also, separately, Reno and Custer realize that there are far more Indians than was assumed. Instead of the 800 or so they expect from estimates from the Indian Bureau, there are possibly 1,800 to 2,500 warriors facing them. And instead of running away, they are running toward the battle. To make matters worse, half the Indians are carrying rifles instead of bows and arrows, and the rifles they carry are often of superior quality than the government-issued ones the cavalrymen use: repeaters versus single shot weapons.

18. Custer mistakenly divides his forces yet again (before realizing the truer size of the opposing force), sending a Captain with some men directly west as he continues north and then cuts across to attack. He encounters fierce immediate resistance and is compelled to retreat, back up the hills on the east bank. The Indians, wielding more than a 10-to-1 advantage, swarm over him and his men. Though it’s hard to pin down a timeframe, all sixty or so survivors of Custer’s wing are killed on “Last Stand Hill” in a battle that lasts either a half-hour or several hours.

19. Custer’s body is later found with two bullet wounds: one in his left chest, the other in his left temple. It’s not suicide as Custer is right-handed. Some speculate that his brother killed the wounded General in mercy, since the wounded were tortured and mutilated by the victorious Indians, but this assertion has never been supported by most historians.

20. Reno’s men regroup with Benteen’s and the two wings spend the night, the next day, and the following night defending their position on a different hill. Scores of troopers are killed. Two of the three company doctors are killed, along with a newspaperman. Reno spends most of the battle hiding in a ditch with his bottle. Benteen shows some spine, walking upright and seemingly unconcerned about whizzing bullets and arrows, encouraging the men to fight back. Most of the horses are killed and are used as protection. Thirst sets in as temperatures reach the high 90s and there is no safe route to the river for water.

21. However, some in Benteen’s company report hearing gunfire to the north, where they believe Custer to be, possibly the agreed-upon volley of firing that would indicate a need for support and reinforcements. Gunfire is heard by various men as late as 4:30 in the afternoon. But Benteen refuses to move off the hill to investigate, pinned down as they are by their own attackers. He’s of half a mind to believe Custer deserted them, in fact.

22. By the third morning the survivors discover the Indians have left. Shocked and in a daze, they also stumble upon the massacre to the north on Last Stand Hill. The only living thing left on the hill is a horse named Comanche, suffering with seven bullet and arrow wounds. The horse is treated and regains its health and becomes a mascot for the Seventh. He lives for another 29 years and, in honor of his service, is never ridden again. In future parades and reviews, Comanche will always march riderless.

23. In retrospect, many things went wrong and were done wrong that might have seemed to be good ideas at the time. In addition to underestimating Sioux numbers, their weaponry, and their response to cavalry attack, the books pointed out a number of points.

24. Custer’s men and horses were exhausted from riding 60 miles in 24 hours after breaking from Terry’s command. He had initially wanted to rest the men a day but felt that he would lose the element of surprise, so he launched the mid-morning attack without adequate recovery.

25. Pride also prevented Custer from accepting Terry’s offer of taking the Second Cavalry with him. “The Seventh Cavalry can whip any Indian war party,” he had boasted at the time.

26. He also refused to take along a pair of Gatling guns. These powerful proto-machine guns could have mowed down line after line of attacking Sioux, but they were cumbersome, being mounted immovable on wagons, drawn by horses of a lesser quality than cavalry mounts, and frequently jammed up in the heat of battle. Custer felt he could move faster without them and fight just as effectively.

27. All told, of the 700 or so men of the Seventh Cavalry, 268 died in the immediate battle and 6 more later perished from their wounds. Five of its twelve companies were completely annihilated. Custer’s mutilated body was later disinterred from the battlefield and sent back east to eventual burial in West Point Cemetery.

Where Hopper's Been At

Yes, I took a few weeks off.

Went by in a blur, and I had to take a half-month off to recuperate.

Finished the tax season strong, about a dozen more returns than the prior year, although a much more negative experience with the clientele. But I don’t wish to discuss that. Pending my final numbers, we’ll see whether I continue with this or not come next January.

But I did gain a ton of stress weight. A lot of pizza, a lot of Fosters oil cans, a lot of sweets. I weighed myself the morning of April 16 and discovered I was the heaviest I’ve ever been in my entire life. So immediately I began a diet and exercise regimen: walking 1-2 miles morning and evening, two sets of weightlifting six days a week. No more pizza, beer, soda, and extremely limited sweets (only had one DQ Blizzard and two of my daughter’s sugar cookies in the last two weeks). Lost a few pounds so far, but not as much as I expected. Old age, slowing metabolism and such, I guess.

Read a couple books on General George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. Really just to fill in gaps in my knowledge. Once I’m done with my current Custer read (I’m about two-thirds done now) I’m gonna tackle Vietnam. Again, to fill a gaping hole in my knowledge. The Vietnam War so rocked our culture it still resonates in our foreign and domestic policies, and it is still one of the most consistently reinvented and reinterpreted events to shape our world. It’d be nice to know the true events of the military conflict.

Tough to relax with my daughters’ busy curricular and extra-curricular lives and the wife’s never-the-same-day-twice work schedule. But we did find time to take in a Yankee game and get down to Cape May for a long weekend. Also adjusting to an upgrade at my day job – got an office with a window! First time I’ve had a window since February of 2009. And we’re strategizing about that possible move down south. In this case, cleaning out the garage (and tossing about 75 percent of what’s in it), following by purging the mess that’s in the basement. Once the basement’s cleared out, I want to install a mini gym and set up my amp and guitar so I can do my thing without disturbing the girls and the dog.

Lot to do this summer. I also want to finish my second novel and re-work / re-market the first one. I’ve neglected my fiction writing for three years now. Then there’s the dozen short stories, and a list of thirty-five nonfiction topics I have tallied and must decide on which to tackle. Should be a very busy next couple of months. Yep.

My goal here is to post something twice a week. Much funny stuff happens to me, and much stuff of interest comes across the bow, that if I had the time, energy, and inclination to post daily, there’d be a pretty fine blog up and running here. But I’ve moved on to other things, and other things have moved on to me, necessarily demanding my focus, so twice-a-week blogging is an admirable goal for this stage of the Hopper, over a decade in existence.

Catch ya later!