For those who’ve been living on the Planet Zarq and have only recently returned to Earth, or for those with failing memories, let me remind you all of how Othias and Mae’s C&Rsenal has made amateur gun geeks like me completely superfluous (and that is a really good thing).
So if you’re doing nothing special tonight (and over the whole weekend, come to think of it), go there and indulge yourself.
They are absolutely my favorite couple on Teh Intarwebz.
This little flight of fantasy was inspired by Chris Muir’s cartoon from yesterday and the day before.
In the spirit of our Crossing America series, imagine that you and a dozen of so of your best buddies were able to go back to any time during the Civil War and enlist in the army of your choice, at an appropriate age and level of fitness. In your travel back through time you could take the battle rifle and sidearm of your choice and 500/50 rounds of ammo for each piece respectively, subject to the following conditions:
To make life even easier, let’s assume that you could pick the campaign or battle you’d fight in, under your choice of battlefield commander, but you and your platoon would have a certain degree of autonomy.
Your choices and supporting arguments in Comments.
My weapons of choice:
Swedish Mauser M96 (6.5x55mm) as equipped below:
…with a bagful of loaded stripper clips, to save on weight.
Next (to nobody’s surprise):
Springfield 1911 in .45 ACP:
…ammo pre-loaded in five 10-round Chip McCormick magazines.
As to the battles and such, I’ll have to think about that for a while longer, but I’m leaning towards Stones River, on the Confederate side.
You all know the Bearded Butchers by now (or should), so spend a couple hours and learn the full story behind the Perkins family. It’s an American success story: God, family, sacrifice, duty, hard work, and taking risks but no handouts.
The complete antithesis to what the Socialists want, in other words.
I love my Readers.
In response to this little comment of mine in the last News Roundup:
From the Dept. Of “Defense”:
...if I were a donor, I’d also hold off till they rename it the “Robert E. Lee Military Institute”.
…Reader Mike S. suggests via email:
I am second to none in my respect for General Lee (I’ve a framed print of him in my library), but VMI should be renamed “Thomas J. Jackson Military Institute.”
Gen. Jackson was a professor at the Institute before the Late Unpleasantness.
Gen. Lee was a graduate and later the commandant of West Point. THAT facility should be renamed for Lee.
All good points. However, most people (especially the Racial Grievance Industry) probably have no idea of who Thomas J. Jackson was (maybe unless “Stonewall” is included in the nomenclature), but every damn one of them knows about Marse Robert.
So historically I’m in full agreement with Reader Mike; but in terms of social impact on the Wokists…?
It’s a tough call.
…as we bid a fond farewell to Black History Month.
Till next year.
Okay, maybe three and seven out of the ten listed. (I read Undaunted Courage, about the Lewis & Clark expedition, not Lewis’s account, but that should count for something.)
Of the others, Storm of Steel impressed me the most. Ernst Jünger must be the greatest soldier who ever lived, if for no other reason that he survived all four years of WWI in the trenches of the Western Front, not as some staff flunky or quartermaster’s orderly, but as a front-line rifleman. And not a whiny little brat like Remarque‘s Paul, either: just a man of steel — which could have been the title of his book, come to think of it.
I’ve been wanting to read Last Train for years, but just never got around to it. Ditto Death Company, if for no other reason than to fill in the many gaps of my knowledge of the Italian Front. Both duly ordered.
I’ll get after the rest in due course — it’s an excellent list, so thanks to the folks at Intellectual Takeout for that. (If they aren’t on your list of daily reads, fix that now.)