The History of Veterans Day
For my fellow members of the Internet Spelling and Grammar Police force, let me assure you that according to the United States government, Veterans Day is the correct way of labeling this federal holiday (although Veteran's Day and Veterans' Day are acceptable).
On November 11th of 1981, the Allies and Germany signed an armistice at 5:00 a.m., Paris time. It took effect six hours later, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. This ended the fighting although the war was not formally ended for another six months, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. That was in June of 1919. That November, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11th as Armistice Day. He said, "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."
26 years later, after World War II had ended, a U.S. veteran of that conflict suggested that the holiday (which had become a legal holiday by act of Congress in 1938) be expanded to honor veterans of all conflicts, not just World War I. In 1954, Congress passed two acts, one expanding the holiday to honor all veterans and the other to rename it Veterans Day.
Then the Congress screwed things up. They passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act and moved Veterans Day (along with Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Washington's Birthday) to designated Mondays. FYI, the official federal holiday in February remains Washington's Birthday, although most now refer to it as Presidents Day.
I am bothered almost every year by the fact that members of our military are involved in armed conflicts on this day when the so-called "war to end all wars" saw the hostilities stop. In how many places are U.S. military personnel directly in harm's way due to our involvement in some kind of conflict? The answer is too many.
I am proud that my nation, our nation, is sending U.S. military personnel to the Philippines for a much more noble purpose, to provide humanitarian relief in a time of crisis.
* * *
Speaking of Super Typhoon Haiyan, once again I'm hearing people say that this gigantic storm is yet more proof of the problem of climate change. I don't deny that climate change has taken place and continues to occur. I do deny that there is a causal connection between climate change and the large tropical cyclones that the planet has experienced in the past few years.
Look at the data in this graph and the statements of fact below it: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/accumulated_cyclone_energy.asp?basin=gl&MR=1
This is from a website whose creators post that climate change is occurring and a problem that needs to be dealt with. Yet this one statement of fact leaps off of the page: "There is no evidence of a systematic increasing or decreasing trend in ACE for the years 1970-2012."
Climate change is a serious problem and the governments of the world need to get busy working on solutions. But the attempt to create hysteria by claiming that climate change is why there are big storms is just silly and should be stopped.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
It would be easier to understand Larry Flynt's desire to see the man who put him into a wheelchair for life escape the death penalty if Flynt would stop talking about how he would like to get the man alone for an hour with a pair of pliers and some wire-cutters.
It is very cool that all those people turned out for the funeral of the 99 year old British veteran of WWII who had no close family to attend the service.
I don't want to, but I will have to go out today to buy some new razor blades. I'm actually giving serious thought to skipping the free dinner stuff because I don't want to fight the crowds.
We may never know if that Montana woman deliberately pushed her newlywed husband over a cliff. But wouldn't divorce have cost a lot less in money and stress? Heck, they might have been able to get an annulment.
What kind of idiot thinks that his wife sending him a text that she consents to having a stun gun used on her is any kind of protection against being arrested? In fact, what kind of pair of idiots bet that the winner can use a stun gun on the loser?
This is a really neat story: http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/11/us/journey-purple-heart/index.html?hpt=hp_t5
David Ayer, writer/director of the excellent film "End of Watch" should have known better than to film a battle scene in Britain on Remembrance Sunday. All the apologies in the world don't undo what he did.
I think Warren Buffet is a genius, but he's wrong about not splitting the Class A shares of stock in Berkshire-Hathaway. At $175,000, it's the most illiquid issue trading publicly.
If women weren't taking the message of ABC News reporter Amy Robach's story about the importance of mammograms seriously before she did one on live TV, they better be now. The test revealed she has breast cancer and saved her life.
I admire WalMart for their pledge to hire any veteran who was honorably discharged within the last 12 months. I'd be a lot more impressed if they'd hire older veterans who served before 9/11 and who struggle finding employment.
I don't have a problem with Gonzaga University prohibiting students from having guns in their apartments as long as the university provides adequate protection to keep six-time felons out of their residential buildings.
Yes, this a Marine Corps Sergeant Major "break-dancing" at this year's Marine Corps Ball: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay5TIWhgWKc
* * *
November 11th in History:
308 – At Carnuntum, Emperor emeritus Diocletian confers with Galerius, Augustus of the East, and Maximianus, the recently returned former Augustus of the West, in an attempt to restore order to the Roman Empire.
1100 – Henry I of England marries Matilda of Scotland, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland.
1215 – The Fourth Lateran Council meets, defining the doctrine of transubstantiation, the process by which bread and wine are, by that doctrine, said to transform into the body and blood of Christ.
1500 – Treaty of Granada – Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon agree to divide the Kingdom of Naples between them.
1620 – The Mayflower Compact is signed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod.
1634 – Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery.
1673 – Second Battle of Khotyn in Ukraine: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth forces under the command of Jan Sobieski defeat the Ottoman army. In this battle, rockets made by Kazimierz Siemienowicz are successfully used.
1675 – Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x).
1724 – Joseph Blake, alias Blueskin, a highwayman known for attacking "Thief-Taker General" (and thief) Jonathan Wild at the Old Bailey, is hanged in London.
1750 – Riots break out in Lhasa after the murder of the Tibetan regent.
1750 – The F.H.C. Society, also known as the Flat Hat Club, is formed at Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia. It is the first college fraternity.
1778 – Cherry Valley Massacre: Loyalists and Seneca Indian forces attack a fort and village in eastern New York during the American Revolutionary War, killing more than forty civilians and soldiers.
1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Dürenstein – 8000 French troops attempt to slow the retreat of a vastly superior Russian and Austrian force.
1813 – War of 1812: Battle of Crysler's Farm – British and Canadian forces defeat a larger American force, causing the Americans to abandon their Saint Lawrence campaign.
1831 – In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.
1839 – The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
1864 – American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea – Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south.
1865 – Treaty of Sinchula is signed by which Bhutan cedes the areas east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company.
1869 – The Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act is enacted in Australia, giving the government control of indigenous people's wages, their terms of employment, where they could live, and of their children, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations.
1880 – Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol.
1887 – Anarchist Haymarket Martyrs August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel are executed.
1887 – Construction of the Manchester Ship Canal begins at Eastham.
1889 – The State of Washington is admitted as the 42nd State of the United States.
1911 – Many cities in the Midwestern United States break their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through.
1918 – World War I: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France. The fighting officially ends at 11:00 a.m., (the eleventh hour in the eleventh month on the eleventh day) and this is annually honoured with a two-minute silence. The war officially ends on the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28th June, 1919.
1918 – Józef Piłsudski assumes supreme military power in Poland - symbolic first day of Polish independence.
1918 – Emperor Charles I of Austria relinquishes power.
1919 – The Centralia Massacre in Centralia, Washington results the deaths of four members of the American Legion and the lynching of a local leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.
1919 – Lāčplēša day – Latvian forces defeat the Freikorps at Riga in the Latvian War of Independence.
1921 – The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by US President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery.
1926 – The United States Numbered Highway System, including U.S. Route 66, is established.
1930 – Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.
1934 – The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia is opened.
1940 – World War II: Battle of Taranto – The Royal Navy launches the first aircraft carrier strike in history, on the Italian fleet at Taranto.
1940 – The German cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail, and sends it to Japan.
1940 – Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in the U.S. Midwest.
1942 – World War II: Nazi Germany completes its occupation of France.
1944 – Dr. jur. Erich Göstl, a member of the Waffen SS, is presented with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, to recognise extreme battlefield bravery, after losing his face and eyes during the Battle of Normandy.
1960 – A military coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam is crushed.
1961 – Thirteen Italian Air Force servicemen, deployed to the Congo as a part of the UN peacekeeping force are massacred by a mob in the course of the Kindu atrocity.
1962 – Kuwait's National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait.
1965 – In Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), the white-minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declares independence.
1966 – NASA launches Gemini 12.
1967 – Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to "new left" antiwar activist Tom Hayden.
1968 – Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal is to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.
1968 – A second republic is declared in the Maldives.
1972 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.
1975 – Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam, appoints Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and announces a general election to be held in early December.
1975 – Independence of Angola.
1981 – Antigua and Barbuda joins the United Nations.
1992 – The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.
1993 – A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C..
1999 – The House of Lords Act is given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
2000 – Kaprun disaster: 155 skiers and snowboarders die when a cable car catches fire in an alpine tunnel in Kaprun, Austria.
2001 – Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in.
2004 – New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington
Famous Folk Born on November 11th:
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Viktor Emmanuel II of Italy
General George S. Patton (famous slapper of enlisted soldiers)
Rabbit Maranville
Pat O'Brien
Sam Spiegel
Alger Hiss
Robert Ryan
Kurt Vonnegut
Jonathan Winters
Denise Alexander
Barbara Boxer
Vincent Schiavelli
Vince Martell
Marc Summers
Marshall Crenshaw
Stanley Tucci
Demi Moore
Calista Flockhart
Alison Doody
David DeLuise
Adam Beach
Leonardo DiCaprio
Movie Quotes for today are from 1970's "Patton" since today is the birthdate of George S. Patton himself:
[Outmaneuvering Rommel]
Patton: [referring to Rommel's book, 'Infantry Attacks' or 'Infanterie greift an'] Rommel... you magnificent bastard, *I read your book*!
#2
Patton: Thirty years from now, when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II," you won't have to say, "Well... I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
#3
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: What is this activity near Coulances?
General Alfred Jodl: Enemy armored forces driving through our defenses at Lessay.
[reading telegram]
General Alfred Jodl: "American tanks moving rapidly, slicing through to the rear areas."
Capt. Oskar Steiger: This sounds like Patton, Field Marshall.
General Alfred Jodl: Patton is in England.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: Do we know this?
General Alfred Jodl: The landing in Normandy is merely a diversionary maneuver. The real invasion will come at Calais and Patton will lead it. The Fuehrer says that the Fifteenth Army is not to be moved to Normandy.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: Those men are sitting on the beach at Calais throwing rocks at each other while our men are being slaughtered in Normandy.
General Alfred Jodl: [firmly] The Fifteenth Army is waiting for Patton at Calais and he will land there.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: You seem perfectly willing to accept this nonsense, Jodl. Why?
General Alfred Jodl: [chuckles] Because I am not prepared to dispute the Fuehrer.
#4
Clergyman: I was interested to see a Bible by your bed. You actually find time to read it?
Patton: I sure do. Every goddamn day.
On November 11th of 1981, the Allies and Germany signed an armistice at 5:00 a.m., Paris time. It took effect six hours later, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. This ended the fighting although the war was not formally ended for another six months, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. That was in June of 1919. That November, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11th as Armistice Day. He said, "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."
26 years later, after World War II had ended, a U.S. veteran of that conflict suggested that the holiday (which had become a legal holiday by act of Congress in 1938) be expanded to honor veterans of all conflicts, not just World War I. In 1954, Congress passed two acts, one expanding the holiday to honor all veterans and the other to rename it Veterans Day.
Then the Congress screwed things up. They passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act and moved Veterans Day (along with Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Washington's Birthday) to designated Mondays. FYI, the official federal holiday in February remains Washington's Birthday, although most now refer to it as Presidents Day.
I am bothered almost every year by the fact that members of our military are involved in armed conflicts on this day when the so-called "war to end all wars" saw the hostilities stop. In how many places are U.S. military personnel directly in harm's way due to our involvement in some kind of conflict? The answer is too many.
I am proud that my nation, our nation, is sending U.S. military personnel to the Philippines for a much more noble purpose, to provide humanitarian relief in a time of crisis.
* * *
Speaking of Super Typhoon Haiyan, once again I'm hearing people say that this gigantic storm is yet more proof of the problem of climate change. I don't deny that climate change has taken place and continues to occur. I do deny that there is a causal connection between climate change and the large tropical cyclones that the planet has experienced in the past few years.
Look at the data in this graph and the statements of fact below it: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/accumulated_cyclone_energy.asp?basin=gl&MR=1
This is from a website whose creators post that climate change is occurring and a problem that needs to be dealt with. Yet this one statement of fact leaps off of the page: "There is no evidence of a systematic increasing or decreasing trend in ACE for the years 1970-2012."
Climate change is a serious problem and the governments of the world need to get busy working on solutions. But the attempt to create hysteria by claiming that climate change is why there are big storms is just silly and should be stopped.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
It would be easier to understand Larry Flynt's desire to see the man who put him into a wheelchair for life escape the death penalty if Flynt would stop talking about how he would like to get the man alone for an hour with a pair of pliers and some wire-cutters.
It is very cool that all those people turned out for the funeral of the 99 year old British veteran of WWII who had no close family to attend the service.
I don't want to, but I will have to go out today to buy some new razor blades. I'm actually giving serious thought to skipping the free dinner stuff because I don't want to fight the crowds.
We may never know if that Montana woman deliberately pushed her newlywed husband over a cliff. But wouldn't divorce have cost a lot less in money and stress? Heck, they might have been able to get an annulment.
What kind of idiot thinks that his wife sending him a text that she consents to having a stun gun used on her is any kind of protection against being arrested? In fact, what kind of pair of idiots bet that the winner can use a stun gun on the loser?
This is a really neat story: http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/11/us/journey-purple-heart/index.html?hpt=hp_t5
David Ayer, writer/director of the excellent film "End of Watch" should have known better than to film a battle scene in Britain on Remembrance Sunday. All the apologies in the world don't undo what he did.
I think Warren Buffet is a genius, but he's wrong about not splitting the Class A shares of stock in Berkshire-Hathaway. At $175,000, it's the most illiquid issue trading publicly.
If women weren't taking the message of ABC News reporter Amy Robach's story about the importance of mammograms seriously before she did one on live TV, they better be now. The test revealed she has breast cancer and saved her life.
I admire WalMart for their pledge to hire any veteran who was honorably discharged within the last 12 months. I'd be a lot more impressed if they'd hire older veterans who served before 9/11 and who struggle finding employment.
I don't have a problem with Gonzaga University prohibiting students from having guns in their apartments as long as the university provides adequate protection to keep six-time felons out of their residential buildings.
Yes, this a Marine Corps Sergeant Major "break-dancing" at this year's Marine Corps Ball: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay5TIWhgWKc
* * *
November 11th in History:
308 – At Carnuntum, Emperor emeritus Diocletian confers with Galerius, Augustus of the East, and Maximianus, the recently returned former Augustus of the West, in an attempt to restore order to the Roman Empire.
1100 – Henry I of England marries Matilda of Scotland, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland.
1215 – The Fourth Lateran Council meets, defining the doctrine of transubstantiation, the process by which bread and wine are, by that doctrine, said to transform into the body and blood of Christ.
1500 – Treaty of Granada – Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon agree to divide the Kingdom of Naples between them.
1620 – The Mayflower Compact is signed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod.
1634 – Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery.
1673 – Second Battle of Khotyn in Ukraine: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth forces under the command of Jan Sobieski defeat the Ottoman army. In this battle, rockets made by Kazimierz Siemienowicz are successfully used.
1675 – Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x).
1724 – Joseph Blake, alias Blueskin, a highwayman known for attacking "Thief-Taker General" (and thief) Jonathan Wild at the Old Bailey, is hanged in London.
1750 – Riots break out in Lhasa after the murder of the Tibetan regent.
1750 – The F.H.C. Society, also known as the Flat Hat Club, is formed at Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia. It is the first college fraternity.
1778 – Cherry Valley Massacre: Loyalists and Seneca Indian forces attack a fort and village in eastern New York during the American Revolutionary War, killing more than forty civilians and soldiers.
1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Dürenstein – 8000 French troops attempt to slow the retreat of a vastly superior Russian and Austrian force.
1813 – War of 1812: Battle of Crysler's Farm – British and Canadian forces defeat a larger American force, causing the Americans to abandon their Saint Lawrence campaign.
1831 – In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.
1839 – The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
1864 – American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea – Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south.
1865 – Treaty of Sinchula is signed by which Bhutan cedes the areas east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company.
1869 – The Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act is enacted in Australia, giving the government control of indigenous people's wages, their terms of employment, where they could live, and of their children, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations.
1880 – Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol.
1887 – Anarchist Haymarket Martyrs August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel are executed.
1887 – Construction of the Manchester Ship Canal begins at Eastham.
1889 – The State of Washington is admitted as the 42nd State of the United States.
1911 – Many cities in the Midwestern United States break their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through.
1918 – World War I: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France. The fighting officially ends at 11:00 a.m., (the eleventh hour in the eleventh month on the eleventh day) and this is annually honoured with a two-minute silence. The war officially ends on the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28th June, 1919.
1918 – Józef Piłsudski assumes supreme military power in Poland - symbolic first day of Polish independence.
1918 – Emperor Charles I of Austria relinquishes power.
1919 – The Centralia Massacre in Centralia, Washington results the deaths of four members of the American Legion and the lynching of a local leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.
1919 – Lāčplēša day – Latvian forces defeat the Freikorps at Riga in the Latvian War of Independence.
1921 – The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by US President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery.
1926 – The United States Numbered Highway System, including U.S. Route 66, is established.
1930 – Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.
1934 – The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia is opened.
1940 – World War II: Battle of Taranto – The Royal Navy launches the first aircraft carrier strike in history, on the Italian fleet at Taranto.
1940 – The German cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail, and sends it to Japan.
1940 – Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in the U.S. Midwest.
1942 – World War II: Nazi Germany completes its occupation of France.
1944 – Dr. jur. Erich Göstl, a member of the Waffen SS, is presented with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, to recognise extreme battlefield bravery, after losing his face and eyes during the Battle of Normandy.
1960 – A military coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam is crushed.
1961 – Thirteen Italian Air Force servicemen, deployed to the Congo as a part of the UN peacekeeping force are massacred by a mob in the course of the Kindu atrocity.
1962 – Kuwait's National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait.
1965 – In Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), the white-minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declares independence.
1966 – NASA launches Gemini 12.
1967 – Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to "new left" antiwar activist Tom Hayden.
1968 – Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal is to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.
1968 – A second republic is declared in the Maldives.
1972 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.
1975 – Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam, appoints Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and announces a general election to be held in early December.
1975 – Independence of Angola.
1981 – Antigua and Barbuda joins the United Nations.
1992 – The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.
1993 – A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C..
1999 – The House of Lords Act is given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
2000 – Kaprun disaster: 155 skiers and snowboarders die when a cable car catches fire in an alpine tunnel in Kaprun, Austria.
2001 – Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in.
2004 – New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington
Famous Folk Born on November 11th:
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Viktor Emmanuel II of Italy
General George S. Patton (famous slapper of enlisted soldiers)
Rabbit Maranville
Pat O'Brien
Sam Spiegel
Alger Hiss
Robert Ryan
Kurt Vonnegut
Jonathan Winters
Denise Alexander
Barbara Boxer
Vincent Schiavelli
Vince Martell
Marc Summers
Marshall Crenshaw
Stanley Tucci
Demi Moore
Calista Flockhart
Alison Doody
David DeLuise
Adam Beach
Leonardo DiCaprio
Movie Quotes for today are from 1970's "Patton" since today is the birthdate of George S. Patton himself:
[Outmaneuvering Rommel]
Patton: [referring to Rommel's book, 'Infantry Attacks' or 'Infanterie greift an'] Rommel... you magnificent bastard, *I read your book*!
#2
Patton: Thirty years from now, when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II," you won't have to say, "Well... I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
#3
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: What is this activity near Coulances?
General Alfred Jodl: Enemy armored forces driving through our defenses at Lessay.
[reading telegram]
General Alfred Jodl: "American tanks moving rapidly, slicing through to the rear areas."
Capt. Oskar Steiger: This sounds like Patton, Field Marshall.
General Alfred Jodl: Patton is in England.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: Do we know this?
General Alfred Jodl: The landing in Normandy is merely a diversionary maneuver. The real invasion will come at Calais and Patton will lead it. The Fuehrer says that the Fifteenth Army is not to be moved to Normandy.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: Those men are sitting on the beach at Calais throwing rocks at each other while our men are being slaughtered in Normandy.
General Alfred Jodl: [firmly] The Fifteenth Army is waiting for Patton at Calais and he will land there.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: You seem perfectly willing to accept this nonsense, Jodl. Why?
General Alfred Jodl: [chuckles] Because I am not prepared to dispute the Fuehrer.
#4
Clergyman: I was interested to see a Bible by your bed. You actually find time to read it?
Patton: I sure do. Every goddamn day.
posted by me at 4:36 PM
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