Infinite Wisdom

"Nella primavera si combatte e si muore, o soldato – In the Spring we fight and we die, O soldier!"

--	Mario Puccini, Italian soldier-poet, 1918

La Triviata

• The Spanish word "peon," which nowadays means "serf," was originally a term of honor, designating a foot soldier who had a feudal obligation to serve in return for land.


• During fleet maneuvers in 1886, French torpedo boats succeeded in "damaging" one "enemy" battleship, as well as "sinking" an ocean liner that had wandered into the maneuver area, not to mention their own mother ship as well, the latter two vessels "by mistake."


• On November 4, 1973, the Swiss 1st Dragoons gave up their horses, ending their unique distinction of having for many years been the last non-ceremonial European cavalry unit to serve mounted.


• By 1939 the U.S. Navy’s qualified aviation officers included one vice-admiral and three rear admirals, in contrast to the Royal Navy, which had just one rear admiral.


• During the American siege of Quebec in the winter of 1776-1777 the weather was so cold that one British sentry's eyelids reportedly froze shut.


• Executed by the Parthians after the Battle of Carrhae in 53 B.C., the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus was decapitated and his head subjected to many insults, including being used as a prop for Pentheus' head in a performance of Euripides' play ,The Bacchae, though King Orodes II did not pour molten gold down his late enemy's throat.


• During the first 15 years of the twentieth century the Federal government spent three times as much money on the National Guard – $60 million – as it had spent on the militia in the entire period from the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 through 1900


• Commenting on the quality of army coffee during the Mexican War, Pvt. Marcellus Edwards, of Company D, 1st Missouri Mounted Rifles, noted that it was invariably "made by cooks who had learned exactly how many grains it took to color a pint of water."

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