Why the Taliban hate women...

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Nov 12 13:10:49 PST 2001


Charles Jannuzi wrote:
>
> Certain waitresses would wear me out,
> getting me to bus their every table, big group tables, whole banquets,
> because they knew I could be trusted. I was trusted, and I was poor.
>

There is a great episode in Ford Maddox Ford's _Parade's End_ dealing with trench warfare. (Ford had been an infantry officer in France so it may be based on some actuality.) A division commander trained his division to move slowly and together in charges. Such movement has (had) a tendency to make the defenders tense, and they would pull too hard on the trigger. Thus in each attack this division's casualties were lower.

That's good.

The Division earned such a fine reputation that the upper command began to use it whenever possible in important attacks. Hence it was more continuously engaged in heavy combat and thus was being decimated at a higher rate than divisions with higher casualty rates.

That's bad.

Carrol



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