Category: Battlefield Reports
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Gettysburg After Action Report – September 10, 2017
On my 39th visit to Gettysburg, my wife and I had the privilege of taking Aishwarya who is a software engineer and an aspiring poet (she goes by Ash for short). This was an emergency trip, as she is slated to move back to India in a month after living in the States for 5 years…
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If you visited Horseshoe Bend battlefield today
Sun Tzu tells us that if we put our troops “in the most desperate straits, they will have no fear,” and having “nowhere else to turn, they will stand firm” (9.37). Some interpretations indicate this means putting one’s back to a river, an unorthodox and typically disastrous move for armies throughout history. However, for the…
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Culloden Battlefield and Hallowed Ground
We Americans treat many of our battlefields as sacred and weep for the ones that are lost to development. Groups such as the Civil War Trust do a superb job organizing people and money to buy up ground, fight development, transfer land to the National Park Service, and do whatever is necessary to preserve battlefields…
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If you visited the Chalmette battlefield today…
Winston Churchill described the Battle of New Orleans (1815) as the “most irresponsible British onslaught” and “one of the most unintelligent maneuvers in the history of British warfare.” ((Winston S. Churchill, The Age of Revolution, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples 3 (Toronto: Bantan Books, 1957), 296, 297.)) The battle was a classic, horrific march…
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If you Visited Agincourt Today…
Clifford J. Rogers believes the Battle of Agincourt (1415) is “probably the most richly documented of all medieval battles,” but nothing beats visiting the actual battlefield. Here is what you can expect if you visited Agincourt today. The people of Agincourt do not hide the fact that tourists streaming through their town are there for…
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The Bastogne Mardasson Memorial
While in Luxembourg, a Belgian coworker harassed me, “You’re an American and you’ve never visited Bastogne?” It was true. I was visiting the Low Countries for the third time and I had zero plans to visit the famous town from the Battle of the Bulge. To redeem myself, I showed him a picture of the…
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Luxembourg’s Bourscheid Castle
On the way to Bastogne, I passed a sign pointing to a castle. I was feeling adventurous, so I went 10 miles out of my way to visit the Bourscheid Castle. It was well worth the detour. As you approach the castle, there is a superb spot for panoramic shots of the castle and valley.…
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Politician on the Warpath: Brian Schoeneman
Last Friday, I spent a day on the warpath with Brian Schoeneman, a candidate for Virginia House of Delegates in Fairfax, Virginia. We followed the steps of Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign (1862) and the crucial battles at South Mountain, Harpers Ferry, and Antietam. Although Brian has spent the past decade in politics, he is…
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The Gettysburg Casino: How Profits May Come at the Cost of the Sacred
On Labor Day, I made another visit to Gettysburg, my sixth of the year. I have found that the two-plus hour drive from Philadelphia has gotten easier, as leaving at 6:30 AM helps me avoid the traffic. For this trip, I brought a coworker and his fiancé. She was Canadian and knew very little about…