The Rifleman  

Having you ever been dissed by your friends?

Sure, you expect your enemies to be dismissive, but a dis from people you expect to be on your side has to be even more painful.

Likewise when you discover an instance of the US Army dissing its own heritage.

Dissing it thru ignorance, apathy, and laziness.

Ignorance, because no one could be bothered to take the effort to ascertain the facts (which is laziness) - and no one really cared, anyway (which is apathy).

Thus, you might - or might not - be surprised the military has dissed the boys at Lexington and Concord - in fact, all along Battle Road that April 19th.

It’s right there in the official “American Military History, 1607-1958″ - as you can tell, a history of some vintage, issued in July 1959, possibly at the early stages of the sinking ship we talk so much about. You can even argue the attitude of being willing to gratuitously diss the “boys of ‘75″ may have been a precursor to our current problems.

You never heard of this infamy, because no one cares, when the US Army disses its heritage. (And nowadays, might even approve!)

Here’s what Uncle Sam, in the form of the Department of the Army, had to say in 1959 about those founders - the men who started the ball rolling on creating a free nation:

“The fact that the [British] force was not wiped out was testimony to the poor marksmanship of farmers armed with muskets.” [33]

Now, coming from an Army fresh from the Korean War and WW2, where statistics showed it took 200,000 rounds to produce ONE enemy casualty, that’s a big one to swallow.

But it shows you how a historical fact can be viewed many ways: as an example of competence, and as the direct polar opposite - an example of incompetence.

The sloppy writer (and thinker - and American) author of “American Military History” could have taken time to fully acquaint himself with some military facts which, if he’d been there, on Battle Road, he would no doubt have taken into account readily - and willingly - as they are and were life-threatening.

Like the fact that in 1775 effective musket range and effective bayonet range were pretty much one and the same.

In the 15 seconds it takes to reload a shot fired at 65 yards - considered max effective range of a musket on an individual target - redcoats could be all over you with 16″ steel bayonets - not something you’d be likely to walk away from.

So you do the smart thing - not only take shelter from musket fire behind trees and stone walls - but hang out beyond max effective range, and rely (in what is to become the future policy of the Army) on volume of fire.

Not unaimed fire. Not wasted fire.

Yet not fire with 100% hit probability, but fire with possibly a 10% hit probability.

Because it’s better to fire ten shots to get one hit, and survive, than to fire one shot and get a hit, only to be bayonetted to death.

In the first case, you could wind up firing 30 rounds, and getting three hits; in the second, after that first hit, there are no more.

Failing to understand, to even care about understanding, to not even care about getting the story “right” must rank right up there with monumental incredible doofishness (can the Department of the Army be “doofish”? - I guess, in this case, maybe they can…).

Certainly you can say: Here is ignorance at work.

Here is laziness at work.

Here is apathy at work.

Worse, here is lack of respect for brave men at work.

Here is lack of respect for the heritage at work. Here is a willingness to think the worse, without the caring to make sure, at least, that you’re right.

Careless dismissal of guys whose shoes you are not fit to shine.

We’re told after careful historical research by other historians that about 4000 of our guys got close enough to the British to fire at least one shot that day.

I don’t know of any research which would tally up the round count of the number of shots we fired, but you can say a ballpark figure might be 20,000 (on the lower side) to 40,000 (on the higher side).

Yes, in absolute terms, firing 20-40,000 shots to get 273 British casualties would not be that impressive.

Yet for most of the day, it’s likely the redcoat column outnumbered the actual patriots who were attacking them.

And the proof of the value of that ‘hang back’ strategy would be the casualties of our side - less than one-third of the Brits.

Inflicting three times the casualties, when attacking a superior force? Pretty good performance, if you ask me. Pretty good performance, then. Pretty good performance, today.

Particularly since if we got out a time machine, and sent the US Army of today back to 1775, they’d expend 500-plus million rounds to accomplish the same - if current standard rates of ammo expenditure hold on the trip back. It would take a pretty big time machine to carry all that ammo back to 1775 - and how many men would it take to fire all that ammo to get those 273 British casualties?

Well, if you figure each man firing 1,000 rounds that day (a preposterous figure, way too high - but sure makes doing the math easier… ), then you’d have to send 500,000 men back to do the job that approximately 4000 of our founders did.

The fact is that our side could have “wiped out” the British force that day.

But it was not marksmanship which prevented it.

It was a failure to quickly understand the key to defeating the British column was to stop it, to halt it, to keep it from getting back to the safety of Boston.

To pin it down, then to hack it to death with well-aimed musket fire.

So, we do not read of any roadblocks, barriers, obstacles put in the British way (altho the planks were pulled up from the bridge along the direct route to Boston - but Percy avoided the issue with his surprise decision to head for Charleston - a decision made in anticipation of the bridge being disabled, and in the knowledge that to let his column be stopped was to see his column defeated).

Failure to stop the column meant we didn’t have the time to wear them down, and force them to surrender (altho the possibility of surrender was on Lord Percy’s mind - if they didn’t make it back to Boston before sunset, surrender was, in his mind, a distinct prospect).

However, I’d cut our guys just a bit of historical slack.

First, it was the first day of a sudden, unexpected war - the Pearl Harbor of its day.

For being suddenly thrust from peace to war, our guys (you can argue) did a better job that day than on any other day we’ve found ourselves in an unexpected war.

Second, our Gen Heath was working on limited data, with limited control - he was limited to horseback messengers, meaning fast decisions would have been hard to implement.

Third, while our guys had been training in companies, I’m not aware of any training in groupings above companies - I’m not aware of any training at regimental level.

In other words, actions taken in the fall of 1774 to ramp up defensive measures against the Crown had resulted in some very well-trained people (1700 Brits do NOT run back to Boston, without a very good reason!), in some well-trained companies - but any action taken at regimental level would have been ‘making it up on the run’ on April 19th. Not surprising things were not done ‘perfect’ that day.

Yet one wonders why road blocks were not considered.

I suggest the reason may have been our guys, as aggressive as they were, were still in a defensive peacetime mode of thinking. They wanted to throw the Brits out, to chase them back to Boston. They were not thinking of a grander strategy of capturing the entire British column.

Of course, none of those speculations affect the thrust of my complaint here.

Dissing the past is shameful.

Dissing people who can’t defend themselves, and their reputations, is shameful.

Dissing people unjustly is shameful.

It should not be done. Not without a careful examination of the facts carried out with energy (not laziness) and caring to get them straight (not apathy). The result would have been knowledge (not ignorance) - and with knowledge, comes understanding - which should be the prime rationale for studying the past - to understand, so you can repeat the good, and not repeat the mistakes.

Were the author of the passage around today, a good riding of the rails preceded by some tar and a few feathers might have a wonderful impact on driving that lesson home.

But this being an official “Headquarters, Department of the Army” publication, no author is mentioned, so he becomes a part of the annonymous past, and simply another American foolish enough to dis the past. His own past; his own heritage.

The preface to the history - again, annoymous - begins “the United States Army is an honored institution.” Yes, it is, but one sentence in this history of the US Army dishonors the past and besmirches the institution.

I wish it weren’t there. Maybe even you wish it weren’t there.

But it is there, and it will remain there.

A testimony to what is wrong with this country, rolled up in one sentence of casual dismissal of a proud heritage second to none.

Someone - the person who wrote that sentence - thought he was smarter than history - and superior to his ancestors - when neither is true.