Call My Bluff *head Butts Keyboard*

[Stosh 3452]

The General Grant National memorial (AKA "Grant's Tomb") contains the bodies of:

 

Hiram Ulysses Grant

Julia Dent Grant

 

So, how many people know the story behind why Hiram Ulysses Grant ended up Ulysses S. Grant?  

Edited June 6, 2015 by Stosh

[packsaddle 753]

....heavy sigh.........thinking......nevermind

[Stosh 3452]

....heavy sigh.........thinking......nevermind

 

What a buzz kill...

 

His name is Hiram Ulysses Grant.

 

Dad called him Ulysses because it sounded like Useless which as a boy he was quite lazy.  

 

Wasn't much as a farmer so his dad sought him an appointment at West Point through a family friend who was a senator from Ohio.  

 

Senator signed him up but knew him as Ulysses which the family called him and didn't have a middle name so he used Simpson which was his mother's maiden name.

 

When Hiram got to West Point there was no appointment in his name but they said if he wished to go to West Point he would need to change his name to that which was on the paperwork.  So he did.  He came really close to not taking he appointment, but at the last minute accepted the change in name.  

 

Who would have thought that the day he showed up to West Point things could have gone very differently for our country.

 

So it was kinda important...  

[Rick_in_CA 401]

@@Cambridgeskip, be thankful. Had you given the same test in the US you'd have gotten a much worse return.

 

"Baden-Powellwas in the army?"

 

"Isn't Mafeking Simba's father?"

 

"Isn't scouting for boys against the law?"

 

The US educational system leaves much to be desired.

Because most of history is NOT ON THE TEST. So why waste time on it?

 

Today is June 6th. 71 years ago the largest naval armada the world has ever seen, launched the largest amphibious operation in world history to begin the liberation of Europe from the Nazi yoke. How many of our young here in the states have any idea what any of it means? For far too many of our young, WW2 is something that happened in a movie. They have no idea of the whats and whys. Yet if you want to understand many parts of our modern world (The United Nations, UN Security Council, IMF, World Bank, NATO, the list goes on...) you must understand at least some basics about WW2. But it's not on the test, so...

Edited June 6, 2015 by Rick_in_CA

[TAHAWK 1420]

This story is as good as any other. The Registrar, knowing that Cadet Ulysses Grant HAD to have a middle name, assumed he was named for mother's father, Mr. Simpson, as was often the case in those days.  Grant, happy for an error that eliminated the hated Hiram, made no effort to correct the error.

[packsaddle 753]

Because most of history is NOT ON THE TEST. So why waste time on it?

 

WW2 is something that happened in a movie. They have no idea of the whats and whys.

Are there any WW2 veterans among the members of these forums? Does anyone in these forums have anything more than a 'movie' imagination of WW2, really? I suggest that if anyone wasn't IN that war, a 'movie' or some 'book-learned' idea of it is about all we can have.

[Rick_in_CA 401]

Are there any WW2 veterans among the members of these forums? Does anyone in these forums have anything more than a 'movie' imagination of WW2, really? I suggest that if anyone wasn't IN that war, a 'movie' or some 'book-learned' idea of it is about all we can have.

True, there are very few WW2 veterans left. And those that are left, are most are pretty old and not up to talking to groups. But even well written books can give the reader a valuable perspective on the events, or well done documentary films or TV series. The problem is that kids today aren't even asked to read those books, or see those films. Even when I was a child in school, WW2 was given short shrift in school. Basically we were lucky if the history classes got up to the civil war.

 

The passing of the WW2 generation is one of the things that pains me for the current generation growing up today. I can think of the encounters I had with veterans that had a big impact on me*.

 

*One of the ones that sticks in my mind was at a history convention called Celebrate History here in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was in 1998 (or 1999?). This was a convention with lots of history displays and presentations, with lots of emphases on WW2. I attended with a bunch of friends that were WW2 buffs like me. One of the highlights was a talk by Erich Topp, the German U-boat ace that torpedoed the USS Ruben James. The Ruben James was the first US warship sunk in WW2. It was sunk October 31, 1941, over a month before the Pearl Harbor attack. The official story (even the linked wikipedia article reflects this), by both sides is that the ship was torpedoed by accident. According to Erich Topp, he hit what he was aiming at. He fired at the Ruben James because it was in the middle of a depth charge run on his sub. The reason the official story is that of an accident, was that neither side wanted to officially bring the US into the war at that point. It is stuff like this that you can't get from a book, because the books usually reflect the official line.

 

Another memory from that convention: I was wandering around the exhibit hall, and came across a small crowd listening to three vets talk. One of the vets was finishing up a story (which I really wish I had been on time to hear) and turned to vet #2 and asked something like "what about you?" It was clear that the vets were really talking to each other, and allowing us to listen in. So vet #2 responded simply with "Taffy 3" (at the time I had never heard of the Battle off Samar, so I had no idea what "Taffy 3" meant).  At that point vet #3 said "My brother was at Taffy 3. He went down with the Sammy B". Vet #2 began to cry. He said "your brother is one of the reasons I'm alive". He then began to tell his story. He was a member of the gun crew for the 5" gun on one of the escort carriers (I think it was the USS White Plains, but it has been years and I might be remembering wrong). He describe seeing the cream of the Japanese battle fleet come over the horizon and thinking "this is it, we are going to be sunk in minutes". He described the towering splashes from the battleship guns as the ships tried to dodge, and the destroyers desperately laying a smoke screen. Then he choked up again as describing watching the destroyers turn away (including the Samuel B. Roberts, also known as the Sammy B.) and charging the Japanese battle line. I can still hear him say "We all knew they were going to get the holy living hell kicked out of them and they weren't coming back. But we thought, just maybe, they will buy us enough time so we can get go home". By the time he finished his story none of the vets (or any of us listeners) had dry eyes. Vet #3 started to talk about his brother, and I left because I was (very) late meeting up with a friend. It moments like this I hope our scouts can have some day. It's what can make war something other than a movie or video game for these kids (and adults). Something that as citizens, it is important to understand.

Edited June 7, 2015 by Rick_in_CA

[packsaddle 753]

Yes, I've had similar interactions over the years. Here's the thing though, there seems to be a contradiction in all this. Those great guys, my father, uncles, other family members...all fought that war, and others have fought other wars since then, for a variety of reasons but one thing they all have said when I've talked with them...they want theirs to be the last. They don't want their children or anyone else in the future to have to fight. They want 'better' lives for their successors.

And that's what we had after WW2. We did achieve pretty much what our parents identified as 'success' for us and for them as well.

The contradiction, maybe 'contradiction' is the wrong term, is that this level of separation from the 'knowledge' and 'reality' of what those soldiers and that generation did IS a predictible outcome of what they wanted for us.

My children have never had to practice 'duck and cover'. They never had the spectre of hospital wards full of iron lungs in their future. True, they have new things to worry about but is it really bad that they are almost completely ignorant of what it's like to grow up with the nearly immediate fear and threat of being vaporized?

 

I'm not disagreeing that history is a good thing to know. I guess what I'm saying is that if we're successful, it seems that everyone eventually will only have the historical records to go by, and not direct personal interaction.

[Gone 435]

Remember the history following "The Great War"? There was this feeling or euphoria and the youth from that generation was considered "useless". It took the depression and WWII to galvanize the generation.

 

Let's hope we won't need a war or massive economic collapse to forge this new generation.

[TAHAWK 1420]

Forgetting the rest of the world, as some do from time to time, U.S. military personnel have been involved in combat in at least fifty-one of my seventy-two years.  

[Cambridgeskip 658]

Interesting responses there...

 

Strangely in terms of teaching history there is often the complaint made here that it centers too much on the second world war. There is of course little doubt that the two world wars were without the doubt the biggest event in British history since the Norman invasion of 1066. The first world war caused the biggest social changes and the second the biggest geo political changes and it's impossible to understand the UK's place in the world without understanding them. It even affects our scouts. We went gliding last summer at an airfield that was established as a war time bomber base.

 

However many people often feel that lessor but nonetheless important parts of British history like the industrial revolution, the establishment of the empire, the English civil war the act of union aren't given sufficient emphasis.

 

I suspect every country has similar debates about the most important bits of history!

 

I do think it's important for kids to get some very basic grasp of scout history. The fact is that there are 40 million scouts across all but 5 or 6 countries on the planet. They are part of something massive and the opportunities to engage with scouts from across the world is almost endless. It goes well beyond their patrol or their troop. And that is an inspiring thought.

[TAHAWK 1420]

I love Scouting.  It was once a  - perhaps the - common adolescent male group activity.  

 

Times have changed.

 

40,000,000 seems like a large number.  It = .0057% of the world's population - 57/1,000 of 1%.  Nearly 4/100 of 1% of those who watched the last Word Cup.

 

I was in uniform to staff outdoor training on Saturday.  A lady in her late 30's or early 40's asked me if I was a park ranger - and no, I was not wearing a campaign hat. Her son told me later that he knew I was not a "cop" because I was not wearing "that big black belt" and a "gun."

 

Lots of upside.

[Cambridgeskip 658]

I love Scouting.  It was once a  - perhaps the - common adolescent male group activity.  

 

Times have changed.

 

40,000,000 seems like a large number.  It = .0057% of the world's population - 57/1,000 of 1%.  Nearly 4/100 of 1% of those who watched the last Word Cup.

 

I was in uniform to staff outdoor training on Saturday.  A lady in her late 30's or early 40's asked me if I was a park ranger - and no, I was not wearing a campaign hat. Her son told me later that he knew I was not a "cop" because I was not wearing "that big black belt" and a "gun."

 

Lots of upside.

 

In that context 40 million is a small number.

 

If you are 12 or 14 years old though it is still a huge number. It is a movement, numbers wise, that for many of us is the biggest thing we will ever be part of. That realisation that no matter where you go in the world you can find a friendly face and a warm welcome from your own kind is quite something.

 

I had the honour of taking scouts to the European Jamboree in 2005. 15000 scouts from 68 countries. I came back a different person.

[TAHAWK 1420]

I love to accompany Scouts to the international camporee in Dorchester, Canada.  For most of them, seeing 4-6,000 Scouts is a lifetime high.