Category: Well I thought it was neat!

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Well I thought it was funny! Well I thought it was neat! You have to be kidding, right!?!

“I’ll be drinking champagne in the master suite at Shepheard’s soon,”

The cocktail that beat the Nazis in Egypt

ByBlake Stilwell
World War II photo

When considering the origins of legendary cocktails, it’s doubtful that Egypt is the first place to spring into anyone’s mind. Like many culinary innovations made during World War II, “The Suffering Bastard” is a concoction birthed from a world of limited supplies in which everyone had to make do with whatever they could get their hands on – and it shows.

The Suffering Bastard is a legendary beverage, created by a legendary barman, in time and place where new legends were born every day. The unlikely mixture is said to have turned the tides of the war against Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps in Egypt. True or not, it succeeded in its original mission: curing the hangovers of British troops so they could push Rommel back to Tunisia.

In 1941, World War II was not going well for the British Empire. Even though the previous year saw British and Imperial troops capture more than 100,000 Italian Axis troops in North Africa, Hitler soon sent in his vaunted Afrika Corps to bolster Axis forces in the region.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel with staff in North Africa, 1942. (Bundeswehr Archives)
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel with staff in North Africa, 1942. (Bundeswehr Archives)

 

Up against crack German troops led by capable tank strategist and Field Marshal, Erwin Rommel, the British experienced a number of defeats in the early months of 1941. They were pushed out of Libya and the lines were within 150 miles of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. His goal was to capture the Suez Canal and cut the British Empire in two.

During the Battle of El-Alamein, Rommel was quoted as saying “I’ll be drinking champagne in the master suite at Shepheard’s soon,” referring to the world-famous Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. Inside the hotel was the well-known Long Bar and behind that bar was bartender, Joe Scialom, whose stories could rival anyone’s, from Ernest Hemingway to Ian Fleming.

Scialom behind the Long Bar in Cairo's Shepheard's Hotel.
Scialom behind the Long Bar in Cairo’s Shepheard’s Hotel.

 

Scialom was a Jewish Egyptian with Italian roots. Born in Egypt, he was a trained chemist who worked in Sudan in his formative years but soon found he enjoyed applying the principles of chemistry to making drinks. The chemist-turned-barman who spoke eight languages would eventually travel the world over, to Cairo, Havana, London, Paris, Rome, Istanbul, and Manhattan, drinking alongside folks like Winston Churchill and Conrad Hilton. Much of that would come later, however. In 1941, he was the barkeep at the Long Bar and he was faced with a unique problem.

The war made it very difficult to get good liquor in Egypt. British officers resorted to drinking liquor that wasn’t made of such high quality and soon began complaining about terrible hangovers. In an effort to do his part for the British, Scialom set out to make a drink that would give them the effect they wanted while curing their inevitable hangovers. He used an unlikely combination of bourbon and gin along with added lime, ginger ale, and bitters to create a drink that did the job perfectly.

Many variations on the original recipe exist, to include ingredients like pineapple syrup and rum, but the original Suffering Bastard used bourbon and gin as its base.

The Recipe:

  • Equal parts Bourbon, Gin, and Lime Juice
  • A dash of Angostura bitters
  • Top off with ginger beer

His creation was so successful in fact, in 1942, he received a telegram from the British front lines asking for eight gallons of the cocktail to be brought to the front at El-Alamein. Scialom filled any container he could find with Suffering Bastard and shipped it off to the war.

The first Battle of El Alamein in 1942 resulted in a stalemate. The Axis supply lines from Libya were stretched out to their breaking point and Rommel could not press on to Alexandria. Before the second Battle of El Alamein, the ranking British general, Claude Auchinleck, was replaced. His spot eventually taken by one General Bernard Montgomery. The next time the two sides met at El Alamein, Montgomery was in command and British hangovers were a thing of the past. Monty and the British Empire troops turned Rommel away and pushed him westward toward an eventual defeat.

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Gear & Stuff Well I thought it was neat!

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“Aw shucks Well I thought it was funny! Well I thought it was neat!

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All About Guns Well I thought it was neat!

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Well I thought it was neat!

THE AMERICAN BOY’S HANDY BOOK A BASIC GUIDE FOR TRANSFORMING RAMBUNCTIOUS BOYS INTO PRODUCTIVE MEN WRITTEN BY WILL DABBS, MD

Young boys are little more than savages. To presume otherwise is to fight against our very natures.
Focusing that excess energy into things positive and productive is high art. D.C. Beard wrote an
extraordinary manual on the subject in the late 19th century.

 

What exactly is wrong with America today? Rivers of ink have been spilt investigating that one simple question. The basic conundrum of what brought us as a nation from an unprecedented position of prestige and power to our current sordid state has vexed our generation. However, I think I may have serendipitously tripped over the answer buried in an antiquated tome first published in 1882 and directed towards children. I think the United States of America simply ran out of men.

We didn’t lose them in battle or to some dire disease. We simply ceased their production. We had and still have all the raw material we need to regain our former glory; it seems we simply lack the means of refining our unwashed boys into the sorts of men we require to prevail in the global arena.

Daniel Carter Beard was born in 1850 and founded the group the Sons of Daniel Boone that went on to become the Boy Scouts of America. Beard was an artist and writer from a family of artists and grew up in rural New York with a passion for nature and the wilderness. He codified this enthusiasm into a series of articles written for St. Nicholas Magazine eventually compiled to form The American Boy’s Handy Book. D.C. Beard earned his Eagle Scout award at age 63. To read his book is to step back into another time.

The young boys described in Beard’s Handy Book so differ from our current variety as to seem a disparate species. The foreword states that prior to 1915 adults viewed boyhood as a state of near savagery. Boys were expected to have more in common with their dogs than with typical adults and society managed them accordingly. The sorts of rapscallion young boys depicted in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn were drawn from copious examples of the real thing rather than being the products of Mark Twain’s vivid imagination. In those days there was no Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in need of aggressive medical treatment. There was simply natural boyhood and the cure was the outdoors.

 

 

Here we see the American boy, ably represented by Wyatt Dabbs, in his natural habitat. The American Boy’s Handy
Book teaches a myriad of useful survival skills. Most modern readers will be shocked to find the resourcefulness,
initiative, and depth of reason expected of boys a century ago. A degree of comfort around unvarnished nature will
tend to put more modern problems in perspective. The capacity to survive and thrive in austere environments was an
expected skill of our young forebears of years past. Young children are capable of a great deal more than we typically
expect of them these days.

Wyatt and Wood Dabbs are able fishermen. A young boy’s tolerance for hardship in the pursuit
of something fun is frequently and grossly underestimated.

By Way of Example

 

The book begins with a fairly extensive discourse on the building of kites. The procurement of the materials required for their construction is reviewed as well. Young boys of this age did not run to Walmart when they needed such staples as glue. They cooked it up themselves from materials readily available on the typical rural farm. After the obligatory section describing how to design and build your kite, however, the next segment is devoted to weaponizing these designs.

Kites were not intended for pleasant afternoons at the park in D.C. Beard’s day. Kites were war machines designed and optimized solely for the destruction of enemy craft. Beard describes unarmed kite fighting as the sort wherein both kites might reasonably expect to survive to fight another day. Beard’s prose describes this as akin to jousting and a scant page is devoted to the basic rules governing this pursuit. The preponderance of the section, however, is used to describe the armed sort. Beard describes such engagements as “mortal combat wherein but one survives.”

Techniques for designing and procuring appropriately lethal kite-fighting tools are discussed in detail. Broken glass is the most common source and basic techniques for breaking bottles in search of adequately lethal shards are discussed. There is but a single line disclaimer regarding the potential for cuts and injury.

Designs for snow forts are explored, as are the rules for snowball combat. Little boys are feral in their native state and their natural warrior bent was nurtured in Beard’s day. Back then the inevitable tendency of all normal young men towards violence was recognized, accepted, and appropriately channeled.

Six different techniques for fishing are outlined in detail, as is the making of tackle from scratch. One particular sort of remote fishing is designed around the unconventional application of a percussion-fired pistol, apparently such handguns being readily available to 8-year-olds in Beard’s day. The general tone of the book is one of focusing a boy’s near limitless reserves of energy into tasks at once both creative and destructive. In so doing our nation indeed produced men.

The book is divided into seasons with tasks and pursuits designed to keep a young boy occupied regardless of the weather or climate. Techniques for building an aquarium to hold fish are included alongside instruction on how to trap animals, live off the land and practice taxidermy. The book teaches how to raise wild birds ranging in size from diminutive hummingbirds up through wrens and starlings all the way to large raptors like hawks and owls.

The ideal camping party is four, states Beard, and these four 8- to 10-year-olds are expected to build their own shelter, catch and cook their food, and thrive otherwise alone in the wilderness for a week or more at a time. Techniques for tying knots as well as building blowguns, fish spears, bird bolas, crossbows and boomerangs are included. Building hot air balloons for use celebrating Independence Day is suggested as is the construction of home made fireworks. Fuse is available in most any town, according to the book, as “miners need it to set off blasts.” If Roman Candles are available they should be cut open and the contents used to construct ever more impressive displays. The subordinate balls may be carried aloft via balloons or arranged on wires to spin when ignited.

The Boy’s Handy Book covers the manufacture of boats of a variety of sorts for most any application. Simple rafts are adequate for modest nautical pursuits. Model sailboats and how to sail them successfully consumes a fair number of pages. More advanced full-sized designs incorporate weatherproof cabins and hulls adequate for hard use. All of these projects are proposed to be within the capabilities of the typical group of off-duty boys equipped with a minimum of hand tools.

Improvised stoves compliment thatched huts or lean-to shelters sufficient to keep a group of boys both warm and dry in the wilderness. The construction of ice fishing shacks is discussed and an entire chapter is devoted to the construction of winged devices designed to accelerate young boys to dangerous velocities when employed alongside a proper set of homebuilt ice skates. The various and sundry ways in which a boy might potentially get hurt are beyond counting. Apparently young men were more robust than is the case today.

When the weather was wretched, boys of Beard’s day could entertain themselves by building kaleidoscopes, whirl-a-gigs, and trappings for puppet shows. A simple bit of cardboard could be configured to blow smoke rings. An entire chapter is devoted to the art of masquerade and the improvisation of theatrical costumes. The rudiments of electricity are discussed, as is the technique for igniting an open gas flame using your finger after dragging your feet across a rug to build up a static charge.

 

 

While The American Boy’s Handy Book orbits around activities for young males, much of its content
can make for healthier young ladies as well. Here we see my favorite gun photographer in her younger
years as she grew up on our rural farm.

Beset By Melancholia

 

The American Boy’s Handy Book is a delightful read regardless of your station, comportment or gender. The pursuits described therein are thought provoking in their very nature and most fascinating when viewed through an historical lens. After having read the book, however, I found myself in the throes of a mighty gloom.

This is the fertile ground from which we bloomed. Those magnificent revolutionaries who threw the British out of North America were the products of a world wherein boys were expected to show initiative and resourcefulness to keep themselves alive in the wilderness as needed. Those old heroes who won World War II came up in a world much like the one described in the Handy Book. In today’s age it can be a legitimate accomplishment simply to cajole a young boy to take out the trash. The excessive energy expected to be channeled into creative manual pursuits a century ago is typically medicated into submission today.

As a nation we stand on the shoulders of giants whose exploits are related indirectly in delightful detail in the Boy’s Handy Book. In a world wherein more than 1/3 of kids less than 19 are either overweight or obese the coming tsunami of lifestyle induced diseases like diabetes promises to overwhelm us. However, the solution surrounds us all. We sit afloat a drinkable sea yet die parched for lack of initiative.

Our young people need to get outside and our adults need to chill out a little bit. I am a physician and I see kids who get hurt with some regularity. Bones heal and cuts can be stitched but the human animal remains remarkably robust. The capacity of the small human male to prevail in the face of adversity is grossly underestimated in today’s society. It seems to me the solution to most of our ills is simply to let him go outside to run around a bit more. The American Boy’s Handy Book will show you how to do it properly.

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Art Well I thought it was neat!

Flat Ears = Angry

Both are soon to be replaced by the car and car mechanic! Grumpy

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Well I thought it was funny! Well I thought it was neat!

RUBBER BAND ATTACK WRITTEN BY WILL DABBS, MD

I was never the biggest, fastest, or best-looking kid as I ineptly clawed my way from kindergarten through puberty. However, I have always had a gift for weapons. For a sixth grader coming of age in the Mississippi Delta in 1976, that was a marketable skill.

This ghastly tale begins at church. One of my dad’s deacon duties at Oakhurst Baptist Church in Clarksdale, Mississippi, was counting the money after each week’s collection. He and another couple of guys would tally the folding money and checks. I was responsible for counting the silver. There was just so much damage I could do with that. However, that did give me unfettered access to a wide selection of rubber bands in the counting room.

Just like assault rifles, fighter planes, and attack submarines, my weapons evolved over time. Eventually, I found the optimal balance between propellant and payload. It took a great deal of experimentation to get there.

This may look like common office kit. However, in young irresponsible
hands these simple rubber bands can become weapons of mass destruction.

Tactical Details

The energy came in the form of a pair of substantial rubber bands looped together in the middle. One loop went over the thumb and the other over the forefinger of my left hand. The knot between the two reliably established the midpoint.

The ultimate projectile began as about one-third sheet of notebook paper split up and down. I coated one side with a thin film of Elmer’s glue and folded it on itself. Once that set, I repeated the exercise. After a few iterations, I had a strip of glue-laminated paper about the width of a cigarette. I then flattened it between two books and folded it in the middle.

With this as a foundation, I discreetly made a puddle of glue on the floor of my sixth-grade classroom underneath my desk and balanced the thing vertex down with the legs pointing up. Once that set, I peeled it up and teased the extra glue away until it left a hard nubbin on the end. Terminal performance was, shall we say, formidable.

I’m not kidding, that bad boy would dent sheetrock. I have no idea where my teachers were this whole time. Just imagine what I might have accomplished had I focused all that energy on something more productive.

Regardless, after the first recess, every little boy in my sixth-grade class had to have a DIY death machine of his own. The following Sunday, I pilfered enough of the Lord’s rubber bands to arm the male half of the class. Our little grade school suddenly became considerably pricklier.

This is what Tom thought popped him behind his right ear.
Reality was something altogether different

The Event

We’ll call the two kids in question Tom and Bill. These were obviously not their real names. Tom was a pleasant enough bloke, but he always seemed just a little bit stoned. Bill was a hoodlum, but he was a likable hoodlum. Tom sat about midway back in a particular row in Mrs. Flowers’ sixth-grade classroom. Bill occupied the desk behind him. I sat behind Bill. As it was hot and air conditioning was expensive, the windows stood open.

Mrs. Flowers was reading us something, Charlotte’s Web, I think. Such maudlin prose was inadequate to keep us evil little boys exactly riveted. As a result, Bill entertained himself by exercising his rubber band weapon.

Bill oriented his left hand behind Tom’s head and stretched the contraption to its full length with his right. All the while, he used Tom’s melon as cover, so Mrs. Flowers remained blissfully unaware. I could not help but watch. It was like being privy to a slow-motion car crash. What came next was tragically predictable.

Perhaps his hand was sweaty. Maybe Bill was just clumsy. We have already established that he had epically poor judgment. For whatever reason, Bill’s projectile slipped out of his fingers. It then promptly accelerated to around 5,000 feet per second before catching Tom in the little pocket behind his right ear with the force of a 20mm cannon round.

Tom suddenly stood bolt upright and unleashed an absolutely inhuman shriek. Bill took advantage of the chaos to stash his rubber band in his pocket. The projectile likely glanced off of Tom’s skull, punched through the ceiling, and is currently orbiting Uranus. Mrs. Flowers was, shall we say, discomfited. Tom then collapsed into a ball on the floor and appeared to have some kind of seizure.

Mrs. Flowers was at Tom’s side in an instant, attempting to render aid and comfort. After a couple of minutes, Tom regained the capacity to speak. Mrs. Flowers asked him what in heaven’s name was the matter. She had likely never before seen a sixth-grade boy so moved by Charlotte’s Web. Between sobs, Tom explained that a wasp had stung him unexpectedly behind his right ear. As the window was standing open, this explanation was sufficiently plausible to deflect further investigation.

Tom recovered, sort of, in about half an hour. Charlotte’s Web was irretrievably ruined for the day. As I was the only one who actually saw Bill’s accidental discharge, no one was the wiser. It has been some 47 years, and precious Mrs. Flowers has since died, so I suspect the statute of limitations has expired. Tom, if you’re out there, I sincerely hope you’ve had a good life, bro. I’m sorry Bill nearly killed you with an improvised weapon of my own design.

 

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Soldiering War Well I thought it was neat!

Leave No Man Behind- Implications, Criticisms, and Rationale by Charles Bausman

“Leave No Man Behind” is a creed and ethos often repeated and adhered to by various units and soldiers. The interpretation of the phrase is applied to the treatment and extraction of the seriously wounded, the recovery of the body of military members killed in action, and the attempts to rescue or trade for prisoners of war.

Despite being widely known and repeated in the U.S. Military, “leave no man behind” is not represented in any official military doctrine or publication. It is a culture of the armed services, which carries significant risk.

A recent article reported the Air Force’s recommended upgrade of Tech. Sergeant John Chapman’s Air Force Cross to the Medal of Honor for his actions during Operation Anaconda, an attempt to rescue Neil Roberts, a SEAL who had fallen from a helicopter after being struck by enemy fire.

The article highlights the decision of a Navy SEAL Chief, serving as the leader of the team that Sergeant Chapman was supporting, to withdraw from the mountain top position while under heavy enemy fire. The Chief believed that Sergeant Chapman had been killed, and made the decision to withdraw his team, which already had multiple wounded members.

The basis for this upgrade is drone imagery, improved by new technology to show a clearer feed of the actions occurring on the ground. The Air Force reports that Sergeant Chapman, despite being left behind and seriously wounded, can be seen continuing to provide suppressive fires for a helicopter attempting to insert a quick reaction force of Rangers, as well as engaging in close quarters combat with Al Qaeda fighters before ultimately being killed in action.

In total, seven troops were killed in this engagement, now referred to as the Battle of Roberts Ridge. Much of the criticism of this decision revolves around the principle of “leave no man behind.” Should troops go to such lengths to rescue fallen comrades, pulling additional resources and risking additional casualties?

The X’s and O’s Perspective – Rescue Mission with Strategic Implications

“Leave No Man Behind” is not based on the tactical necessity to recover the wounded or missing. It is a dangerous task to those troops undertaking it, potentially exposing themselves to ambush from an enemy who understands our cultural necessity to recover a comrade.

Once that soldier is wounded or missing, he is no longer an asset to accomplishing a mission. In fact, he or she is a significant hindrance that takes combat power away from mission. Even more so, the decision to conduct a rescue or recovery mission can change policy and the face of a conflict.

There are numerous examples of the dangers associated in following “Leave No Man Behind.”

The Battle of Mogadishu is a well-known engagement, in which a Task Force was directed to capture an associate of the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The shoot down of a task force helicopter and ensuing recovery efforts led to the death of eighteen U.S. soldiers, seventy-three wounded, and the capture of Warrant Officer Michael Durant following the crash landing of his helicopter.  The loss of life led to a policy change by the Clinton administration and the ultimate withdrawal of U.S. forces in Somalia.

In 1972, Captain Roger Locher was shot down over North Vietnamese territory during a major aerial operation to slow the transport of North Vietnamese Army troops and supplies into the south. Captain Locher was able to escape and evade capture for twenty-three days despite being far behind enemy lines.

All units under the command of General John Vogt were ordered to stop operations (to include major bombing campaigns of Hanoi,) and focus on the rescue effort. Captain Locher was successfully recovered, after approximately 150 U.S. aircraft were redirected to find and rescue him

From a foreign military perspective, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) once utilized the “Hannibal Directive” as a policy for units and commanders when IDF soldiers have been captured or abducted.  It consisted of a massive procedure to bomb all possible escape routes, assuming the risk of killing the abducted soldier. Reports of the use of “Hannibal Directive” are controversial due to the high probability of collateral damage and IDF assumption that a soldier should rather be killed than captured.

The last use of the directive is reported during the 2014 Israeli-Gaza incursion, when Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was believed to be captured, pulled into a Hamas tunnel system in the Gaza Strip. The use of the directive was criticized by the Israeli public and international community, and was heavily publicized by media outlets.

The implications of these examples have been significant in foreign policy (Somalia), operational objectives (aborted Hanoi bombing strike), and media coverage (Hannibal Directive) leading to public criticism.  They all stem from the reallocation of combat forces to aid in the rescue or recovery of personnel, despite the costs, under the culture of no man left behind.

Why It Matters

It is important to note what “Leave No Man Behind” means to those in uniform.

While not captured in doctrine, there are few things more reassuring to a soldier about to enter combat that his brothers and sisters in arms would spare nothing in attempts to get him back. To the families of those fallen, the catharsis of being able to bury their own cannot be overstated or even understood by those who have not been in that sad and unfortunate position.

As found by a study by the U.S. Army War College,  “Combat Motivation in Today’s Soldiers,” the motivations have not changed in war over time. They fight for one another, built through the bond of shared misery, loyalty, and love. It is not surprising then that soldiers would go to such lengths to never leave a man behind, despite the risks and possible failure.

In the case of the Navy SEAL Chief who made the decision to withdraw after believing Sergeant Chapman had succumbed to his wounds, his decision should not be controversial or criticized. He made a decision in the heat of intense enemy fire, with the knowledge at hand.  Gaining a birds eye view from a drone feed can be a significant asset, but it is a shameful prospect to criticize when enabled through replayed footage taken from thousands of feet overhead, many years after.

Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the commander on what he is willing to risk to ensure no man is left behind. It is a heavy burden, and may not be worth the loss of others in terms of mission accomplishment. These are decisions made in seconds, and will not be perfect.  It is an unenviable position, and one he or she will undoubtedly debate for a lifetime. 

Sources:
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub179.pdf
http://archive.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/2006_0925-Wong_critique.pdf
www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA622819
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/hadar-goldin-hannibal-directive
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.608693
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1173/MR1173.chap2.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/world/asia/seal-team-6-afghanistan-man-left-for-dead.html?emc=edit_th_20160828&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=50217936&_r=0