Comments for Patrick's Military History & History Blog

Comment on The Battle of Buena Vista, February 22-23, 1847 by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:27:48 +0000

George, that map is five years old and I put it together to show a rough approximation of where the units were at before the engagement. I got the information to position the units from several different text sources the one I relied on the most was Nathan Brooks. I eventually hope to to visit the battlefield myself because I think the site is probably relatively unchanged and the Mexican-American War is understudied. hat is years into the future though, in my opinion Mexico’s current situation is too unstable. I would appreciate any additional insights into the battle you would like to add though. Just email them to me at my contact email and I will post them giving you full attribution.

Comment on The Battle of Buena Vista, February 22-23, 1847 by GEORGE SALVESEN

GEORGE SALVESEN — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:33:32 +0000

have been here in saltillo and at the battle site at angostura for about six weeks.
trying to sort out some of the battle postions-locations from both sides.
your google site map is a great idea but could use some help with troop positioning and locations .
would be glad to help…

Comment on Historical Resources on the Web by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:16:15 +0000

Ah, OK. I misunderstood your comment then. Thanks for the clarification.

Comment on Historical Resources on the Web by Ken

Ken — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:48:07 +0000

Patrick, I wasn’t replying to you, I was replying to anonymous who seems to make the claim that studying war is the same as supporting it.

Comment on Historical Resources on the Web by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:11:47 +0000

Where do I say that studying a subject glorifies it?

Comment on Historical Resources on the Web by Ken

Ken — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:48:07 +0000

Your views on the study of warfare are oddly flawed. Just because someone studies a subject doen’t mean he or she is glorifying it. So should I never learn, blog, or write about Naziism because it would be glorifying it? That’s preposterous, but this is the argument you have laid out here. Besides, you cannot study history without studying warfare. How can you possibly learn about Greek history without having knowledge of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars? You can’t. It would be impossible to know anything about Greek culture without knowing anything about the wars they fought. Without studying war neither can you learn other topics such as International Relations, economics, or politics. People also study war in order to prevent it. Utopian idealism has no place in education, especially with history.

Comment on Dating Conventions by Alex

Alex — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:02:35 +0000

You know, I will let you in on some wonderful computer programs: it’s called TeX/LaTeX (pronounced “tech” or “la-tech”, respectively).

It lets you write “macros”, which is kinda like an abbreviation for writing.

In other words, you can write “In 410 \AD{}, Alaric sacked Rome.” You can use your personal preference, and in only a single line of code at the beginning of your document you write “\def\AD{AD}”…and if people object to this convention, you just change that single line to be “\def\AD{CE}” and the output changes.

Mathematicians and physicists use LaTeX because it lets us write funky mathematical formulas easily. The down side is that you get beautifully typeset pdfs (see, e.g., my notes on mathematical physics at http://code.google.com/p/notebk/)…so it’s wonderful for academic articles and personal notes, but horrible for trying to publish on the web.

Interested Windows users should look up MikTeX, Linux users TeX-live, and Mac users could use MacTeX.

Comment on Book Review: A Desert Called Peace by Tom Kratman by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:52:08 +0000

Mr. Kratman,

Keep them coming and I will keep reading them. Your has actually inspired to get off my ass and actually finish the stories I started writing several years ago while deployed but never finished. You prove that us old soldiers can write just as good as the trained authors and actually better in some aspects.

Patrick

Comment on Book Review: A Desert Called Peace by Tom Kratman by Tom Kratman

Tom Kratman — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:36:56 +0000

Thanks for the review, Patrick. Approximately as soon as I get the contract for Vol V, Molon Labe, I’ll be starting work on that.

Comment on Historical Resources on the Web by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:11:05 +0000

I noticed that too the last time I tried to access the site. I know that the link I have posted is the correct one. The only conclusion I have is that their site has been hacked recently as that warning just started popping up in the last few weeks that I am aware of.

Comment on Historical Resources on the Web by Alex

Alex — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:06:45 +0000

What’s up with “De Re Militari”? Firefox keeps telling me it’s an “attack site” (whatever that means).

Is it down for the moment?

Comment on Photo Essay – Langenbruck Cemetery – Rose Barracks, Vilseck Germany by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:07:02 +0000

Linda,

To the best of my knowledge there are no American graves in Langenbruck cemetery. If you want to contact me you can use the contact me link on the right side of my homepage.

Comment on Photo Essay – Langenbruck Cemetery – Rose Barracks, Vilseck Germany by jacinto

jacinto — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:31:28 +0000

I just read your comments about grave stone tipping, I’m also related to the Sanchez-tereso that are buried there. I did grow up about 15 miles from the cemetery. I don’t know about them being purposely pushed over but a lot of them are sitting at such an angle because the weather is hard on them from the freeze and thaw. Yesterday was the first time we were ever there. We were at 4 or 5 cemeteries that day and there is some damage at all of them, for the most part the ones with the damage is the really old ones. I don’t know if what was used to glue them together has degraded so much over time that it doesn’t need much for them to fall over. We would like to find a way to clean the face of the stones to be able to read them better. My niece and I have gotten very interested in the family trees of both sides of our families. I would love to know if you have any pictures of the Sanchez-Tereso buried at the Halferty Cemetery? Your web site is very interesting, my husband was Army for 22 years and we were stationed in southern Germany three times. Sadly we weren’t interested in this at the time so we lost opportunity to visit the graves. I would like to keep in touch with you if you don’t mind. Please send me an e-mail address I can use. Linda

Comment on Saint John of Nepomuk in Prague by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:59:33 +0000

The circle of stars is just a representation of a halo, it symbolizes the holiness of the saint and is common in Catholic iconography.

Comment on Saint John of Nepomuk in Prague by deni

deni — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:41:16 +0000

can you tell me the meaning of the circle of stars around St. Johns head? The statue is at the top of the church. My friend was there last summer & experienced much, but is unable to remember the meaning.

Thank you very much,
deni

Comment on Book Review: Race & Economics: How Much Can be Blamed on Discrimination? by Walter E. Williams by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:28:11 +0000

I will have to add that to my wish list. It sounds interesting. Thanks for the tip.

Comment on Book Review: Race & Economics: How Much Can be Blamed on Discrimination? by Walter E. Williams by Matthew Holbrook

Matthew Holbrook — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:32:15 +0000

You might find Thomas Sowell’s book The Economics and Politics of Race: An International Perspective of interest as well. Sowell, like Williams, is an African American economist with a strong preference for market solutions over government regulation. In his book, Sowell examines the immigrant experience of Jews, Chinese, and other ethnic groups.

Comment on Book Review: Soldat: Reflections of German Soldier, 1936-1949 by Sigfried Knappe by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:39:58 +0000

No, the point is that the average German was and is not evil, not that the Nazis were great guys.

Comment on Book Review: Soldat: Reflections of German Soldier, 1936-1949 by Sigfried Knappe by Anna L. V. Josephs

Anna L. V. Josephs — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:39:48 +0000

“This is especially important for Americans who grew up hearing how evil the Nazis and by extension, the average German was . . .”

Do you mean the Nazis were not evil?

What else were they, if not evil? History shows there are no two ways of qualifying them.

Comment on Interesting Stonework by Patrick Shrier

Patrick Shrier — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 06:13:30 +0000

There used to be this kind of stuff at American kasernes all over Europe. I wonder how much of it is left after we turned so many bases back over. I would imagine the Germans got rid of most of it when the kasernes were refurbished. I know for a fact the stuff in Amberg is gone, the old kaserne there is now immigrant housing and a school.