The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: MikeBjerum on December 03, 2009, 07:09:18 PM
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We can all dream can't we ...
(http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e330/m58/image0011.jpg)
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no picture M58?
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Sorry guys! Showing my talents again :'(
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NOT.
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I am currently a political science major and I have had two history professors on separate occasions teach this story as fact. Snopes says "undetermined" but thats because it is probably run by liberals.
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good man.
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The question isn't if it is true or not!
The point is Don't F With Us!
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MB referred to this song on the last podcast, but said it was Tom Hardin, actually Tom Russel, a BJ Pershing segue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwh-h6pHN1Y
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The Phillipine insurrection was notably differant from the action in Cuba because of the atrocities that were committed on both sides. I've only put in a link to American atrocities because that's the subject of the thread.
While I did not find any direct reference to THIS incident in Gen. Pershing's Wikipedia entry The revocation of his Brevet promotion , in light of the Otis investigation makes me suspect that it is true. If it is it is fairly mild as prisoners were shot fairly regularly, at one point the campaign on Mindanao was pretty much a case of killing EVERYTHING that was encountered, Men, women, children, as well as pigs, chickens etc. The only other American conflict carried on with such savagery on the part of Americans were the Indian wars, and for many of the same reasons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Pershing#Spanish_and_Philippine-American_wars
At the start of the Spanish-American War, First Lieutenant Pershing was offered a brevet rank and commissioned a major of volunteers on August 26 1898. He fought with the 10th Cavalry (Buffalo Soldiers) on Kettle and San Juan Hill in Cuba and was cited for gallantry. (In 1919, he was awarded the Silver Citation Star for these actions, and in 1932 the award was upgraded to the Silver Star Medal.)
In March 1899, after suffering from malaria, Pershing was put in charge of the Office of Customs and Insular Affairs which oversaw occupation forces in territories gained in the Spanish-American War, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam.
When the Philippine-American War began, Pershing was ordered to Manila. He reported on August 17 1899 as a Brevet Major of Volunteers and was assigned to the Department of Mindanao and Jolo and commanded efforts to suppress the Philippine insurrection. On November 27, 1900, Pershing was appointed Adjutant General of his department and served in this posting until March 1, 1901. He was cited for bravery for actions on the Cagayan River while attempting to destroy a Philippine stronghold at Macajambo.
In 1901, Pershing's brevet commission was revoked, and he reassumed his rank as captain in the Regular Army. He served with the 1st Cavalry Regiment in the Philippines. He later was assigned to the 15th Cavalry Regiment, serving as an intelligence officer and participating in actions against the Moros. He was cited for bravery at Lake Lanao. In June 1901, he served as Commander of Camp Vicars in Lanao, Philippines, after the previous camp commander had been promoted to brigadier general.In June 1903, Pershing was ordered to return to the United States.
In 1908, Pershing briefly served as a U.S. military observer in the Balkans, an assignment which was based out of Paris. Upon returning to the United States at the end of 1909, Pershing was assigned once again to the Philippines, an assignment which he served until 1912. While in the Philippines, he served as Commander of Fort McKinley, near Manila, and also was the governor of the Moro Province.
In January 1914, Pershing was assigned to command the Army 8th Cavalry Regiment[6] in Fort Bliss, Texas, responsible for security along the U.S.-Mexico border. In March 1916, under the command of General Frederick Funston, Pershing led the 8th Regiment on the failed 1916–17 Punitive Expedition into Mexico in search of the revolutionary leader Pancho Villa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War#American_atrocities
United States attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, torture (water cure) and the concentration of civilians into “protected zones” (concentration camps). Many of the civilian casualties resulted from disease and famine.
In 1908 Manuel Arellano Remondo, in General Geography of the Philippine Islands, wrote: “The population decreased due to the wars, in the five-year period from 1895 to 1900, since, at the start of the first insurrection, the population was estimated at 9,000,000, and at present (1908), the inhabitants of the Archipelago do not exceed 8,000,000 in number.”[69]
United States attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, torture (water cure) and the concentration of civilians into “protected zones” (concentration camps). Many of the civilian casualties resulted from disease and famine.
In an article, We Charge Genocide: A Brief History of US in the Philippines, appearing in the December, 2005 issue of Political Affairs, E. San Juan, Jr., director of the Philippines Cultural Studies Center, Connecticut, argued that during the Philippine–American War (1899-1902) and pacification campaign (1902-1913), the operations launched by the U.S. against the Filipinos, an integral part of its pacification program, which claimed the lives of over a million Filipinos, constituted genocide.[70] This number takes into account the more than half million natives who died of Cholera during the conflict.
In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported:"The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog...."[71]
[edit] American soldiers' letters and response
From almost the beginning of the war, soldiers wrote home describing the atrocities committed against Filipinos, soldiers and civilians alike. Increasingly, such personal letters, or portions of them, reached a national audience as anti-imperialist editors across the nation reproduced them.[72]
Once these accounts became popular press fodder, the War Department became involved and demanded that General Otis investigate their authenticity. Each press clipping was forwarded to the original writer’s commanding officer, who would then convince or force the soldier to write a retraction of the original statements.
Private Charles Brenner of the Kansas regiment resisted such pressure.[citation needed] He insisted that Colonel Funston[73] had ordered that all prisoners be shot and that Major Metcalf and Captain Bishop enforced these orders. Otis was obliged to order the Northern Luzon sector commander, General MacArthur, to look into the charge. Brenner confronted MacArthur’s aide with a corroborating witness, Private Putman, who confessed to shooting two prisoners after Bishop or Metcalf ordered, “Kill them! Damn it, Kill them!” MacArthur sent his aide’s report on to Otis with no comment. Otis ordered Brenner court-martialed “for writing and conniving at the publication of an article which... contains willful falsehoods concerning himself and a false charge against Captain Bishop.” The judge advocate in Manila convinced Otis that such a trial could open a Pandora’s box because “facts would develop implicating many others.”
General Otis sent the Brenner case to Washington writing: “After mature deliberation, I doubt the wisdom of court-martial in this case, as it would give the insurgent authorities a knowledge of what was taking place and they would assert positively that our troops had practiced inhumanities, whether the charge should be proven or not, as they would use it as an excuse to defend their own barbarities; and it is not thought that his charge is very grievous under the circumstances then existing, as it was very early in the war, and the patience of our men was under great strain.”[