Joseph Plumb Martin’s final words that we didn’t heed
TT sends a link to the Maine Sun Journal about Joseph Plumb Martin. If you’ve ever watched any History Channel programs about our Revolutionary War, you probably recognize the name, since he’s constantly quoted from his memoirs as the “soldier’s voice” from that war.
Martin’s “A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier” is considered to be the authentic narrative of the entire war from a private soldier’s perspective.
His final battle was against the government to keep the meager pension he’d earned in service to his country and in the final passages of his book, he warned future soldiers about the government;
“He says in the final lines of the memoir that the U.S. made soldiers fulfill their contracts but was negligent in fulfilling its promises to them,” Mead said. He writes, “They had all the power and we had none — such things ought not to be.”
Yeah, I know, it always been that way. I’m sure someone in the comments will end up quoting Kipling’s “Tommy”, but still after awhile you’d think the people in government would tire of being a cliche.
Category: Politics
Is his narrative available somewhere? I looked him up a bit after watching a thing about Trenton a few months ago as I recall.
reminded me of this douchenozzle, who claims veterans are becoming a “privileged entitled class”
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-truth-about-military-health-care-6992?page=1
The more things change, the more they stay the same. And so we don’t disappoint Jonn “…you bet Tommy sees…”
Has anyone looked into a FOIA for W. Jonathan Rue the author of the article linked by #2? I wouldn’t be surprised if his attitude against veteran healthcare is due to a failed career or lack of one…
Just so the others know what Jonn and Old Tanker are talking about and to further Old Tanker’s not disapointing Jonn, here’s a link to the poem:
Tommy by Rudyard Kipling
Source: http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/Tommy.htm
– Ish
Couldn’t find a text version, TSO, but here’s a free audio book version:
http://archive.org/details/narrative_revolutionary_soldier_1106_librivox
The “such things ought not to be” quote is on page 247 of the Amazon version (chapter 9). You’ll be shocked – shocked I tell you – to discover it was modified slightly in words and context for the above report.
http://www.amazon.com/Narrative-Revolutionary-Soldier-Joseph-Martin/dp/0451528115
Available via Google Books. Link Google preview of the Martin book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=W3A1onE-rl8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Joseph+Plumb+Martin&source=bl&ots=FORkOcKCR7&sig=_6Q5KhYVIK0MSG-_eKS-D7U8bZY&hl=en&ei=WzoeTZG1C4L48AbisdDVCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12&ved=0CEkQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q&f=false
-Ish
Ish
Roger Moore did a nice reading of Tommy Atkins a while back…
Because Congress has never chosen to do the hard work and build wealth for the nation, and instead has chosen to offer entitlements to everyone from corporations to illegal immigrants we now have an unfunded liability of more than one million dollars per taxpayer to go along with our outstanding debt of over one hundred thousand per taxpayer…this system will fail. It’s not a matter of if, simply a matter of when, Cheap accounting tricks that pretend there is a social security “trust” fund will be exposed as the empty dollars they are shortly, and the sh1t will hit the fan.
Once Social Security outlay exceeds income in the next eight years and the nation discovers that the “trust” fund is a bunch of IOUs from the treasury department, what little recovery from this current financial crisis we are experiencing could be swiftly overtaken…I am hoping that some of our current candidates from both parties will actually find some intestinal fortitude and start doing the heavy lifting needed to put the nation back on course.
Thanks for mentioning the History Channel movies on the War For Independence .
Heard a great keynote speaker at my VFW convention this month remind the audience that the reason or being in the VFW or the Legion isn’t to have a veteran’s bar-it’s to care for the fellow veterans and their families.
Its too bad that the only reason most of our politicians can think of to fulfill the promises to our vets is the threat of getting voted out.
My biggest fear is retiring from the Army. I don’t think my benefits are going to be there, and reading all the back and forth in the Stars and Stripes about stripping pensions is scary. There has been a concerted push to get guys seperated before we can reach twenty years so they don’t have to pay us. The Army is reinstating the QMP (now referred to as QSP)and trying to thin the upper ranks as well as the lower. While I agree that they need to toss all the criminals and the non-performers, I am concerned that all these young NCO’s with 6 and 7 years in that got promoted when we needed troops the most are gonna be the new standard bearers. I’ll never understand a SFC with 7 years TIS mentoring other SFC’s with 20+ years in. That’s where we are and where we are heading.
@13: Trust me: at least one young(ish) E6 shares your concerns.