Sunday, October 25, 2009

For Afghanistan: what lessons from "The Crater?"



The battle for "The Crater," from the movie
"Cold Mountain"

For the complete story, click on
When "Cold Mountain" Meets Afghanistan

We can build the most innovative of plans, as did General Ambrose Burnside -- one of Rhode Island's most famous native sons.

But without the power and coordination to carry them out, we can be trapped in the craters we blow open, trapped amidst the screams.

"War is the Greatest Gamble."

Burnside gambled and lost at "The Crater" in front of Petersburg, Virginia on July 30, 1864.

He pushed a plan to mine and blow up Confederate lines in front of Petersburg -- to launch an assault with well trained negro soldiers.

The plan hoped to open the way for the capture of Petersburg, an assault on Richmond -- and an end of the war.

He whose star had already fallen in failure and demotion after brilliant amphibious landings to conquer coastal North Carolina, including New Bern, in March 1862.

His men charged into the crater -- as many as 15,000 trapped in and around the hole Pennsylvania miners had blown.

Hundreds on both sides died by clubbed musket, bayonets, and rocks in less than a morning of brutal hand to hand fighting.

Some four thousand on both sides were killed, wounded, or captured.

The dead included many of the Union negroes.

"No quarter" was the Union cry.

Little did the Confederates give.

Revenge against negroes fighting for the Union was the Confederate "cry."


General Ambrose Burnside


This man from a Quaker family opened the door to racial bloodletting during the failed Union offensive at "The Crater."

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The hunger for revenge is a wonderful motivator -- but can lead to disaster when it backfires. Each side stirred the passions of its troops for race revenge. The result was a Union disaster, a merciless killing of black Federal troops.

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Today President Obama, unlike President Bush before him, is bit more cautious.

Just how big a gamble will he take?

Time, again, to roll the dice.






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I thought I heard a black bell toll
A little bird did sing
Man has no choice
When he wants every thing

We'll rise above the scarlet tide
That trickles down through the mountain
And separates the widow from the bride

Man goes beyond his own decision
Gets caught up in the mechanism
Of swindlers who act like kings
And brokers who break everything

--"The Scarlet Tide," lyrics from the movie Cold Mountain


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The ghosts from "The Crater" are not still

They have a story to tell, lessons to teach -- passed down from generation to generation.

Each generation can be trapped in its own crater. Each generation can face afresh the challenge: how to climb out, up to the "higher ground?"

What should be done in Afghanistan? Can American forces "surge" through "The Crater" they have blown open -- or are they still trapped like birds in a "turkey shoot?"

 Whether to press forward in the midst of continuing fire -- or find a better way to go around.

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There is that line where "one" must sometimes decide whether to soldier on -- or withdraw to something else, desert in quest of peace high upon "Cold Mountain."

Fighting never ends -- but there is always the dream of "Cold Mountain."

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The Killing of Union Negroes Erupts
"Listen" to a Confederate Account
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