Twitter Post of the Day
Stand To!
There are a number of accounts of the Zulu Wars and within those accounts, the defense of Rorke’s Drift. The feature film Zulu (1964) covers the event with significant Hollywoodisms. My favorite book on the subject is, Like Wolves on the Fold by Lieutenant Colonel Mike Snook.
In the referenced film, Michael Caine is shown wearing a later pattern dress tunic, a white helmet with a star-shaped plate, which post-dates the war. The film’s representation of an infantry dress uniform from the period isn’t horrible – given that it’s a movie. – but in fact, most officers in the field wore a simpler style of uniform called ‘undress’ (i.e. not ‘full dress’), stripped of the gold lace, etc. Helmet plates were not worn because they were too conspicuous as a target, and helmets were dyed an improvised khaki color with tea or a dye made from bark.
In fact, the evidence suggests Bromhead was probably wearing something even simpler – an OR’s (i.e. ordinary soldier’s) ‘undress frock’ stripped of white braiding and cuff insignia altogether. His predecessor as commander of B Company was wearing this style of the jacket – his example survives in the regimental Museum in Brecon. Photographs of Bromhead with the company’s survivors at the end of the war show him wearing the same thing. Pictured above is a reconstruction of what both Bromhead and Lt. John Chard RE (his fellow officer at Rorke’s Drift) were probably wearing on the fateful day. After-action photos also show Gonville Bromhead VC wearing a navy blue patrol jacket with a pillbox cap. (above left)
H/T Frank
Bullet Points:
* It’s not discussed enough. Ilhan Omar’s family didn’t flee oppression from the Barre Government. They worked FOR the Islamist-Marxist Barre regime. They fled when he was deposed because they feared justice. from. their. own people.
* FJB regime pressuring the FBI to manufacture extremists – Current and former FBI agents told The Washington Times that the perceived White supremacist threat is overblown by the administration. They said top bureau officials are pressuring FBI agents to create domestic terrorist cases and tag people as White supremacists to meet internal metrics.
* It always amazes me that you can have the puppeteers right there, clearly operating the muppet and your brain just edits that fact out and the muppet comes alive in front of your eyes. (see right for an example)
* What’s the difference between kissing ass and brown-nosing? “Penetration.”
* According to the series The Rings of Power, Galadriel is the most insufferable, toxic, unlikable, arrogant, conceited, self-centered, retarded elf on Middle Earth, and one of the most incompetent leaders you could have the misfortune of serving under. The series is dimly reflective of Tolkien’s writing.
* 14th Row Seat – ‘If I were president, they wouldn’t have sat me back there’: Trump MOCKS Biden for being sat 14 rows back at the Queen’s funeral – and says there is ‘no respect for the US two years after leaving office. I don’t know about that, there is plenty of respect for the FJB regime here on Virtual Mirage.
* F-35s for Switzerland (h/t Claudio) -STUTTGART, Germany — Switzerland has inked a deal to procure three dozen F-35A fighter jets, dodging a proposed popular referendum in the hopes of receiving the new jets by the end of the decade.
The Ice Cream Machine at Mcdonald’s…
…is finally working
14th row – maybe he’s getting MORE respect than he deserves….
They had to park the doddering old living carcass and his shrewish wife somewhere. 14th is far enough away that you don’t have to look at him.
Guess they couldn’t get him to join the long queue by telling him there’s ice cream and pudding at the end of it?
We see him on camera when he’s at his best, but he’s very frail both physically and mentally.
f35’s for the swiss? my apologies to them on behalf of the american people…national guard removing illegals? now that’s a mission i can get behind, and one worthy of them. the guard has become pawns to the elites.
The F-35 is a maintenance-intense aircraft. The Swiss, obsessive as they are, will love them.
I want to see more photos of Joe playing with is tongue during the service. The one that is out there is pretty much Joe at his worst from what I’ve seen.
He needs to be in an old folk’s home where he gets the pudding and the magic show, not running the country.
Correct.
Pelosi: can’t speak in coherent sentences. In general doesn’t make sense.
Biden: very similar only speaks slower and makes stuff up a lot.
Harris: makes very little sense, repeats words a lot and almost has her very own language.
Fetterman: stroke caused aphasia. Rarely makes sense.
What on Earth is going on here?
Their best and brightest adults in the room. And people vote for these beyond their warranty losers.
In Pennsylvania, is DR OZ much better than Fetterman?
And what about the giant growth on the back of Fetterman’s neck – the size of a softball.
No, Oz was selected by the R’s in order to lose, so a slight correction for such races, it’s both sides.
Oz is much better than Fedderman.
That’s not a high bar to clear.
Where did you see the photos?
I’ll post them up on the next blog.
Martha’s Vineyard – Funny how that works when you are on the Left. Yet according to the soy latte’ Vineyard Crowd they are now fully “enlightened of the migrant plight”, having been subject to The Great Unwashed for all of a day. Unreal.
Funnier is DeSantis’ Migrant Plane will land in Delaware today. Hahahahah. Don’t get mad, get even.
Keep those FBI “informants” coming, the Dem’s can’t deny their own turncoat gestapo. KJP will need to add another ‘denial talking point page’ to her Lie Binder.
Omar needs a one-way ticket back to her hellhole (which at this point could also be her town in Minnesota). She should take along the gal pals to experience Somali nirvana…I’ll toss in a C-note.
Trump WOULD BE up front and center seat, QE2 liked him a lot. Maybe Jo-Wee will give KC3 an iPod2 of all his amazing speeches with huge crowds, and a pair of aviators to look cool “for the little people”.
Mickey-D’s, Estes Park…The elk must have gotten tired of The Selfie Crowd bugging their morning siesta on the adjacent golf course so moved over to clean up dropped fries in the parking lot. Still cool to see tho, never gets old.
The elk show more common sense than the *&&^^ tourists. Business takes me there from time to time and my chill pill wears off too quickly.
Exactly. Watched a guy back up to within 20 feet to a ticked off bull for a damn selfie, believing it was tame or some such nonsense. Swore I’d see him flying through the air but the bull was thankfully patient with stupid.
I spoke to elk (bow season) hunters here, and they all seemed frustrated that they didn’t get shots or elk. I didn’t tell them where I’d hunt them. The rut has started and the elk here have a favorite mating area. It’s amazing that the locals (though there are very few of us) don’t barf the information up, but they don’t.
Wouldn’t be sporting. Was building cabins in the Laramie River area, driving home the pronghorn hunters would be on one small rise glassing. When I got to the next rise there they were, just out of sight. Always good for a laugh. Natures animals are not dumb.
The gal in armor…invokes the same attraction as when I see MrsPaulM in her cowboy hat, jeans and chinks, saddling up her horse. Something about that gives alpha males pause.
I agree.
Saw a blurb on a site where the author was treating the East as one monobloc culture, with all having the same goal. What an interesting perspective……
The Eastern US or East Asia?
East Asia.
Wow…there is little more diverse than East Asian culture.
Rorke’s Drift–Colour Sergeant Frank Bourne.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOQJK5hUo9U
I think that’s a fair summary of the service of Colour Sergeant Bourne. He wasn’t like the Nigel Green depiction, but even though young and short, the man had a steel backbone and served as an example to the troops. He should have received the VC and had they not handed out 11 of them (he might have received the award). As is true of all medals of that sort, timing and politics often enters in.
While Zulu was a fun film and well worth re-watching, there were, as you put it, a number of Hollywoodisms. Colour Sergeant Bourne, for example, was not the grizzled veteran as depicted in the film, but rather a young man of 23 when the Rorke’s Drift fight occurred. He was commissioned in 1890 and retired in 1907. When the Great War broke out he rejoined and retired again in 1919 with honorary rank of lieutenant colonel. He was the last survivor of the defenders living long enough to see the end of Nazi Germany dying at age 90 in 1945.
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-426879bfadb30456e19e749bbb26f750-lq
Besides the Hollywood angle, there was the problem of Donald Morris’ book, “Washing of the Spears”. I have the book and knew Donald Morris before his death in 2002. Before I take a solid shot across the bow of his work, a bio is in order.
Donald Robert Morris (November 11, 1924 – December 4/5, 2002) was an American naval officer, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, novelist, military historian and foreign affairs writer. He joined the navy in 1942 and after World War Two studied electrical engineering at the United States Naval Academy. Morris served in the Korean War before joining the CIA in 1956, for whom he carried out anti-espionage duties in Berlin, Paris, Kinshasa and Vietnam. Morris had published a novel, China Station, in 1951 and in 1957 published Warm Bodies, based on his naval service; this was made into the film All Hands on Deck in 1961. In 1965 he published The Washing of the Spears, a history of the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War, a book he had worked on mainly during a five-year posting in Berlin. Morris retired from the CIA in 1972 and became a foreign affairs column writer for the Houston Post.
Donald worked as a counterintelligence officer in South Africa, and it was during that time that he did the research for the book he wrote while working in Berlin, also as a counterintelligence officer. He walked the ground, he did the research and he wrote the book. He was a good writer and I spoke to him after he retired from the Outfit. So, cool guy. But the book has some assumptions that subsequent archeological research has shown were in error. Some of those entered into the films that filmmakers and writers read.
I hope that’s fair.
Sounds fair to me.
I wonder if Michael Caine’s Korean experience might have influenced his role playing in Zulu. He was there for a year during the war, dealing with mass human charges and other fun times…
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