A Real Life Neidermeyer.

In the movie Animal House, Mark Metcalf played Doug Neidermayer, one of the "bad guys". He was an officer in the ROTC and helped make life miserable for some of the members of the "animal house". When the movie ended they showed what happened to the characters. Neidermayer was killed by his own troops in Vietnam. Another movie made reference to the character. In Twilight Zone: The Movie a some troops talk about their killing Lieutenant Neidermayer. That segment was directed by John Landis, who also directed Animal House. How bad would a leader have to be for his own troops to try and kill him? We know that accidents do happen, Stonewall Jackson was killed by Confederate troops at Chancellorsville and James Longstreet was wounded by Confederate troops at the Battle Of The Wilderness. I am not picking on the Confederates, I am just using them as examples. I am sure there were Union casualties also.


Pictured here is Braxton Bragg. He was another Confederate General, but it wasn't Confederate troops who tried to kill him. He was an officer in the Army during the Mexican-American war. He was a very unpopular man. Most of it stemmed from his personality. He was very gruff and demanding, and tried to blame others for any mistake he made. Twice while there his troops tried to kill him. In one of the attempts a bomb was placed 2 feet from his bed. When it exploded fragments went above and below his bed, but he was unharmed. Bragg was the commander at Chickamauga, which was the last confederate victory. He had some good battle plans, but because he was disliked several of the plans were delayed and a total Union rout was avoided. He was greatly critisized after the battle when he didn't pursue the Union troops. He was relieved of command shortly after the battle and was Jefferson Davis' advisor for the rest of the war.

I live about 30 miles from Chickamauga, so I find it a fascinating subject. I have visited the battlefield several times and it is a very interesting place to go to. Sometime this spring I am going back and I will talk more about it then.

The answer to the weekend question was of course true. Only a total lame brain would have missed it. By the way, that is Mr Lame Brain to you.

Today's question is Grade 3/Geography.

Today is Chinese New Year. In what city will residents of the capital of the People's Republic of China be celebrating?

I got this question right, so I am now 15-6.

The Killer Angels.

Last month I talked about how much I like the movie Gettysburg. I just finished listening to an unabridged version of The Killer Angels, on which Gettysburg is based. If you are at all interested in the Civil War you will find this novel fascinating. Michael Shaara spent 7 years researching this book. He portrays both sides fairly and equally. In the forward he explains he did modernize the language a little. The words they used then, in Mr. Shaara's words, was more flowery than we use today. He felt if he had used it exactly it would have made it a difficult book to read. If you are looking for a full account of the three days at Gettysburg you won't find it here. What you will find is a fascinating look at several men who shaped the events of those three days. The main men followed are Robert. E. Lee, James Longstreet, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. You feel a better understanding of what these men went through and some of their thought processes.

This book came out in 1974. At the time of publication it was not a best seller. The Vietnam war was winding down and people did not want to read about war. It won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1975 and people then took notice. While it is a book about war, it humanizes it's characters and gives you a different perspective on them and what the war was all about. I find the Civil war a fascinating period of our history, and this book helped give me a better understanding of what happened in that small Pennsylvania town on July 1,1863 through July 3, 1863.