And yes, it’s some more from To Sail Beyond the Sunset:
In April 1898 to us benighted country people certain simple facts were true. Our battleship Maine had been destroyed, with great loss of life. Spain had declared war on us. The president had asked for volunteers. …Monday, the twenty-fifth of April, came the president’s call asking the state militias to furnish 125,000 volunteers to augment our almost-nonexistent army.
…
All during the twentieth century I’ve run into people who either have never heard of the War of 1898, or belittle it. “Oh, you mean that one. That wasn’t a real war, just a skirmish. What happened? Did he stub his toe, running back down San Juan Hill?”
(I should have killed them! I did throw an extra dry martini into the eyes of one man who talked that way.)
Casualties are just as heavy in one war as in another… because death comes just one to the customer.
And besides– in the summer of 1898 we did not know that the war would be over quickly. The United States was not a superpower; the United States was not a world power of any sort…whereas Spain was still a great empire. For all we knew our men might be gone for years…or not come back. The bloody tragedy of 1861-1865 was all we had to go by, and that had started just like this one, with the president calling for a few militiamen.
(Emphasis added.)
My history books, from high school all through UC Berkeley, went into great detail about the “secret background” of the Spanish-American War: Hearst, imperialism, and so on. And that was about it. Thus it was a shock to me, two years out of college, when I read the above words for the first time. I suddenly understood that it was possible for deeply detailed learning to in fact be quite shallow. None of my schooling had prepared me to be able to explain to anyone why the American people volunteered in such numbers in 1898, except to spout the leftist party line “they were fooled by the propaganda.” Which is, of course, utter bullshit.
It’s also, I realized, what people say when they can’t comprehend ever volunteering for combat themselves.
I would be angry, myself. I had five great-uncles who supposedly charged with Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American war.
That means, in my mother’s family, at one point there were 5 of those almost-priceless engraved Colt SAA’s that TR gave to all his Rough Riders.
All according to my mother, anyway.
The rifle I inherited from my grandpa and restored is an 1898 Krag, and that process lead to a study of the War which I had previously been unfamiliar – except for the standard Lefty dismissive talking points.
After that I had to own a Colt 1909 in .45 – one that was sent to the Philippines, and I found one. The war went on for a long time out there in the Pacific…
Rivrdog, that’s quite the pedigree! I think it also shows one of the points Heinlein was trying to get across — whole families volunteered back then without question, because they considered it their duty. Impressive ancestors you have there.
Very cool, Dirtcrashr — do you ever take the 1909 to the range?
I honestly think that Heinlein needs to be handed out at every highschool English class, starting with “Starship Troopers” and going on from there. I have “To Sail Beyond the Sunset sitting in my library right now.
I’ve had the 1909 out to the range a couple times, and it aquits itself prety well at 25-yards – and I’m not much of a pistol shooter, my concentration has been on the rifle – but this old gun just makes shooting easy.
I must get that book! 🙂
You’re in for a treat, Dirtcrashr. Just beware, Heinlein was at the end of his days when he wrote To Sail Beyond the Sunset — so he was intentionally pushing buttons, tilting at windmills, impaling shibboleths, smashing taboos — you get the idea. He knew he didn’t have a lot of time left, so he was going full-bore. As a result, it’s not the most polished thing he wrote — but that book will expand your mind or cause you to throw it across the room.
As you might have guessed, I enjoy books like that. Too few of them out there.