Pop Quiz on US History - Answers 7) - bonus)
By The Editors
7) f) He never freed them all. He freed them within the Confederacy in the famous Emancipation Proclamation of 1862. But for political reasons he did not free them in the entire nation. That awaited the 13th amendment to the Constitution which he campaigned for in 1864. Maryland abolished slavery within the state with a new constitution that took effect in November 1864. Missouri also voted to abolish slavery within its borders. The amendment was sent out to the states by Congress in January of 1865 and was ratified by sufficient states by December of 1865 to free the slaves in the states of Delaware and Kentucky, the last remaining slave states.
8) True. General Grant was a resident of Delaware and kept slaves until the 13th amendment was ratified.
9) c) The US had approximately 418,000 dead in WWII. This amounted to about .32% of population. Of these about 11,000 were civilians. Britain had about 450,000 dead, about 68,000 of whom were civilians, .94% of their population. (It seems that Professor Joseph V. O'Brien gives the US figure as approximately 300,000.)
10) e) The Soviets had about 23,000,000 dead by some estimates. Some are lower, others higher. Davies (Europe: A History) says 8.7 million military dead, others say almost 11 million, with an equal number of civilians of whom about 1 million were holocaust victims. Professor Joseph V. O'Brien gives figures of approximately 9 million dead military and 18 million dead civilians, for 27 million. This has been estimated as around 15% of the entire population, but such estimates are inherently imprecise. It is tough to keep records under such circumstances.
11) a) When the US entered the war, there were 150 divisions on the Eastern front against Stalin's army and 4 on the western front against the US and Britain. In fact, history shows that the Soviets defeated Hitler's armies. If Stalin and Hitler had remained allies, it is doubtful Britain and the US would have prevailed, but the atomic bomb remains an outlier. Source: Norman, Davies, Europe: A History, though this is a well known fact everywhere but in the US.
12) c) Britain and France declared war on Germany with the invasion of Poland in September of 1939. This is usually considered the beginning of WWII, though some may dispute that, since Austria and Czechoslovakia were taken over by Germany in March of 1938 and in September of 1938 and March 1939, respectively. (It took two bites to swallow Czechoslovakia, the first while dining with Britain and France.)
Note that this means WWII lasted longer than the Iraq war by about three years, at least by the date of this posting.
13) d) or g) The US declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor in 1941 and Germany declared war on the US immediately afterward. Note that those newscasters and editorial writers who claim that the war in Iraq has lasted longer than WWII are speaking with incredible Amerocentricism. WWII did not start with the US entry. It started at the latest in 1939, perhaps even in 1938. We have been in Iraq about half as long as the duration of WWII.
The US is not the center of the universe, and this view of the world through only the US eyes is a major propaganda technique and reason for our miserable foreign policy mistakes, especially under Bush the Younger, but also under Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan (yes, under Reagan who reaped the benefits of the internal crumbling of the rotten infrastructure of the Soviet Union as "winner of the cold war," which our intelligence sources have debunked), Bush the Elder, and Clinton, to name the most recent gaggle of Presidents unable to think outside the box of socially imposed orthodoxy. Bush the Younger, however, tops the list not only of stupid Presidents, but stupid world leaders in recent history.
14) True. Whether it was more or fewer depends, it seems, on sources. The Vietnam War Almanac by Harry G. Summers Jr. claims that from 1961 to 1972, the III Marine Amphibious Force had 12,983 killed in action and 88,633 wounded in action. Given that the only casualties of any numerical significance during that period came when the Marines moved into Vietnam in 1965 and also given the statement in the book that the III MAF was formed on May 5, 1965, a confusing idea leading one to believe that 1961 is a typo and should read 1965, it seems clear that these casualties are from deployment in Vietnam. Of those 88,633 surviving wounded, 51,399 required hospitalization. In his history Sempre Fi‐Vietnam, Edward F. Murphy gives the figures 88,630 for surviving wounded and 13,070 killed in action.
According to these figures, the Marines suffered more casualties in Vietnam than during WWII, but with fewer dead. The WWII figures are 16,773 killed and 68,207 surviving wounded. The fewer killed in action has been largely attributed to the helicopter, which got them directly to a major hospital where they had access to sophisticated medical facilities, bypassing the Battalion Aid Stations. It seems these figures come from Jack Schulimson's official histories of the Marine Corps.
It is not clear whether those 68,207 WWII wounded all required hospitalization or included lightly wounded as in the 37,234 of that total above for Vietnam. This could be part of the reason for the discrepancy with the numbers given by the Department of the Navy from the Navy Historical Center. According to them, there were 13,091 Marines killed and 51,392 surviving wounded. The latter figure is close to that given by Summers for seriously wounded, but the number of dead is larger.
In any case, the numbers for WWII and Vietnam are comparable.
Note that this is related to another myth mostly perpetuated by the "liberal" elements of society, to wit that Vietnam was a guerilla war waged by farmers. In I Corps, where the Marines had responsibility, the Viet Cong were no longer a factor after the Tet Offensive of 1968, their entire organizational structure having been wiped out. This is according to sources who had been inside the movement, and in fact the claim is often made that the North Vietnamese essentially sacrificed the Viet Cong to gain control of the indigenous movement. In any case, in I Corps and likely in most of other zones it became conventional warfare between standard infantry units. The Marines are known to have considered the North Vietnamese Army as among the best light infantries in the world.
15) e) The association of college education with financial accomplishment, even in so-called high technology, is bogus. Now that ceremonial certification is the order of the day and college diplomas have the value and intellectual heft of high school in by-gone decades, people seek out certified individuals to occupy positions of largely ceremonial value. This is evident with the up and down economy for engineers and MBAs. The latter are known to go from phenomenal six-figure salaries to starvation wages when they can find work, the former end up in other lines of work eventually. Even Steve Wozniak, the engineer who built the Apple prototype hardware, didn't finish his degree until after the company became a success and he essentially retired.
There is a mythology built up around so-called tech companies regarding university education, business degrees, business plans and market research that is the dross of Business Schools in an effort to make the toy degrees they spin out seem relevant. That they are not relevant is evidenced by their cycle of employment and unemployment.
One of the major indicators that the economy has overheated is the prevalence and level of compensation of MBAs in the workforce, with a high demand indicating overheating. But a more worthwhile indicator would be seen if a study were made of companies started by MBAs, started with business plans and market studies, or run by MBAs. In truth, business plans and market studies are designed to part clueless investors in the clubs run by Venture Capitalists (aptly nicknamed VC) from their money. The success rate here is likely quite low, particularly over the long haul. But such a study is not likely to make it in a business school, as they are not going to advertise their own inutility.
For a more interesting perspective on education and money and business, consider the story of the inventor of PL/M, CP/M, the BIOS, and an early GUI for the PC; in fact the foundations of Microsoft's early product line. He was a PhD in computer science named Gary Kilgore, who had an interesting relationship to Microsoft that seems to be standard business practice. Kilgore's is a tragic story that ought to better known; it would make a perfect case study for entrepreneurship, but since it is odds with the standard mythology, this will not happen. There is a chapter in They Made America by Harold Evans about Kilgore that is not flattering to Gates and has been considered controversial since it attacks a modern saint.
Bonus question:
f) There were no combat troops. The Marines had withdrawn all combat units by May of 1971. The Army's phased withdrawal was over by August of 1972, with the departure of the last remaining battalion, The Third Battalion, 21st Infantry. When the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) launched their offensive of March, 1972, only two Army combat brigades remained. The Marines had only advisors associated with the Vietnamese Marines they had trained. With the support of US air support and naval gunfire, the South Vietnamese army successfully pushed back a concerted NVA attack spearheaded with heavy artillery and Soviet T-54 tanks. The NVA, suffering losses of over 100,000 men and half their equipment, retreated. In January 1973, with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords the US withdrew all advisors. Congress cut off funding for any support of the Republic of Vietnam's military, including equipment, and offered no more air support or naval gunfire. What remained was civilians and Marine guards at the embassy, nothing more.
Nonetheless, it took the NVA over two years to conquer the south, even though the NVA were heavily supplied with Soviet equipment. This runs counter to the joint "conservative" and "liberal" mythologies regarding the war. The South Vietnamese actually fought quite well considering they had no material support. Danang, which supposedly fell without a fight, saw the destruction of the South Vietnamese Marines in bloody combat, with many of the units carrying on a hopeless guerilla action as their ammunition ran out, their brothers dying on the beautiful beaches of the South China Sea. General Giap, the legend of the North Vietnamese Army, lost his job over his inability to close a quick victory.
