Toured the World War I museum today

[War Wagon]

It opened last December, and being off work today with not that much to do, I finally made the effort to check it out. It was a very unique and interesting experience. I've never seen a museum quite like this one.

Being the military historians that some of you are, particularly mv, I'd bet you'd devour the knowledge contained inside this building.

I've heard it said that folks generally don't go to see the tourist attractions in their own towns, and that's definitely the case with me. (Insert KC is a shit-hole and what could they possibly have worth seeing smack here.)

Well this is definitely worth seeing. Nice article, though rather long, a good read.

If any of you ever have the pleasure or misfortune of being in KC, you should check it out. I spent about an hour and half there today, but it would've probably taken me six hours to really experience all it has to show.

When the hand wringers scream about the 3,590 or so American casulties in Iraq after 4 years, the 100k Americans killed in WW I in only two years kinda' puts that number in perspective. As does the 9 million killed overall.

The "War to end all Wars" was a hellacious clusterfuck. Trench warfare does not look very appealing, not that any kind of war is.

One of the soldiers quotes that sticks with me from a display, paraphrased:

"Hell is not fire. Hell is mud."

[Wolfman]

My maternal Grandfather was an Army Doctor in WW1--the equivalent of MASH over there. He told me a few things that I remember--- singing Christmas carols across "No Man's Land" with the German soldiers on Christmas Eve. He had a camera and took pictures. I remember seeing some of them after he died. I was struck by the dead horses and men together. They hauled stuff with horses and the artillery barrages killed both. He did not talk about the carnage--but I know he saw the worst.
Yes--war is not something you want to see.

[kcdave]

wags, i figured you hung out down at the liberty memorial every weekend.

[Truman]

Bet ol' Luth looked dashing in doughboy gear...

[War Wagon]

singing Christmas carols across "No Man's Land" with the German soldiers on Christmas Eve.

Now there's an audio-visual.

Silent Night. blam blam... Holy Night. blam blam... All is calm, blam blam....

[War Wagon]

WWI or II? that sounds more like the stories i heard coming out of II.

At wolfies age, it's quite logical that his grandfather would've been in WW I, not II, you fucking idiot.

"No Man's Land" is distinct WW I terminology.

Hell, dude has me by 20 years, and my dad was in WW II.

[Wolfman]

WW #1
I even have a souvenier German Army belt buckle that
has on it-- "Got Mit Uns".
Must be "e" never saw a box camera.

[OCmike]

You sure it didn't say "Got Milch?"

[PSUFAN]

"No Man's Land is pocketmarked like the body of foulest disease and its odour is the breath of cancer...No Man's Land under snow is like the face of the moon, chaotic, crater-ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness."

"Hideous landscapes, vile noises....everything unnatural, broken, blastered; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug-outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth."

--Wilfred Owen

[ucantdoitdoggieSTyle2]

I even have a souvenier German Army belt buckle that
has on it-- "Got Mit Uns".

Gott.



Spelling smack in German ist sehr frisch.

[OCmike]

I even have a souvenier German Army belt buckle that
has on it-- "Got Mit Uns".

Gott.



Spelling smack in German ist sehr frisch.

It really should be Gott mit uns.

Capitalization smack in German is auch sehr frisch.

[Wolfman]

I've "got" to find that thing and see how
it was really spelled and/or capitalized !

[ucantdoitdoggieSTyle2]

Well Wolfman... I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
quite sure the
Krauts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
wouldn't misspell "God", but I
would not!!!!!!!
be
surprised if each word on!!!!!!!!!!!!
the buckle are indeed capitalized.


It's not
that
important =

It's not a
CRAZY, CRAZY,
TIME IN
CNY!!!

[RumpleForeskin]

JFC, is there anybody on this board born after the TeaPot Dome Scandal?

[War Wagon]

Do they sell food there?

Hell it's in KC. I'm sure the whole fucking building is deep fried.

Thanks R-Jack. It just wouldn't have seemed right if there hadn't been at least some dab of KC smack attempted.

And actually, there will be a cafe opening soon, but as of now they do not sell food there. There is a nice gift shop, though. I shoulda' picked up a nice trinket or two for Todd, maybe some spent bullet casings.

[OCmike]

I've "got" to find that thing and see how
it was really spelled and/or capitalized !

In German you capitalize the first letter of a sentence just like in English and you also capitalize the first letter of nouns. "Mit" means "with" and "uns" means "us". Neither are nouns, so neither would be capitalized.

Oh, and I think you can trust the Germans to spell the word "God" correctly in their own language.

[BSmack]

Do they sell food there?

Hell it's in KC. I'm sure the whole fucking building is deep fried.

Thanks R-Jack. It just wouldn't have seemed right if there hadn't been at least some dab of KC smack attempted.

And actually, there will be a cafe opening soon, but as of now they do not sell food there. There is a nice gift shop, though. I shoulda' picked up a nice trinket or two for Todd, maybe some spent bullet casings.

I know Kansas City looks like a trench warfare site, but why the fuck is there a WWI museum there? Were there no other cities that gave a fuck?

[Wolfman]

FYI--
and I tried to photograph it-- need to try with some other lighting
as the rust on the circular part that has the words on it
will not show up with ordinary flash--
anyway it is in all caps !!

GOTT MIT UNS

must be the German's liked to shout it out !

[PSUFAN]

"Meat Grinder" comes to mind.

[Dinsdale]

WWI or II? that sounds more like the stories i heard coming out of II.

At wolfies age, it's quite logical that his grandfather would've been in WW I, not II, you fucking idiot.

I'm 20 years Wolfie's junior, and my grandfather fought in WW1. Matter of fact, the story goes that as a soldier in the British Army, my grandfather(who died before I was born), was one of the guys who came up with a ball, and challenged the Germans to one of the famous CChristmas Day soccer matches.


So there.

[OCmike]

Who brings a soccer ball to a war? Just curious... I mean, how exactly did that go down?

Sarge: Johnson, you've got the extra grenades, the BAR and the soccer ball in case there's a cease fire so we can get in a quick match between artillery barrages, right?

Did they stack up bodies to use as goals? Seriously...what the fuck?

[Dinsdale]

I always kinda wondered about that myself, actually.

But considering guys need to entertain themselves somehow, having a ball to kick around isn't too big a stretch. Hell, in these modern times, when my buddy was in Iraq, he claimed to have spent about 1.5 hours in the gym every early morning that he wasn't on the road... since he says pretty much every base there has a full-service gym set up. So a few balls for various sports doesn't seem like a big deal, even 90 years ago.

As mentioned, I never knew my grandfather, but from all accounts, he was a stage actor, and was just the sort of guy who would throw up a white flag, pompously walk out to the middle of the battlefield, and suggest a friendly game of footy.


Coming home deaf didn't help his acting career a whole lot, from what I understand.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

My maternal grandfather fought in WWI (he was born in 1898). He was a Brit (from Manchester). He lied about his age to join the Navy. He would never talk about what went down. Ever.

Speaking of WWI, in my infectious diseases course we ended up studying the Spanish Influenza of 1918, which killed more folks than the war did. It became a pandemic at least partly due to the movement of troops during the war and wreaked utter havoc all over the place. Lots of stories of dudes surviving the horrors of combat only to die of the flu once at home. Any mention of the flu at the museum?

[Dinsdale]

Baseball's popularity soared in the Union Army during the Civil War. I'm not really sure how he got connected to the game, but Abner Doubleday was a Union division commander in the Army of the Potomac.

Abner Doubleday did not "invent" baseball, since it was played before he was born. Doubleday did fire the first shot of the Civil War, or so the story goes.

I believe Doubleday's connection to baseball is that he wrote down some standard rules while in Cooperstown, since before that, baseball was a regional thing, and rules, along with bats and balls, varied greatly from place to place...including England, where they actually "invented" the game.

But I believe Doubleday is credited as the "inventor" due to his passion for The Game, and his desire to see the rules standardized so it could be played by teams from different regions.

[Mister Bushice]

Who brings a soccer ball to a war?

Some guy named Wilson.

[BSmack]

Baseball's popularity soared in the Union Army during the Civil War. I'm not really sure how he got connected to the game, but Abner Doubleday was a Union division commander in the Army of the Potomac.

Abner Doubleday did not "invent" baseball, since it was played before he was born. Doubleday did fire the first shot of the Civil War, or so the story goes.

I believe Doubleday's connection to baseball is that he wrote down some standard rules while in Cooperstown, since before that, baseball was a regional thing, and rules, along with bats and balls, varied greatly from place to place...including England, where they actually "invented" the game.

But I believe Doubleday is credited as the "inventor" due to his passion for The Game, and his desire to see the rules standardized so it could be played by teams from different regions.

There is absolutely no record of Doubleday having any association with baseball whatsoever. There is no mention of baseball in any of his corresponence, nor is there even a mention of it in his obituary. The Doubleday myth was a early 20th Century creation of Abner Graves and the The Mills Commission.

[BSmack]

Doubleday did fire the first shot of the Civil War, or so the story goes.

He did. More importantly, his I Corps kept the Confederates from taking Cemetery Ridge during on the 1st day at Gettysburg.

I'm having trouble buying the revisionist opinion of the Mills Commission, though. They didn't just pull his name out of a hat.

That Doubleday was a plebe at West Point when he is alleged to have invented baseball should have been their first clue that Graves was talking out of his ass. It should also be noted that Graves was quite elderly and quite insane at the time the Mills Commission interviewed him.

Here's a more detailed link.

http://www.americanheritage.com/article ... 4_65.shtml

[Mikey]

Speaking of WWI, in my infectious diseases course we ended up studying the Spanish Influenza of 1918, which killed more folks than the war did. It became a pandemic at least partly due to the movement of troops during the war and wreaked utter havoc all over the place. Lots of stories of dudes surviving the horrors of combat only to die of the flu once at home. Any mention of the flu at the museum?

My grandmother lost most of her family in Indiana, including her husband, to the influenza. She moved out to Arizona and then California as a young single mother with an infant child because the baby had respiratory problems. Enrolled at and graduated from Cal (not too many women there at the time) and moved to LowCal where she met and married my grandpa. Hers is a pretty amazing story, considering the times. A lot of displacement going on then because of the flu, the war and other factors.

[Dinsdale]

Influenza is the most common disease on the planet, by far. And I'm guessing no one here not named MtLR can come up with #2.

[Mikey]

viral nasopharyngitis?

[OCmike]

Human Pappiloma virus? - Mike Backer

[Mikey]

Influenza is the most common disease on the planet, by far. And I'm guessing no one here not named MtLR can come up with #2.

You're not going to start going off on bacterial gastroenteritis are you (because a doctor you met on an airplane told you so)?

[Dinsdale]

In which region are most of the people on earth located?


What's their common malady?


It's the SE Asians, and their HBV(hep). Kills over 1,000,000 worldwide every year.

[Dinsdale]

Excuse me, my bad...


Upon further research, HBV isn't #2... it's #1. Flu is second. 1/3rd of the world's population catches HBV.


Fucking chinks and their hep.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

Kills over 1,000,000 worldwide every year.

Malaria kills more.

According to the World Health Organization there are 300 to 500 million clinical cases of malaria each year resulting in 1.5 to 2.7 million deaths.

http://archive.idrc.ca/books/reports/1996/01-07e.html

Boys...boys...you can BOTH be right!

HBV is in a little less than 1/3 of the world population (2 BILLION infected folks out of 6.6 billion)

But malaria, does in fact whack more.

[Dinsdale]

Malaria kills more.

So, getting all to-the-bottom-of-the-matter, the WHO adresses the question, actually.


And in summary, they basically say "depends on what you consider a disease, and what you consider 'dying from it' ."



So, we're deep into subjective territory. To read through the WHO's mumble-jumble, it leads you to believe AIDS has become the highest-Darwin-ranking at present.


When a person gets HIV/AIDS and dies, it's fairly cut-and-dried. Same goes for flu, to an extent. Pnuemonia gets a little more dicey, since I think there's usually multiple factors that contribute.

Then, there's the chinks and their HBV. It doesn't kill you right away... it takes decades and decades... then, the liver quits and you die. There was little-to-no spread of HBV in the USA until all of the refugees from the Vietnam War started showing up. Wasn't really an issue. Around 1979, the CDC and others started seeing a dramatic increase, and by then, it was in the nation's blood supply, and the epidemic was on. Unlike other viral diseases, HBV is an extremely rugged virus, and can live outside of the human body in a dormant state for weeks at a time. Therein lies the problem -- not only can it be easily transmitted by the usual sexual and IV drug routes, but HBV throws it's hat in the ring as a slight risk of casual contact, such as accident sites, and any pointy object in a public place. Anywhere even the most miniscule drops of blood can hide(even for 2 weeks), and a person can injure themself, or even touch that same spot with any sort of open cut/wound, you've got the risk of infection. Unfortunately, it also is spread from mother to child at birth, hence the deeply-entrenched problem in SE Asia. The developed nations of the world have done a MUCH better job of dealing with it than the Asians. I believe most school districts across the country require all students to be immunized(which wasn't possible until the early 90's...beware, 30-somethings), and there's treatments for children who are born infected. But apparently it's more important to the Chinese government that they make cheap widgets and build oil-storage facilities than to actually treat their population for the disease they're famous for, and almost universally infected with.

Then again, if Chinese people actually started living to be a ripe old age, and they didn't all drop off early from liver failure, they'd have one hell of a care-for-the-elderly problem, I suppose. Their culture and biological deficiencies limit their lifespan, so it evens out in the end.

[Mikey]

I'd say it's probable that more people have viral nasopharyngitis than either Hep or malaria, and probably both combined.

Whether or not you want to believe Wiki, for what it's worth...

The common cold is the most common of all human diseases infecting adults at an average rate of 2–4 infections per year, and school-aged children as many as 12 times per year.

[War Wagon]

I know Kansas City looks like a trench warfare site, but why the fuck is there a WWI museum there? Were there no other cities that gave a fuck?

The current museum just opened, but the Liberty Memorial was built in like 1921. Apparently, Kansas Citians are and were very civic minded and decided that some sort of lasting Memorial needed to be built. The fact that Gen. Pershing was a local boy probably didn't hurt either. It's only natural that the museum be located there. KC spent quite a bit of cash getting it built, mostly thru city bonds and from some big private donors. There's also a brick walk out front commemorating thousands of smaller donors.

As for MtLR's question about the flu epidemic being mentioned at the museum, I didn't see that, but there was a whole lot I just briefly skimmed over 'cause I didn't have all day. I may go back someday when I've got at least 5-6 hours to kill.

[Dinsdale]

When a person gets HIV/AIDS and dies, it's fairly cut-and-dried.

Not really. Don't they usually die from secondary infections?

I suppose you're right there. I was thinking it was "cut-and-dried" in the sense that they generally start withering down to nothing, and then the cold/flu whatever whacks them. But your point is indeed correct.

Then, there's the chinks and their HBV. It doesn't kill you right away... it takes decades and decades... then, the liver quits and you die.

In some cases, yes.

People who get a chronic infection, which is typical of the SE Asians, due to becoming infected at birth/early age, tend to have their liver quit before the other aspects of aging have a chance to kick in.

Two billion people running around with the shit. 1/3rd of the world's population, give or take. All well and good in SE Asia, but it's a problem when they start bleeding and having sex elsewhere.


2 freaking billion. And most of them will succumb to liver failure at some point down the road.



So, do I get an "A," MtLR? I actually do know a thing or two about liver disease(an unfortunate bit of extracirricular study, due to necessity).

[Mike the Lab Rat]

So, do I get an "A," MtLR?

Sure. And I'm not even grading on a curve or anything.