Sunday, January 18, 2004

Something I struggle with in thinking about religion or politics or lifestyle is that whenever I get a new insight, or to be more truthful, whenever I start believing something different, I can't share the possibility of being right with anyone.  If someone else is right, then I must be wrong.  If I am right, which I most certaintly am, then all those other freaks must be wrong.  So, it gets under my skin when there are millions of people happily believing something that I find stupid.  Part of me automatically goes to work figuring out how to show them the error of their ways, or at the very least  least insult them.  Except, when I meditate, I can watch that part of me at work and it will just amuse me and relax me.  So that is why all of you should meditate.  See?  There I go again.  6:43:52 PM    comment []

Operation Market Garden I watched parts 3 and 4 of Band of Brothers last night.  Very intense and well done, I gotta say.  I was confused by Operation Market Garden.  When they were looking over at Eindhoven being bombed, one guy said, "they probably won't give us any more flowers", or something.  I read now that it was bombed by the germans on that day, so why did that guy say that?.  Why did the germans bomb it and how were they allowed to?  I thought we had pretty much eliminated their air force by then. I looked up the history of Market Garden on the internet.  Much of the information that came up was discussion and images of computer and board games recreating the operation.  The film, A Bridge Too Far, is based on Operation Market Garden.  Here is what I figured out: Allied commanders, mostly Montgomery, see an opportunity to make a fast break around the Siegrfried line so they held up the allied advance to prepare for an armoured sweep led by airborne infantry.  Patton is against it. During the pause in the advance, 80,000 soldiers of the 15th German Army escaped from their entrapment in the harbours and canals of Holland.  Some of this is recorded here. A german general named von Rundstedt was placed back in command of the western front.  He is one of the most effective german generals  (the battle of the bulge is known sometimes as the Runstedt offensive, though he denied it being his idea.) Von Runstedt was a genius and he was prepared to ruin the allied plan.  He used the 15th German Army that escaped to reinforce the armies around Arnhem. When Operation Market Garden started the germans massed and ready all around Arnhem, where a bridge crosses the Rhine river.   It was the last of the bridges that Market Garden was supposed to secure.  So, the allies got pushed back from Arnhem. The rest of September, 1944 is taken up by fighting along this corridor connecting the bridges.  Market Garden was a failure, but Montgomery counts it as a success. I appreciated how in the first 3 episodes, Easy Company was a discernable element fighting small battles and in Market Garden, it was a tiny piece of the huge campaign without much ability to affect the outcome of the battle, which was mainly fought by Polish and British troops. 1:19:56 PM    comment []