Recently, TOF happened upon the following list of words to avoid in one's scrivening and thought to share it with his Faithful Reader. The original YouTuber was unbearably chatty and triggers one of TOF's Pet Peeves [vide infra], so he will not actually link it here. However, a few comments may be in order.
First, at the risk of falling into the Spanish Barber Paradox, TOF will state the First Unbreakable Law of Writing; viz., There are no unbreakable laws. IOW, each of these shunwords may find a seat at your verbal table, "if God be willing and the creeks don't rise." Foremost among these occasions is dialogue, where any sort of verbal infelicity may be allowable as a means of characterization.
Second, you should shun these words because they usually weaken or distance your prose or add bulk without adding value. The OP kept saying "passive vice," which was TOF's Peeve. She meant passivity as such, not specifically the passive voice. The latter is a particular grammatical form in the conjugation of verbs. It should indeed be eschewed, save in scientific papers, where it has been customary, and in TOF's blog, for its arch flavor.
Third, the list is neither magical nor proprietary. TOF is neither the first nor will he be the last to take note of them. Nor is the list epistemically closed. The Reader may append other words should he be so inclined.
The List [in order alphabetical]
definitely
You should definitely shun this word. (See what I did there? Nyuk-nyuk.) Nothing is lost were TOF to have written instead "You should shun this word." It is one of a family of shunwords that includes actually, really, very, and similar general intensifiers (vide infra). In the sentence
Betsy was definitely worried.
omitting the intensifier loses nothing:
Betsy was worried
is/was
But it's still not quite there. The OP called this "passive voice," but the criminal act here is telling rather than showing. Dropping the word "definitely" still leaves the sentence flaccid. Is/was is a colorless word. Other verbs may serve. Instead, the writer should show us Betsy being worried:
Betsy
fiddled with the bottles on the sideboard, casting quick glances over her
shoulder toward the door. Once, hearing footsteps in the hallway, she
muffled the clinking of the bottles and held her breath until the
footsteps continued on their way.
just
This word is just unnecessary in most cases. It is the literary equivalence of filler, adding bulk without adding value.
seem
"Seem" is a wimpy word.
The dark corridor seemed ominous.
First, to whom does it seem so? Second, is the corridor ominous or not. This is like "was." It doesn't say anything. "Seem" might be okay to use in portraying a POV for a character, but there are usually better ways to make the point. Show the corridor in such a way as to make the Reader feel it,
The corridor loomed dark before her. A draft wafted through it coaxing a low moan from the walls. Somewhere in the darkness a door creaked.
somehow
Another wimpy word. Don't tell us a thing somehow happened. Show us how it did happen. Or else in POV how it reflects the character's ignorance.
Somehow, Betsy found herself walking down that corridor.
Really? I bet
Summoning her last scrap of courage, Betsy walked down the corridor.
somewhat/slightly
More wimpery! Compare:
Betsy was slightly afraid.
versus
Betsy was afraid.
versus
Betsy's trembling diminished with each step, but never ceased entirely.
start
Do not start doing something; just do it, Compare:
Betsy started to walk down the dark corridor.
versus
Betsy walked down the dark corridor.
then
Betsy took a deep breath then stepped into the darkened hallway.
The Reader is no doubt already familiar with the usual passage of time. There is no need to tell him that after one thing happens, then another happens.
Taking a deep breath Betsy stepped into the darkened hallway.
very/really
These words fall into the family of general intensifiers (cf. definitely, supra). It is almost always better to find a more intense word simpliciter. For example, change:
The vampire's teeth were very sharp.
to
The vampire's teeth were nails piercing her neck,
Or change
Gareth spoke in a really loud voice.
What, compared to a fake loud voice? Try
Gareth shouted.
Passive Voice
Sometimes more than a word ought be shunned, but a construction. Passive Voice is an example. In fiction, the passive voice wimps out because it evicts the actor from the subject slot and replaces it with the recipient. In the active voice, an actor does a thing. In the passive voice, a thing is done (by an actor). The actor is oft omitted, too. Compare:
Active voice: The parched vampire drained Betsy's blood.
Here, the vampire is the actor and the subject of the sentence.
Passive voice: Betsy's blood was drained [by the parched vampire]
In this version, the recipient of the act [Betsy's blood] is made the subject of the sentence, and the actor [the vampire] is exiled to a modifying phrase, to cower behind a preposition.
Passive voice is not mere passivity. Betsy is inactive in the blood-draining. It is the structure of the sentence that distances the Reader from the narrative.
Overkill sentences
Another macroshun is the extra sentence at the end of a paragraph.
The frigate rotated slowly on her long axis as she orbited the Moon. The melted rent down her side marked where a laser cannon had opened her interior to the vacuum. A debris cloud surrounded the wreck, and fitful sparks flashed in the oxygen outgassing from her fittings. No one answered our hails. The ship was utterly destroyed.
Oh, was she now? No fooling? You mean Faithful Reader couldn't pick up on that from the description? The last sentence in that passage should be utterly destroyed.
What do the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Dodgers, a steel mill, and a chapel of Benedictine nuns have in common?
Nothing more or less than the rise of the West from a backwater to a formerly dominant position in the world -- as well as her later decay.
There are any number of factors that contributed. For example, the specific shoreline of Western Europe, her broad continental shelf, the winds and currents of the Atlantic, the freedom of women, etc. No big thing in history has a single causal factor.
But what of the Philharmonic, Dodgers , et al.?
The playing of a symphony [or similar work] requires 1st and 2nd Violins, Violas, Cellos, Double Basses, Flutes, Clarinets, Oboes, Bassoons, French Horns, Trumpets, Trombones, and others each playing a different line of music and yet producing a coordinated whole. The Dodgers require pitchers, catchers, 1st basemen, 2nd basemen, shortstops, third basemen, and sundry outfielders each doing his own thing, yet playing together toward a harmonious outcome. The same can be said of the crane operators, puddlers, millwrights, chemists, metallurgists, inspectors, mechanics, accountants, salesmen, managers, et al. who comprise the steel mill; not to mention the sundry voices that comprise a choir.
A key invention of medieval Christendom was polyphony, in which several voices in a choir sang different lines which combined harmoniously and contrapuntally into a whole. This mentality informed the newfangled "corporate persons," like universities and guilds, which also featured different people doing different things that combined into a whole. The modern corporation is an example of such communal enterprise. So s an orchestra or a team sport. Teamwork and coordinated disparate roles were a key factor in the rise
of the West. It's one of the reasons, the West entered the middle ages a
follower but emerged as a leader.
Other cultures were quite adept at top-down, not so accomplished at bottom-up. An Indian raga played on the sitar is a masterpiece of virtuosity. The melodic lines are complex and the development subtle and intricate; but the only second voice is that of the rhythm beat of the tabla, and that is more like an accompanist than a colleague. There were no orchestras in India -- or in China, Japan, or the House of Submission. There were no corporations. Team sports like polo were more like a bunch of guys all trying to do the same thing than a variety of different roles all trying to do different things, but in a coordinated manner. Likewise, communal singing is not polyphonic if everyone is trying to sing the same melody.
As the rest of the world picked up on corporate effort, they began also to excel. One finds orchestras everywhere. Japan fields excellent baseball teams; India, outstanding cricket teams. Japan organized world-class industrial corporations; India has begun to do so now that the "red tape Raj" has been trimmed back.
But of late, Western music has been subsiding into noise. After a polyphonic heyday that gave us the Mmas and the Papas in popular tunes, the blending of multiple voices has shed first counterpoint, then harmony, and finally melody, so that we are left with mere rhythm. The coordination of disparate voices in parliaments and congresses has faded into a search for a Leader who, like the One Man of China, the rajah or the emir, or the Emperor of Rome, can guide us out of our troubles. We have begun to put our faith into autocracy rather than group effort.
A perennial issue has come up again elsewhere. Yes, Tofians, another physicist has strayed from the pasture. Sabine Hossenfelder posted a YouTube video a while back which the Algorithm presented to TOF's oculars for sober consideration. In it, Dr Hossenfelder provides her insight as a physicist on the philosophical concept of Free Will. She doesn't buy it. (But then, she was forced to say so by vast impersonal forces, wasn't she?) Her objections remind TOF of Mary Midgley's dictum that those who spurn philosophy are usually in thrall to obsolete forms of it; in this case, to 18th/19th century mechanistic philosophies. Most of her objections were considered by T. Aquinas a millennium and a half more than half a millennium ago. In fact, Tommy raised a great many more than she does, but she undoubtedly believes hers are new and Modern. She has at least framed them in a Modern Way and presumes that Science!™ (a method for investigating the metrical properties of material bodies) is somehow apropos for investigating the ontology of philosophical concepts! Had her only tool been a hammer, I am sure that Free Will would have possessed sterling, nail-like qualities.
But, TOF (I hear you say), you cogent codger of cogitation, if the mind's outputs are the product of mere external forces, should we pay any more attention to S. Hossenfelder's brain-outputs than to the whisperings of trees rustled by the wind?
Answer: TOF is retired and has just delivered myself of a novel; so there is nothing urgent on his plate.
Let the games begin!
Nota bene: For those unfamiliar with the Questions genre, the format lays out
the Question to be determined
the Principle Objections against it
A single supperting statement (Sed contra = but on the other hand...0
The determination of the writer (Respondeo - I answer that...)
Responses to each of the initial objections
Quaestio: Whether the Will be Free
Objection 1. It would seem
that the Will is not free because the brain is physical matter, composed of
atoms, and therefore its acts are determined by the physical forces acting upon it.
If we knew all the forces acting on a person, we would see that he had no
choice but to to do as he did. [Hossenfelder 2020]
Objection 2. Furthermore, physical
Laws are expressed in differential equations and given the initial
conditions, all future states can be thereby calculated. As Hossenfelder's brain atoms put out, "the whole
story of the universe in every single detail was determined already at the Big Bang. We are just watching it play out.” [Hoss., op cit]
Objection 3.It would seem
that the Will is not free because no one chooses that which he deems repugnant, but always chooses that which seems best. The Big Bang resulted in Sabine Hossenfelder's brain atoms emitting, “your choice is determined by what you want.” Therefore, the Will is not free to choose otherwise. [Hoss.,op cit]
Objection 4. Psychologist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments that showed that the
brain “registers” the decision to make movements before a person consciously
decides to move. And psychologist Daniel Wegner’s brain
state declared, “The experience of willing an act arises from interpreting
one’s thought as the cause of the act.” Our sense of making choices or
decisions is just an awareness of what the brain has already decided for
us." Therefore, decisions are made subconsciously by the brain and
not by the Will.
Objection 5. According to law professor Barbara H. Fried, "our worldviews,
aspirations, temperaments, conduct, and achievements...are in significant part determined by accidents
of biology and circumstance.” Therefore, the will is not free and we should not hold malefactors blameworthy. [Fried 2013]
Sed contra.Mathematician and physicist Alfred North Whitehead said,
“Scientists animated by the purpose of proving themselves purposeless
constitute an interesting subject for study.” [The Function of Reason (1929), Beacon Books, 1958, p. 16]
Respondeo. First let us clarify what is meant by a motion of the Will;then of what is meant by its freedom.
1. The Will is the appetite for the products of conception, i.e., for concepts.
As such, it is analogous to the Emotions, which are appetites for percepts, that is, for concrete objects directly perceived [or recalled] by the senses. The Will may supervene over the Emotions. This can be seen by comparing the animal emotion to eat when it is hungry versus the human decision to forego the food for the sake of a diet or a holy fast.
We can diagram the human psyche as below [Fig 1] . It incorporates the basic stimulus-response loop common to all animals; viz.,
Sensation. Stimuli [photons, compression waves, pheromones, ...] spray like a fire hose on the outer senses, the organs of sight, hearing, smell, et al. The neural impulses thus triggered arrive in different areas of the brain at different instants.
Perception. The inner senses select and unite these sensations via the common sense and form an whole-istic "image" via the imagination. The Image can later be recalled by memory.The Image is less detailed than the immediate Sensation, and the Memory, less detailed still.The estimative power of the imagination deems the percept desirable or obnoxious. This re-cognition may be hard-wired or learned.
Emotions. This engenders an appetite for [or revulsion to] the perceived concrete particular.
Motion. This triggers the animal to approach or retreat from the perceived object. Motion may also be triggered without emotion via the autonomic nervous system: hearts beat, stomachs digest, and struck knees jerk without any particular desires.
Fig 1. Schematic of sensitive and rational psyche
Thus far, all animals. For rational animals, i.e., for creatures able to give reasons for their acts, two additional powers are appended; viz.,
Intellect reflects on the percepts and "pulls out" [abstracts] concepts. Like the estimative power of the imagination, the deliberative power of the intellect deems the concept desirable or not.
Volition then wants the desired concept [or rejects an undesireable one]. This wanting/not wanting supervenes on any parallel visceral emotion raised by direct perception [incl. memory] of the concrete particular, such as a pleasant taste of this apricot or gentle touch of that silk scarf. For example:
Adam perceives a barking Rottweiler and abstracts a concept of dog that he finds frightening. His Will produces a fear of dogs in general, and thereafter wants avoid all canines. This is quite different from the direct and immediate fear-reaction to the actual Rottweiler.
Bertha encounters a rampaging mob smashing store windows and looting, and she feels in the moment an instinctive fear and desires to avoid it. But then her intellect apprehends that the mob is rioting for social justice, a concept of which her Will approves. She overrides her fears and either approves or even joins in to get her fair share of the loot.
In humans, every act of the Intellect is accompanied by an act of the Imagination. Try conceiving of triangularity without imagining a specific triangle: perhaps an equilateral triangle, a scalene triangle or the musical instrument, or even a love triangle. Try to conceive of "dog" without imagining a specific dog: perhaps a scruffy mutt or a French-groomed poodle. Since the Imagination involves Sensory memories, a neural pattern will appear in the brain.
It is easy to mistake imaginative behavior for the intellective. The former permits at least some animals to be trained. A bear can be taught to dance because he esteems the dance as good due to the rewards he is given for doing it; but few bruins take up ballet on their own. Cathy OTOH conceives of ballet in the abstract after perceiving instances of it in particular and deems it a good, and so takes lessons and rehearses. Debbie with the same perceptionsdeems it a waste of her time,
2. What do we mean by freedom of the Will?
Freedom is the absence of compulsion. (Chastek, 2014a). So the Will is free to the extent that it is not compelled [or determined] toward any one particular decision or blocked in its natural movement toward the Good. Think free fall.
In
college, TOF and his classmates noted that when the armed robber sticks
a gun in your ribs and says, "Your money or your life!" the choice is
not free, but compelled, We raised this objection with the spirit that
no one in history before the evolution of the college sophomore had ever
thought of it. Then what is that word OR doing in the sentence? But
everyone would choose to relinquish the money rather than the life!
Maybe so, but no one says that a free choice is necessarily the stupid
one, or that it is not arrived at by weighing the pros and cons in the chooser's value system. For
example, Frank is trained in hand-to-hand combat and notices that the
robber's gun has the safety engaged. Having more facts at his disposal,
he reaches a determination to grapple with the robber, rather than hand
over his hard-earned cash.
Those accustomed to dealing with inanimate matter may be inclined to call such things 'forces' rather than 'information,' but their Weltanschauung was formed in the era of dead machines, well before the development of software, so they are inclined to conceive the mind as full of gears, levers, and billiard balls,
In particular, there are many things that free will is not.
Free Will is not random .
Free Will is not unpredictable .
Free Will is not unreasoned.
Free Will is not unmotivated.
Quite the contrary. As the appetite of the Intellect, the Will is a rational power. It moves in accordance with the judgements of the Intellect and so always has reasons for its motions. Compare this to the Modern, Nietzschean Triumph of the Will, which elevates Wanting over Thinking.
3. That the Will is free can be easily seen.
a) It is impossible to want what we do not know.
b) Our knowledge is often imperfect or lacking.
c) Therefore, our wants have "slack" or "degrees of freedom."
Suppose Edgar deems World Peace a good thing and therefore desires it. But of what does this Peace consist? By what means might it be achieved? Edgar may be uncertain or unclear on the best course to take and decides to
join the World Peace Association and participate in street theater. OR
write stern letters to the New York Times in support of Peace. OR
conquer all his rivals, as Caesar Augustus did. OR...
The Will is free to the extent that is it not determined to a particular course of action.
When knowledge is complete, the Will cannot withhold consent. For example, the Intellect apprehends proposition "1+1=2," as those symbols are normally understood, as a true statement and therefore the Will necessarily chooses, "Yes."
This may not be the Late Modern's notion of Free Will, but it is not "changing the definition." It is how the freedom of the Will was defined by the people who first discussed it; e.g.., Thomas Aquinas. In fact, he listed twenty-four objections to the Question, including most of those raised again by Late Moderns.
4. Not all acts of a human are free. Some are autonomic, like the knee jerk, others can be ascribed to genetic factors, to habits, to training, and so on. Aquinas gave the example of a scholar unwittingly stroking his beard while deep in thought. A trained musician does not deliberate over each note before he plays it, but has practiced the piece so thoroughly that it has become muscle memory and he plays without thinking about bodily movement. Free choice entered into the decision to learn the piece in the first place -- to engage in the behavior that through repetition became a habit. Note the distinction between the abstract, concept of deciding to learn the piece and the physical acts of moving the fingers. It may well be the case that most acts fall into this latter category, which is why Aquinas distinguished between "acts of a human" in general and specifically "human acts," i.e., rational acts.
Chastek noted that "the difference between a Relativistic and Newtonian view of the world is
negligible in everyday practical units. In the same way the free actions
of human beings are a negligible amount of the total actions in a single human body) and so the
difference between a universe of complete determinism and one with free human action is negligible. Nevertheless, the great
scientific revolutions turned on seeing the significance in things that
were negligible within their context." [Chastek 2013]
Reply to Objection 1. This objection begs the question. It presumes as an act of faith that a host of “hidden variables” are there whether discoverable or not.
Furthermore, since under this objection our thoughts are simply brain states determined at the Big Bang and our thinking is just as much an illusion as our willing. Yet, this is never mentioned by deniers of free will.
Indeed, if actions are determined by outside factors=, all action is an illusion, since there are no factors outside the universe, the universe cannot act [Chastek, 2014b], and we are back to Parmenides and Zeno's paradoxes.
Reply to Objection 2. This objection is Calvinism in fancy dress. The math approximates certain metrical properties of empirical reality, and as the great physicist Henri Poincare noted, these calculations grow increasingly uncertain as we extend their range or increase their precision t0 "the whole story of the universe in every single detail." Whether wittingly or not, he cast doubt on the very idea that quantitative models could be used to predict the future (Ekeland, 1988: 35).
Paleontologist S. J. Gould once wrote that if the “tape of evolution” were rerun, we would not expect the same species to emerge. And if a purely mechanical process like natural selection is not deterministic, why should we nail the human Will to the doors of the Big Bang? If the extinction of various species today was written already into the Big Bang, it is hard to see how any selection at all is possible, whether natural selection or free will.
Reply to Objection 3. The Will is determined to the Good as its final cause just as the Intellect is determined to the True. But the generic desire for Good includes many diverse specific goods and does not compel the Will to any specific one. “If there is only one possible way to achieve the end, then the reason for willing the end and the reason for willing the means are the same. But such is not the case in the matter under discussion, since there are many ways to achieve happiness. And so human beings, although they necessarily will happiness, do not necessarily will any of the things leading to happiness [Aquinas 2003: Q.VI]. That the Will always chooses the apparently best alternative does not coerce the Will, since it is the deliberation as to the best is up to the individual. A free choice is not random or unmotivated. Hossenfelder's version of Nietzsche’s Triumph of the Will – “what you want determines what you choose” -- is akin to "wet streets cause rain." It gets things precisely backward since what you want just is the product of the will.
Reply to Objection 4. "All contemporary neuroscience-informed arguments against free choice confuse Buridan’s Ass Decisions with rational-moral ones" (Chastek 2018). Libet's experiment did not address desires for abstracted concepts, and so did not address the Will's freedom. It involved only simple physical movements, such as flexing the wrist, and these might well have only physical causes or inclinations.They do not seem to advance the Will's motion toward the Good.
Participants in Libet's experiment were asked to note the moment at which they were consciously aware of the decision to move, while EEG electrodes attached to their head monitored their brain activity. Activity in the supplementary motor area (SMA) was designated a "readiness potential" and defined as the real "moment of decision." Aside from the imprecision of self-reporting the moment of conscious awareness or the somewhat arbitrary designation of the brain activity as the actual decision point, the SMA is usually associated with imagining movements rather than actually performing them. So, it is not implausible that the SMA activity would precede the subject's self-reporting of decision. None of this lays a glove on Free Will. Even if the decision to move was made by Freud's imagined "subconscious," that subconscious is part of the person.
Reply to Objection 5. Our habits, inclinations, abilities and such are among those factors which we consider when making a deliberate choice. A free choice is not an unmotivated one. And if malefactors should not be fined or imprisoned because they were not responsible for their decisions, why should physicists be given Nobel prizes for theirs?
Searle, John R. (1990) "Is the Brain a Digital Computer?" in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Nov., 1990), pp. 21-37 (American Philosophical Association)
... of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the guns in
Europe fell silent at last. The United States built a wall inscribed
with the names of 58,220 servicemen killed or missing in the nine years' war in Vietnam, more than twice as many as in three days at Gettysburg.
The AEF doughboys engaged the Hun from Oct 21, 1917 to Nov 11, 1918 and
suffered 116,516 killed or missing, i.e., about twice as many total as
in Vietnam and 13x more on a yearly basis. No wall was ever built for
the doughboys and no memorial became official until 2004 -- in Kansas
City. A DC memorial was dedicated in 2021.
Pfc Harry F Singley, 304th Eng. AEF
Today
is the 104th anniversary of the Armistice, an event nearly forgotten
now, blended as it has been with veterans of all wars. Harry
Singley, 304th Engineers, describes the day in a letter published in the local paper:
"It was on Sept. 26 when the big drive started in the
Argonne Forest and I saw all kinds of things that I never witnessed
before. We started out on the night of the 25th. At 9 o'clock we
commenced a tank road and worked our way almost to the German's front
line trenches. At 2:30 one of the greatest of all barrages was opened.
It was said that between 3500 and 4000 guns, some of them of very large
calibre, went off at that hour just like clock work. We worked on this
road under shell fire until about 3:45 and then went back until the
infantry went over the top at 5 o'clock. We followed with the tanks.
That is the way the Americans started and kept pounding and pushing
ahead until the great day on Nov. 11. ...
It was some life. I am proud that I went through
it, for nobody on the Hill [i.e., Fountain Hill, PA] will have anything on me... I was a little
with sneezing or tear gas. It made me sick but I remained with the
company for I did not like to leave my detachment at any time for if
something would happen, I thought, there would be plenty of help. I
felt much better in a few days. A small piece of shrapnel splinter hit
me below the knee. Otherwise I was lucky. ..."
Cadet Flynn (seated) Older . brother James was in the Navy
#
TOF's
other grandfather, Francis T Flynn (Sr), at eighteen, was in the cadet
corps at Catholic University in Washington DC. As he later recalled,
So
while I was working on this piece-work job [making artillery shells for
the French Army at Ingersoll-Rand], the principal of the high school,
Sr. Felicita, called me on the telephone and told me, she said, "I sent
your credits to Catholic University and you can be admitted without a
College Board or any sort of examination, provided you are voluntarily
inducted.
So this was in the month of June and away I set
sail. I was down at Catholic University then from June until New
Years. ... [W]e were snowed into taking an ME course, because they were
short on officers. They said, "If you take this ME course, you will
get to Camp Meade quicker. The seniors will go first, then the juniors,
then the sophomores, et cetera, y'know. But if you take the mechanical
engineering course, you'll see action quicker than you would if you
took any other course. What I really wanted to take was Philosophy and
Letters and there was only one guy who held out for that... He later
became a monsignor.
Note that "you'll see action sooner" was regarded as an enticement. And also that he was really into
Philosophy and Letters. Then, when the Armistice broke out, his parents
begged him to stay in college. "We'll find the money somehow." But he
thought he was much smarter than they -- unlike 18/19-year olds today --
and took the train back home. It was, he thought later, the biggest
mistake of his life -- except that he married the Girl Next Door
(literally) and produced my father, which from TOF's point of view was
of considerable importance.
Sgt. Tommy Flynn
###
Since Armistice Day has become Veterans Day, let's scope out the veterans in
my family and the Marge's include the following. Not all have been
named.
The Vietnam War
Sgt. Tommy Flynn, CAC team Papa Three, USMC
My father's cousin lived with villagers in the mountains near Cam Lo
just a few miles south of the DMZ, and was severely wounded. He later wrote a book about his
experience, A Voice of Hope. In a review of this book, Joni Bour wrote:
"The idea was to somewhat integrate with the
Vietnamese people in order to gain their trust and friendship and
ultimately military intelligence that would help us find the bad guys. It sounds good, and at times
it was probably very good, because the Vietnamese were helped with schools and
sanitation and protection from the Viet Cong. But it was
also an extremely dangerous assignment. CAC soldiers lived near a village and survived mostly
on their own. It was a small compound that was flooded when it rained and was overrun
several times by the Viet Cong. On one such occasion, Mr. Flynn was severely
wounded in the face, neck and thigh. He spent weeks in several hospitals and then
a hospital ship with his jaw wired shut, before being mistakenly sent back to the
war. He was given a choice; he could work in the rear or go back to his CAC squad.
He was either a little nuts, or little bit more brave than most of us,
because he chose to return to his squad.
###
Joe Flynn was discharged as corporal
World War II
Pfc. Joseph Flynn, 5th Eng. Btn., 5th Marine Division, USMC
My father served on Iwo Jima and in the Japanese Occupation. The photo
on the left is the only time he ever wore dress blues. It was actually a false-front "uniform" used only for the picture.
On Iwo Jima, he went in with the first wave along with his captain.
He was to establish battalion liaison and take the word back to his
unit.
During the fighting, he had a number of close shaves. In one case, a
Japanese shell hit right in front of
him while he was bringing anti-tank grenades from the dump to the front,
and the explosion lifted him up and sent him hurtling through the air
to land on his back. He was totally numb and deaf and thought he was
paralyzed. But gradually feeling and hearing returned and when he
checked himself, he had not gotten so much as a scratch. He ought to
have gotten a Purple Heart, but this was Iwo Jima, and you had to bleed
to get such a medal.
He
remembers, too, the moment they unfurled that flag atop Suribachi, from
the heights of which Japanese snipers had been shooting them in the
back as they pushed north.
There had been a smaller flag earlier, but the commanding general
ordered a larger one that could be seen from every point on the island.
The impact of that flag on morale was incalculable, he said.
During the Occupation, he had the dubious privilege of walking through the middle of Nagasaki not long after it was nuked.
Afterward,
on two occasions, he was offered the opportunity to be brevetted to
officer and sent to OCS. This was because of the initiative he had shown
on several occasions during the battle. However, he was anxious to
return home and get on with the urgent business of becoming my father
before my mother (a/k/a the Sweetheart of the Seventh Fleet) could be
tracked down by the aforesaid admirers of her morale-boosting snapshot.
###
The Great War Pfc. Harry Singley, 304th Eng., 72nd "Rainbow" Div., AEF
My
grandfather on my mother's side went "Over There" and served in the St. Mihel, Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
This was the offensive in which the famous Lost Battalion was cut off
and surrounded. His narrative appears at the beginning of this post. He
was a
combat engineer, which means he had to build things in the middle of
battle. The Great War was the first "industrial strength" war and nobody
at the time thought it was the first of a series. They thought it was
the "War to End All Wars," so there was still a touch of innocence and
idealism about
the whole endeavor. None of us grandkids ever heard him talk
about his experiences. Like most of the Silent Generation, he was
markedly silent on the whole thing.
The Flynns arrived in the US after the
Civil War and while the Singleys and Schwars arrived a decade earlier, none of them were in it, so far as I know. Nor
do we know of anyone involved in the Indian or Spanish-American Wars,
so, at this time we turn to the maternal ancestry of the Incomparable
Marge!
US Civil War Pvt. John H. Hammontree, Co. H, 5th Tenn. Inf., US Vol.
Evacuation of Cumberland Gap
The
great-great grandfather of the
Incomparable Marge joined the Union Army when Confederates come into
East Tennessee and told the fellas there 'you boys better be a-wearing
gray come morning' or y'all be hanged.' Well, them hill people didn't cotton to
that at-all, and so they lit out that night acrosst the mountains to
sign up with Buell's army of the Ohio. Nine Hammontree cousins signed up for
the same company, as was common in those days.
John fought in the Campaigns of Cumberland Gap, Stones River, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Atlanta.
He was shot in the left leg during the attack on Confederate positions
at Resaca. He seems to have been returned to duty in time for the
Nashville Campaign. After the war, he died of complications stemming
from his wound.
Creek War (War of 1812) Pvt. James Hammontree, Capt. Duncan's Co. of Col. Bunch's Regiment (2nd Regt., East Tennessee Militia).
Margie's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather fought at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend under Gen. Andrew Jackson in the Creek (Red Stick) War. This was
subsumed into the War of 1812.
Andrew Jackson's official report of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (27 March 1814) mentions
that "a few companies" of Colonel Bunch were part of the right line of
the American forces at this engagement. The
muster rolls list some casualties from this battle in the companies led
by Captains Moses Davis, Joseph Duncan, and John Houk. Other men
from this regiment remained at Fort Williams prior to Horseshoe Bend to
guard the post -- provision returns indicate that there were 283 men
from Bunch's regiment at the fort at the time of the battle. James' brother William was also at the battle, and his brother Jacob had
been in a previous militia regiment. There were a variety of more
distant Hammontrees in other theaters of the war. Later,
when James had died, his widow Nancy had a heck of a time trying to
collect the pension that was owed her. Bureaucracy is not new.
The Revolution Pvt. John Hammontree, Capt. John Mountjoy's Co. of Foot, 10th Virginia, Continental Line.
James Hammontree's great uncle John enlisted in the 10th Virginia at an
unknown date and may have seen action with the 10th at Brandywine
and Germantown before entering winter quarters at Valley Forge. In
January 1778, he was reported "sick in camp" and he died there on 24 Feb
1778.
The 1st Virginia has a long ancestry, and exists today as the 276th Eng. Battalion of the Virginia National Guard. John Hammontree's younger brother Harris Hammontree enlisted
in the 1st Virginia on Feb. 12, 1778, after the regiment had gone into
encampment at Valley Forge. In April and June he was reported as
"sick," but unlike his older brother, he survived. He likely
participated in the battle of Monmouth in June 1778 after Baron von Steuben had trained them. Most of the
regiment was captured by the British at Charlestown, South Carolina, on
May 12, 1780, but Harris may not have been with the
regiment at that point. He was killed by Indians on the Virginia frontier, 25 July 1781.
