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May 2011
750 Word Minimum
Start date: 05/8/11
End date: 6/8/11 midnight GMT
I think a Military History theme is in order since Memorial Day is this month and, being from a military family, I think we should celebrate Memorial Day and honor the men and women of the Armed Forces in our own little way. There are, however, a few general provisos:
1. The story must deal with an armed conflict that America was involved in (or the Thirteen Colonies if you prefer the Colonial Era). Examples include, but are not limited to: The French-Indian War, The American Revolution, The Barbary War, The Civil War, The Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, The Cold War, The Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the conflicts in Kosovo, The War on Terror, Operation Iraqi Freedom, etc.
2. The story does NOT necessarily have to deal with frontline fighting. Dealing with military hospitals, political dealing, etc is fine as long as the military history requirement is still met.
3. A Historical figure must make an appearance, it can be as simple as seeing General Washington ride by, hearing a snippet of the Gettysburg Address, or receiving orders from General Patton. The Historical Figure does NOT have to be the focus of the story, they just have to make an appearance.
I've already got several ideas that I can run with, I imagine Lupe does as well. So, have at it. Wee!
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Written by Valentine
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Smoke, acrid and hot, drifting across his already stinging eyes; thunder roaring nearby that came from no sky and the dreadful roll of drums, stamping of feet and the fearful cry of the enemy; his mouth dry his gut churning and his feet aching. Against this Tom had only the weight of the wood and metal in his arms, the press of the shoulders of his comrades and the symbol of the proud jacket he wore.
A westcountryman, born and raised he had never left the area around Harebridge where he had been ‘prenticed to a miller, not until the bright ribbons and rousing words of the recruiterman had come through and fired up his imaginings of the glory to be found in service. The bright buttons the ebullient self-assurance, the way that Nancy had looked at the sergeant; there had been nothing else to do.
It had been a very long road between Harebridge and this field here now, a low rise not so very far from the looming shadows of Sally-manky. He had seen the hustle and bustle of Plymouth, learned a few things from the ‘girls’ who looked after men down at the Barbican, had sailed in one of the great oaken bulwarks of the nation’s proud navy and thrown up more than any man had a gut to do, and after a diversionto the east because of some truly foul weather, he had sailed south and seen the wild frenzy of Porto, it’s frenetic pace barely hiding the nervousness of a nation that knew itself besieged. From there it had been out into the alien and scorched countryside, baking in the day and shivering in the night under a shared balcnket; foraging for food when allowed and all too often going hungry when not.
Truth be told he had seen little of the alleged terror of Army discipline, and knew for a fact that others had it far worse. Not for all the shillings in the sovereign’s chest would he have willingly submitted himself to the rule he saw their Prussian allies under in the KGL, and even less the barbarism of the enemy to their own. Instead it had been the work of the partisans, those local ‘little’ peoples fighting the ‘little war’ that had terrified him, when he had seen the mutilated bodies of those they caught, saw the hurts that had been inflicted on enemy and ‘collaborator’ alike. That and the terror of the physic’s tent, where ‘wings and limbs’ were hacked off and stacked like fire-logs and the dying were left to shiver their last in puddles of their own fetid filth.
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Written by Ressi
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[22 September 1776]
Nathan Hale paced quietly in the makeshift prison that had been created inside the greenhouse at Beekman House in rural Manhattan as the sun just peeked over the hills to the east casting its first rays into what promised to be a moderately chilly morning for so early in the year. To the twenty-one year old Patriot's way of thinking the city of New York was hardly worthy of being called such as it paled in comparison to places like Charleston down in South Carolina or even Boston, situated as it was on the Chesapeake Bay. Still, Yale educated as he was, he could understand the strategic need to hold on to New York since its loss, which had occurred but a few short weeks ago, would give the British a solid base of operations from which to resupply and rest their troops in New England and, thus, make them that much harder to eventually dislodge. That understanding had been why the young man had volunteered to be sent behind enemy lines to gather information on British troop deployments and movements. Such information would be invaluable to General Washington and, Hale had reasoned at the time, that no one would expect a Yale educated school teacher to be spying in the employ of the Colonial Army.
Outside the doors on each end of the small greenhouse stood two armed and red coated guards whose singular job was to make sure that their prisoner, who had been convicted as a spy by General William Howe yesterday, did not escape to return to the Patriots still encamped nearby. His fate, following the conviction, was a foregone conclusion. Spies were hanged. That was simply the way of things. Still, his captors could have at the least granted his requests for a Bible and a clergyman, both of which had been denied.
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May 2011
