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History behind "Molon Labe"

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Topic: History behind "Molon Labe"
Posted By: 25-5
Subject: History behind "Molon Labe"
Date Posted: April 09 2013 at 8:36am
I have seen the phrase "Molon Labe" used with increasing frequency, due to the present political climate in the USA.  I came across this site with a short history of the term.
 
 
http://www.molonlabe.com/MLstory.html" rel="nofollow - http://www.molonlabe.com/MLstory.html


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For the pikes must be together at the rising of the moon.



Replies:
Posted By: A square 10
Date Posted: April 09 2013 at 10:11pm
thank you for the link , i knew the story but this did indeed bring it home again and relate it directly to the current condition ,
 


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 10 2013 at 12:13am
It reminds me of the story during WWII, the 101 Airborne,the Germans, and a little town in Belgium.

"Nutz"


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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 10 2013 at 3:24am
Paddy..that would have been BASTOGNE..FRANCE
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: 25-5
Date Posted: April 10 2013 at 6:30am
During his speech, Charlton Heston held the Kentucky Long Rifle high and shouted:
 
  "From my cold dead hands"
 
King Leonidas would have been proud.


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For the pikes must be together at the rising of the moon.


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 10 2013 at 6:38am
Hey Hoadie,

I will bet you a beer on this one.

The 101st Airborne Division troops defending Bastogne, Belgium during World War II's Battle of the Bulge.

Originally posted by hoadie hoadie wrote:

Paddy..that would have been BASTOGNE..FRANCE
Hoadie


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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 10 2013 at 9:50am
Your right(ARRGH! ) I knew it was 101st.I knew what battle it was as well.
My geography is a little off tonight
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 10 2013 at 10:05am
Hoadie,

Put the key board down, back away from the computer, drink a beer, and enjoy the day.

Ed


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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: ArcherSix
Date Posted: April 10 2013 at 10:43am
The movie 300 was on last night. Very stylized of course, but I like how they used a lot of the quotes from sources like Herotodus.
Seeing Leonidas say "Come and Take Them" on screen is always pretty cool


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 10 2013 at 11:12pm
True words of free men!

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: LE Owner
Date Posted: April 13 2013 at 12:23pm
I like the 1962 movie "the 300 Spartans" better than the "300" movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055719/" rel="nofollow - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055719/


Posted By: SW28fan
Date Posted: April 13 2013 at 12:38pm
The 300 Spartans was more historically correct.

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Have a Nice Day
If already having a nice day please disregard


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 13 2013 at 11:16pm
T hate when hollywood screws with history.

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 14 2013 at 1:11am
Hollywood would NEVER let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Just look @ what they done to the (un)civil war.They have the world believing that it was fought on the issue of slavery. Now-you've got every "hollywood-educated" all purpose idiot trying to ban the Confederate flags, & villifying the south!
DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 14 2013 at 1:55am
I still fly my "Stars and Bars" from time to time.

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: Zed
Date Posted: April 15 2013 at 4:59am
Well you learn something everyday! "Molon Labe" I did not know the origins, thanks for posting that.
While we are on the subject of great war time speeches! who said "Some chicken! Some neck!" (WWII)


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It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice!


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 15 2013 at 6:13am
Winston Churchill
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 15 2013 at 6:28am
Winston Churchill

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: muffett.2008
Date Posted: April 15 2013 at 6:45am
Col. SandersLOL


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 15 2013 at 7:03am
Col. Sanders you say?

When Col. Sanders died there was a real problem for his family. The family was unsure if he was to be extra crispy or regular.





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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: A square 10
Date Posted: April 15 2013 at 9:58pm
spicy


Posted By: LE Owner
Date Posted: April 16 2013 at 2:52am
Originally posted by hoadie hoadie wrote:

Hollywood would NEVER let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Just look @ what they done to the (un)civil war.They have the world believing that it was fought on the issue of slavery. Now-you've got every "hollywood-educated" all purpose idiot trying to ban the Confederate flags, & villifying the south!
DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!
Hoadie
 
The South wanted to spread slavery to the new western territories, things went downhill from there on out. Slavery was the major motivation for the Confederacy in its pre emptive attacks on Federal installations and the seizing of federal warships with impressment of U S Naval personel who had been born in southern states. Captive USN personel who refused to serve in the Confederate navy were routinely tortured and executed. All that before any attempt by the North to halt further incursions by the Confederacy into the border states of Tennessee and Kentucky.
Confederate troops from the state of Georgia occuppied East Tennessee and ambushed Tennessee voters on the way to the polls to force Tennessee into the Confederacy.
When finnally forced out of East Tennessee the Confederate troops burned down entire cities and towns and laid waste to farms.
 
Read a few books written on the subject at the time by people who were there, and remember who attacked who first. The Confederacy does not come off smelling like a rose when the facts are presented. Fact is Hollywood did more to spread the bogus myth of Southern Chivalry than to give the facts.
 
an example
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/aughey/aughey.html" rel="nofollow - http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/aughey/aughey.html
 
Quote
Colonel Drane arrived according to appointment, to address the people of Choctaw. He was a member of one of my congregations, and as he had long been a leading statesman in Mississippi, having for many years presided over the state senate, I expected to hear a speech of marked ability, unfolding the true issues before the people, with all the dignity, suavity, and earnestness of a gentleman and patriot; but I found his whole speech to be a tirade of abuse of the North, commingled with the bold avowal of treasonable sentiments. The Colonel thus addressed the people:
Page 22

"MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--I appear before you to urge anew resistance against the encroachments and aggressions of the Yankees. If the Black Republicans carry their ticket, and Old Abe is elected, our right to carry our slaves into the territories will be denied us; and who dare say that he would be a base, craven submissionist, when our God-given and constitutional right to carry slavery into the common domain is wickedly taken from the South. The Yankees cheated us out of Kansas by their infernal Emigrant Aid Societies. They cheated us out of California, which our blood and treasure purchased, for the South sent ten men to one that was sent by the North to the Mexican war, and thus we have no foothold on the Pacific coast; and even now we pay five dollars for the support of the general Government where the North pays one. We help to pay bounties to the Yankee fishermen in New England; indeed we are always paying, paying, paying, and yet the North is always crying, give, give, give. The South has made the North rich, and what thanks do we receive? Our rights are trampled on, our slaves are spirited by thousands over their underground railroad to Canada, our citizens are insulted while traveling in the North, and their servants are tampered with, and by false representations, and often by mob violence, forced from them. Douglas, knowing the power of Emigrant Aid Societies, proposes squatter sovereignty, with the positive certainty that the scum of Europe and the mudsills of Yankeedom can be


Page 23

shipped in, in numbers sufficient to control the destiny of the embryo state. Since the admission of Texas in 1845, there has not been a single foot of slave territory secured to the South, while the North has added to their list the extensive states of California, Minnesota, and Oregon, and Kansas is as good as theirs; while, if Lincoln is elected, the Wilmot proviso will be extended over all the common territories, debarring the South forever from her right to share the public domain.

"The hypocrites of the North tell us that slave-holding is sinful. Well, suppose it is. Upon us and our children let the guilt of this sin rest; we are willing to bear it, and it is none of their business. We are a more moral people than they are. Who originated Mormonism, Millerism, Spirit-rappings, Abolitionism, Free-lovism, and all other abominable isms which curse the world. The reply is, the North. Their puritanical fanaticism and hypocrisy is patent to all. Talk to us of the sin of slavery, when the only difference between us is that our slaves are black and theirs white. They treat their white slaves, the Irish and Dutch, in a cruel manner, giving them during health just enough to purchase coarse clothing, and when they become sick they are turned off to starve, as they do by hundreds every year. A female servant in the North must have a testimonial of good character before she will be employed; those with whom she is laboring will not give her this so long as they desire her services; she therefore cannot leave


Page 24

them, whatever may be her treatment, so that she is as much compelled to remain with her employer as the slave with his master.

"Their servants hate them; our's love us. My niggers would fight for me and my family. They have been treated well, and they know it. And I don't treat my slaves any better than my neighbors. If ever there comes a war between the North and the South, let us do as Abraham did--arm our trained servants and go forth with them to battle. They hate the Yankees as intensely as we do, and nothing could please our slaves better than to fight them. Ah, the perfidious Yankees. I cordially hate a Yankee. We have all suffered much at their hands; they will not keep faith with us. Have they complied with the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law? The thousands and ten of thousands of slaves aided in their escape to Canada is a sufficient answer. We have lost millions and are losing millions every year, by the operation of the underground railroad. How deep the perfidy of a people, thus to violate every article of compromise we have made with them! The Yankees are an inferior race, descended from the old Puritan stock, who enacted the Blue Laws. They are desirous of compelling us to submit to laws more iniquitous than ever were the Blue Laws. I have traveled in the North, and have seen the depth of their depravity. Now, my fellow-citizens, what shall we do to resist Northern aggression? Why simply this: If Lincoln or Douglas is elected


Page 25

(as to the Bell-Everett ticket, it stands no sort of chance), let us secede. This remedy will be effectual. I am in favor of no more compromises. Let us have Breckenridge, or immediate, complete, and eternal separation."

The speaker then retired amid the cheers of his audience.



Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 16 2013 at 3:53am
You should read the book The South was Right,.

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: Zed
Date Posted: April 16 2013 at 3:55am
Another quote "What the F*** was that bang!"
 the mayor of Hiroshima LOL


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It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice!


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 16 2013 at 3:56am
Sorry LE..wrong wrong wrong.But thats a debate for another time(Happy to talk bout it on land-line rather than choke-up the forum.Just remember tho- history is written by the victors
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: LE Owner
Date Posted: April 17 2013 at 3:29am
Revisionist history is written by losers.
 
Since the thread deals with historical accounts heres some things to think on.
Quote

Questions of historiography include the following:

  • who writes history, with what agenda in mind, and towards what ends?
  • how accurate can a historian ever hope to be, analyzing past events from the vantage point of the historian's present?
  • does the historian's own perspective, impacted as it undoubtedly is by gender, age, national and ideological affiliation, etc., contribute to an "agenda" that the historian's work is playing into, unwittingly or consciously?
  • what about the http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/history/sources/index.html" rel="nofollow - - primary and http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/history/sources/secondary.html" rel="nofollow - does the very selection of sources (and, by extension, the decision to exclude certain other sources) prejudice the outcome of the historian's work in certain ways? et cetera...

From Captain Mason's Narrative of the Pequot War.

Quote
If the Beginning be but obscure, and the Ground uncertain, its Continuance can hardly perswade to purchase belief: Or if Truth be wanting in History, it proves but a fruitless Discourse.

I shall therefore, God helping, endeavour not so much to stir up the Affections of Men, as to declare in Truth and Plainness the Actions and Doings of Men; I shall therefore set down Matter in order as they Began and were carried on and Issued; that so I may not deceive the Reader in confounding of Things, but the Discourse may be both Plain and Easy.

And although Some may think they have Wrote in a high Stile, and done some notable Thing, yet in my Opinion they have not Spoken truly in some Particulars, and in general to little Purpose: For how can History find Credit, if in the Beginning you do not deliver plainly and clearly from whence and how you do come to the Relation which you presently intend to make of Actions?

As a Rule, although it hath less length and breadth, yet notwithstanding it retains the Name if it hath that which is proper to a Rule. When the Bones are Separated from a living Creature, it becomes unserviceable: So a History, if you take away Order and Truth, the rest will prove to be but a vain Narration.

 
Best to study primary sources, the accounts of those who were there, rather than cherry picked quotes and idle speculations of those who wrote centuries after an event.
 
Compare Mason's account to that found in Zinn's "the Peoples History of the United States", and you'll get the drift.
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tmetrvlr/hd9.html" rel="nofollow - http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tmetrvlr/hd9.html
 
Another bit to consider is the U S Army oral history project, and how it adheres to rules for gathering eye witness accounts that date back to the ancient Greeks.


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 17 2013 at 4:45am
Everyone knows slavery was an issue..& there were slaves in the North, as well.
States rights were the primary driver her-not slavery.Most people at the south hadn't SEEN a slave-let alone afford to own one.(Pretty hard to buy a slave,if you cant buy shoes)
From the outset, there was no plan to occupy or destroy the North.Yet thats what the Northern agenda appears to have been.
I, too, have an extensive library on the Civil war, & do not-& never have-relied on ONE sole source.
There was far more to that unfortunate conflict than grand battles, plans & leaders.
I've just started another book(Year of Meteors)Stephen Douglas.A.Lincoln & the election that brought on the war.
There were so many issues involved-we could debate for the rest of our lives!
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: A square 10
Date Posted: April 17 2013 at 10:41pm
"..The South wanted to spread slavery to the new western territories, things went downhill from there on out. Slavery was the major motivation for the Confederacy in its pre emptive attacks on Federal ..."
 
i agree it was an issue , and there were western engagements with regard to territories entering the union as a slave state or a free state , but the souths motivation with regard to slavery was whether the federal government had the authority to dictate to the states , if it had not been an issue of human rights as we now know it - it would have been something else - most likely trade issues/regulations ,
 
as to re-writing history , we all know who does that - those that want things remembered in a different light than the facts present , today thats mostly done by the commie/libberal/socialist/'progressives' just as its traditionally been done in communist countries all over the globe ,
 
ill not deny that there were other uses over the centuries , "the maine" sinking and the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" , but the cambodian truth came out after the CR were driven from power ,


Posted By: LE Owner
Date Posted: April 18 2013 at 3:46am
Quote
 if it had not been an issue of human rights as we now know it - it would have been something else - most likely trade issues/regulations ,
But it wasn't something else, it was the spreading of the institution of slavery to western territories.
States Rights came into it only because the Confederacy wished to claim as a right the continued expansion of the institution of slavery beyond the borders of the existing slave states.
While only 20% of the population of the slave states were directly involved in the use of slaves the majority of the remaining white population benefited from the institution as the driving force of the ecomony, Cotten was King in those days. The export of cotten kept the southern aristocracy wealthy and the wealth trickled down.
At the lower end of the ladder poor whites had almost no opportunity at all, and were willing cannon fodder easily duped into fighting to preserve the lifestyle of the wealthy who before the war considered poor whites as trash less useful than slaves.
 
The South made many errors, starting a war with not a single cannon factory and having to invade and occupy the border states to obtain iron ore and steel was a major tactical error.
Assuming that they could confiscate enough federally owned ships and weapons to fight a war was another.
Depending on Europe to buy their cotten at prewar prices when Egyptian cotton was begining to hit the market in quantity was another.
Believing they could move enough supplies past a federal blockade to maintain armies in the field was the final miscalculation. 
 
 
 
The South started the war by confiscation of federally owned property, impressment of USN personel, and firing on a Federal fortification.
Had they not done so its highly unlikely that the Federal government would have or could have gone to war with the Confederacy.
 
If someone wishes to open another thread on this subject please do so.
I find the pretense of slavery not being the central and driving cause of the Civil War to be a steaming load. 


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 18 2013 at 4:00am
Let us leave this "War" to be spoken of at another time and place.

Let us return to the time of the Lee Enfeild and the rights of Mankind.


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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 18 2013 at 6:04am
ENFIELDS were THERE!!
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 18 2013 at 9:20am
You are correct Hoadie!

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 18 2013 at 10:14am
I gots me one!
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 18 2013 at 10:30am
I wish I did.

Enjoy!


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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: A square 10
Date Posted: April 18 2013 at 10:09pm
lots of enfeilds - wish i had one of those


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 19 2013 at 1:09am
I think the rest of the good old Enfields are under Hoadie's bed.

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 19 2013 at 1:52am
I like old things...OLD booze, OLD cars, OLD broads, & OLD ENFIELDS!
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 19 2013 at 5:31am
And old money.

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: hoadie
Date Posted: April 19 2013 at 9:22am
..aint got NONE of that!
Hoadie

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Loose wimmen tightened here


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 19 2013 at 11:17am
Just Gold, under the bed, old Enfields.

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: LE Owner
Date Posted: April 19 2013 at 12:09pm
Most of the reinactors here have Enfield Rifle Muskets, these were used by both sides in quantity.
Many of those I've seen looked to be originals rather than replicas, and bear what look to be arsenal repairs. These may have been imports from former British colonies rather than Civil War relics.
A local gunsmith had an original Enfield carbine on display, with replacement stock, but his shop burned down so it likely was destroyed.
 
Back to the Spartans.
They were certainly brave and great fighters, but their culture was especially brutal to its subject people and to the children of the Spartans.
Boys were savagely beaten by adults to get them used to pain, and training was relentless from an early age.
To prove themselves young men would sneak into a helot (subject race that did most of the real work) town at night and murder a man at random, then escape undetected. 
 
I've read that the Spartan body armor had a bronze breastplate twice as thick as others of the type and they wore no backplate since they never turned their back on an enemy.
In later times a Roman general being honored by a parade would stand in a chariot wearing this sort of armor (Roman ceremonial armor was patterned on the Greek Muscle Cuirass) with no backplate. Behind him a trusted slave of the Emperor would hold a victor's weath above the General's head and in the other hand a dagger against his unprotected back, he would then repeatedly whisper in the general's ear "you are only a man".
 
The flying V fighting formation of the Spartans was also used by the Vikings, who called it the "Swine's Snout".


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 19 2013 at 11:32pm
It sounds like the Spartans where raised to be the "Super Soldiers".

 

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.


Posted By: LE Owner
Date Posted: April 20 2013 at 10:04am
Originally posted by paddyofurniture paddyofurniture wrote:

It sounds like the Spartans where raised to be the "Super Soldiers".

 
 
Most certainly, it was the basis of their society.
When a Spartan baby was born a designated inspector took the baby to the edge of a cliff and carefully examined it. If he found any physical defect he hurled the baby over the cliff.
 
In some other ancient societies unwanted babies were exposed on a hillside, but childless couples could go there to rescue the baby to raise as there own. Those not chosen would of course die in a short time.


Posted By: paddyofurniture
Date Posted: April 20 2013 at 10:08am
I guess only the fit survive.

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Always looking for military manuals, Dodge M37 items,books on Berlin Germany, old atlases ( before 1946) , military maps of Scotland. English and Canadian gun parts.



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