What I'm Reading These Days - Part 6

Last week, I picked up a small book from the New Book section of my local library: A Military Miscellany by Thomas Ayres, published 2006 by Bantam Dell. At only 184 pages, it is packed with not-so-trivial facts, lists, and stories from American's military history. Did you know...

• an Army photographer took 20,000 German prisoners of war during WWII?
• ground was broken for the Pentagon exactly 60 years to the day that it was attacked by terrorists flying a civilian plane into it (September 11, 1941)?
• one man was present at the attack on Pearl Harbor, the dropping of the A-bomb at Hiroshima, and the Japanese surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri?
• three Union generals--William Terrill, Thomas L. Crittenden, and John B. McIntosh--had brothers that served as generals in the Confederate Army (James Terrill, George Crittenden, and James M. McIntosh)?
• First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln had a brother, three half-brothers, and three brothers-in-law who served in the Confederate Army?
• the War of 1812 was more unpopular with the public than the Vietnam War (representatives from the New England states met in Hartford, Connecticut to discuss secession and many American citizens openly aided British invaders)?
• General George Patton believed he had had seven past lives in great military campaigns of history, including his belief that he had been Hannibal, crossing the Alps to invade Rome?

This is both a fun and sobering look at our rich military legacy. I highly recommend it to you.