Learning A New Skill Works Best To Keep Your Brain Sharp : Shots - Health News : NPR

Learning A New Skill Works Best To Keep Your Brain Sharp : Shots - Health News : NPR

Good stuff to know, and something that seems to be increasingly supported by the evidence.  Indeed, it's also note that people with jobs that involve difficult mental problems exhibit this as well.

Sunday, June 14, 1914. Flag Day

Vice President Marshall delivering a Flag Day address, June 14, 1914.

Austro-Hungarian foreign minister Leopold Berchtold released a memo suggesting the end of Serbia as a nation was necessary to preserve the balance of power in the Balkans.

Oh, oh.

Order was restored in Italy after Red Week.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, June 13, 1914. Fresh Paint.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Art, Austro Hungaria, Balkans, France, Germany, Labor unrest, Women

Friday Farming: Victory Garden in railyard.

Saturday, June 13, 1914. Fresh Paint.

Votes for mothers!  From a suffragist newspaper of June 13, 1914.

Riots broke out during a Miners Day Parade in Butte, Montana, over union loyalties.

Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany concluded his visit with Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The subject of their meeting was the balance of power in the Balkans, with the Archduke was scheduled later that month to visit military expansion efforts in the region.

Oh, oh.

René Viviani was appointed 81st Prime Minister of France.

Last prior edition:

Friday, June 12, 1914. Greeks murdered in Anatolia.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Education, France, French Empire, Greek Genocide, Morocco, Ottoman Empire, Politics, Turkey, University of Wyoming, Wyoming, Zaian War

Russo-Japanese War: Human Bullets | 1870 to 1918

Russo-Japanese War: Human Bullets | 1870 to 1918

Modern Technology and the Public Building

Recently, on our blog about courthouses, I posted an item on the Townsend Justice Center, which is the courthouse for Natrona County Wyoming.  In that photo I posted a picture of a circuit court courtroom.

I should note that the circuit court is much, much, smaller than the district court courtrooms in the same courthouse.  As I'm set to be a little critical of those courtrooms, I want to make that plain.  The district court courtrooms are much larger.

Anyhow, one of the recent features of public buildings has been the incorporation of a lot of new technology into them.  I'm not wholly opposed to this, and regard it as inevitable, but one thing that I think people really need to keep in mind about this is that certain types of public buildings reflect design lessons learned over centuries, to address their specific functions, and incorporation of technology that's only a couple of decades old, or maybe even less than that, isn't necessarily going to improve their function or even really work very well.

 

 The Niobrara County Courthouse in Lusk Wyoming.  This old courthouse has one large courtroom, typical of older courthouses.  While heating and air conditioning were lacking in effectiveness the last time I was in the courthouse, the big courtroom does nicely accommodate projected voices.  The thread on this blog from 2009 featuring this courthouse remains a freakishly popular one here.

To start with, I'll note audio systems. This is a routine feature of almost any modern building where a person is expected to give an address of any kind, but by the same token almost any building built prior to the mid 20th Century lacked one.  If a building was expected to have public speakers, such as a church or a courtroom, it was built accordingly, and that worked just fine.

Churches are a particularly good example of this, as some churches, including very old churches, are huge.  The person at the ambo had to be able to address the person in the back as effectively as the front, and without yelling. While some no doubt had problems doing that, most didn't, and that's simply because people in that role learned how to project their voices, and were aided in that by the architecture of the building's interior.

 

 Interior of the Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe in Dallas Texas.  Built in 1902, this church has classic architecture which wold have allowed voices to carry to the back of the church quite easily.

Courtrooms worked the same way, although the lawyer and court didn't really have to address the entire audience in the gallery, except during voir dire, but just the jury.  Still, they had to do that, and learned how to speak effectively in order to do so.

All of this is still true, but now audio systems have been incorporated to achieve that. The problem is that they aren't really always needed, and when incorporated into older buildings you get weird results on occasion, such as cutting in and out, voices that are way too loud, or distortion. Still, people have become so used to the systems they never simply dispense with them, but endure the glitches and press on.

Audio is one thing, but a bigger thing is becoming the incorporation of computer and visual systems.  People can be absolutely fascinated with them.  So we now see buildings with all sort of projectors, monitors, and the like.

One of the most distracting examples of this I've seen was in a church in Ft. Collins, Colorado, in which some sort of projector was used to flash poorly drawn images apparently depicting the gospels being read as part of the readings for that Sunday.  It was distracting, and not really well done. The building itself was fairly poorly constructed for public address at that.

But its in courtrooms where this has become really pronounced, and not really to uniformly good results.

The courtrooms of Wyoming's Seventh Judicial District are a good example.  From some point in the 1930s, up until relatively recently, district courts used a Depression Era courthouse. That building featured a very large single courtroom, if a very tiny axillary courtroom is not considered.  Over time, however, the existing makeup of the court became simply too small, as with three district court judges, and one courtroom, something was clearly needed.  The original purpose was to remodel the beautiful 1930s vintage courthouse, but a bond measure to do that was defeated. So in the end the State ended up funding the remodeling of the old Townsend Hotel across the street from the old courthouse.

 

 The Depression Era Natrona County Courthouse, now no longer used for court purposes.

The Townsend Hotel had been unoccupied for a couple of decades at the time, and something really needed to be done. The remodel is really something, and the entire facility is very impressive inside, even if the outside looks a lot like a 1920s vintage hotel.  But the courtrooms in it drive me nuts.

The Townsend Justice Center, the remodeled Townsend Hotel.

The courtrooms themselves are beautiful really. Not as pretty as the old big courtroom in the old courthouse, but still, they're really nice.  Nobody could rationally complain about their appearance.  But up in front of the bar, they're uncomfortable.

The problem is that they've been wired to the nth degree for every sort of electronic device going.  Each juror has their own television monitor, a huge television monitor hangs from the ceiling.  All the counsel tables are wired so that counsel can plug his computer in and run the monitors.

That all sounds great, but what that means is that tables are fixed in place.  And not only are they fixed in place, they're small.  In contrast, counsel tables in older courtrooms are capable of being moved, and are also gigantic as a rule.

That may sound minor, but its not.  In a typical multi day trial, its impossible in some modern courtrooms to effectively seat more than one attorney, or an attorney and a paralegal, and the client.  No small matter. And in any multi day trial, no matter how high tech the lawyers may be, there are boxes and boxes of material that must go somewhere, and hard paper exhibits.  Without the ability to move tables, join tables, and rearrange, the ability to actually operate in the courtroom is impaired.

Circuit (not District) courtroom in the Seventh Judicial District.

It is the case, undoubtedly, that the ability to present a case electronically can really enhance a presentation, but it can distract also.  In almost every instance of extensive courtroom technology being used for a presentation that I've seen, somebody screwed it up.  I've seen family photos presented for evidence, and a lawyer sort through photos that included some that were somewhat questionable in nature (good thing to keep off your legal computer, I'd think), and a person have to go back and forth and back and forth.  And I've also found that a fair number of attorneys who are really comfortable with electronics are no longer comfortable with the court's electronics, so they pack in their own, adding to the enormous assortment of stuff in the courtroom.

None of this is to suggest that this should all be ripped out of the courtroom, and even if I argued for that, it wouldn't happen anyhow.  But, rather, a person needs to be careful.  Electronics aren't the end all and be all of presentation, and to some degree their diminishing the ability to effectively present in some circumstances, while greatly enhancing it in others.  It's one more tool.  But when things are built to accept the new tools, perhaps the reason for the old construction should be carefully recalled at the same time.

Actors as Heroes

I've written on this before, but I can't really grasp why people care what celebrities who derive their fame from acting, or singing, or performing in some fashion, have to say about anything other than their fields of employment.  That doesn't mean that I feel that people with fame can't speak on whatever they might wish, but the association of those individuals with expertise and meaning escapes me.  There's no reason to believe that an actor is particularly knowledgeable on a social issue or politics or anything else, unless they go out and really demonstrate that.  Few do.

Along these same lines, I'm often amazed by the extent to which certain actors become incredibly strongly identified with institutions and values portrayed in their films. To some extent, that's fine.  If a person appears in a lot of religious themed movies, or better yet directs them, a person might be entitled to derive some belief about their values in that fashion.  But that only goes so far.

Recently a columnist for the Casper Star Tribune, Daniel Molyneux, wrote an article taking shots at John Wayne in this fashion.  Molyneax is a Lutheran pastor and writes on a wide variety of topics, and he must be fairly fearless as he really goes after Wayne, while praising Jimmy Stewart.  And he has a point.

The reason he has a point, in my view, is that there are a fair number of people who absolutely worship Wayne as some sort of a hero.  I don't mean to throw rocks at Wayne.  There's a new biography out on him by the same author who wrote about John Ford, and I intend to read it even though I care next to nothing about the lives of actors.  Its just that the Ford book was good and well written and this seems like a natural companion to it.

Anyhow, for that reason, I'll somewhat reserved judgment on Wayne, in part because the earlier Ford book did, giving some credence to his apologists who maintain that there were legitimate reasons he did not serve during World War Two. Still, my point is that he didn't serve in World War Two, and the piles and piles of people who somehow feel that he was a larger than life, real life Sgt. Styker, are off.

Indeed, I'm amazed that Wayne's career survived World War Two, which is another example, I think, of the Depression Era generation I've recently been writing about here being very "liberal" in ways that would now surprise us.  Several years ago there was a big controversy about the Dixie Chicks making some comments about the Iraq War in a concert that caused all sort of angst in some quarter, but here we see the World War Two American populace perfectly content to go to movies made during the war or immediately after it, featuring an actor portraying tough as nails military figures (Flying Tigers, Flying Leathernecks, They Were Expendable, The Sands of Iwo Jima), who never served in the military.  And for those audiences surely most reasons for not serving must have sounded very thin. They apparently just didn't care really.

That's fine, but we shouldn't confuse that actor, or any other, with the roles they played.  At the end of the day, John Wayne was a movie actor.  He did buy a ranch somewhere in later years, but he wasn't a real cowboy in the sense that ranchers who do that from early youth are, and he was never in the military.  I'm sure he had his virtues, and one thing that Molyneax missed is that he did wade into a crowd of Vietnam War protestors during the war to ask them to pipe down as a fellow actor he was with had lost a child in the war.  Still, it should be realized that Wayne, or Clint Eastwood, or whoever, are actors and when we see their popular image advanced, we're seeing the success of their acting, not their real personalities.

They Signal Send Books

Soldiers and the written word.

 

Friday, June 12, 1914. Greeks murdered in Anatolia.

100 Ottoman Greeks were murdered by Turkish irregular troops at Phocaea.

The French cabinet dissolved for a second time in a week.

French forces entered an abandoned Khenifra, Morocco.

A message in a bottle was recovered by a fishing vessel which had been intentionally released 99 years and 43 days prior to its discovery as a scientific experiment.

The University of Wyoming graduated 33 students.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, June 7, 1914. Red Week

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Christianity, Italy, Ohio, Ohio (Canton), panoramic, Protestant, Red Week, religion, Women

Wyoming Newspaper Project

Wyoming Newspaper Project

Summer Reading?

This time of year its traditional for newspapers to run articles on recommendations for "summer reading".  NPR's Talk of the Nation, before NPR cancelled it, used to have a great summer episode on the topic.  I like the lists, and I liked the radio treatment of the topic.  I'm starting to see those articles show up in the press now.  But I have to wonder, how much summer reading really goes on anymore?

I love to read, and read all the time.  I love to write also, which is likely self evident.  But in our modern hectic lives, I really wonder if the institution of "summer reading" remains.

I've been reading a lot recently, but that's because I've been in airports, airplanes and hotels a lot recently, traveling for work.  One of the things I really like about traveling is that I get to read a lot.   But that type of travel isn't the summer trip to the beach type of travel.

 

World War Two era poster advocating staying at home for vacation, to reduce the burden on wartime rail transportation.  This vacationer is reading the newspaper, but a shelf of books and his radio is right behind him.

Summer reading as an institution is strongly associated with "lazy" summer days.  But do those still exist?  Perhaps they do.  A person tends to view the world through his own experiences, and perhaps summer is a time of relaxation, including reading relaxation, more than I realize.  I hope so, as otherwise those summer reading lists are sort of a relic of a bygone era, reflecting a once less hurried state of being. 

Mid Week at Work: Building an aircraft engine, World War Two.

Recalling, or not, Operation Overlord (D-Day)

One of the major syndicated columnists has an article in today's paper decrying the lack of knowledge that college graduates in the United States have of World War Two.  Having noted this myself in the past, and having found it even more profound in regards to World War One, I can understand his frustration.  It isn't right that there can be college graduates who lack at least a basic college level understanding of history, and for that matter literature and science.  I've stated here before, I'm sure, the basic point that for most people college is a type of training program for an anticipated job, but still broader knowledge should be held by college graduates in any field.  Ironically, this may be even more the case today than it was in earlier eras prior to the Internet, as a certain level of easy information allows the ignorant to become really ignorant, by informing themselves with erroneous information easily.  In prior eras when information was harder to come by there was probably actually a higher chance that a person seeking out information would get the correct information, as it's just harder to publish in print than electronically.

 

U.S. Troops on the hotly contested Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944.

Anyhow, this topic came to my mind in a slightly different context given as June 6 of this year is the 70th Anniversary of Operation Overlord, that being the operational name for the Allied landings on the Norman coast of France in 1944.  Given as I was at work, I didn't catch all the stuff running on television, but I caught some and caught some of the print stuff here and there that was out recalling the event. 

I appreciate that this great event, the largest amphibious landing ever accomplished in warfare, and the largest one that shall ever occur, is still recalled. Still, I think that there are a few things that somehow get misrepresented that are important, and that those recalling the events should be aware of. So, in that spirit, here goes.

Operation Overlord was an Allied, not an American, Operation

There seem to be some people who labor under the belief that D-Day was an American operation. That's frankly absurd.

 Canadian troops landing at Juno Beach, Operation Overlord.

The major troop contributors for Operation Overlord were the US, the UK, and Canada.  The US, by 1944, had become the largest single western Allied nation in the war in Europe by that time, but the British effort was huge and the French effort would soon expand enormously.

In addition to the US, UK and Canada, at least France had ground troops involved in the form of some special units of Free French troops.  Polish paratroopers were to have been committed to followup airborne operations in the British sector of operations (where Canadian paratroopers did participate in landings) but the followup drops were cancelled, something very common in airborne operations.

At least the US, UK, Canada and France contributed ships to the operation.  In the air, the air forces of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were all in action.

The US effort was huge, no doubt, but the Canadian one was enormous in the context of the size of the Canadian population, and unlike the American effort nearly 100% of the Canadian troops had volunteered for service in Europe.  The British effort at that point in the war was so vast that the UK had truly gone down to the absolute bottom of its manpower reserves, a massive effort.

Something this taps into which some people seem to be jingoistic about is the following.

The United States did not "win World War Two".

There's a certain type of jingoism out there that asserted the US won World War Two.  No, the Allies did.

The US effort, as noted,  was massive.  But for some reason some people simply fail to grasp how big the Allied effort as a whole was, and the extent to which other nations were impacted.

The British effort was so deep that it basically wrecked the British economy and put an end to the British Empire.  Rationing in the UK would extend into the 1950s as a result of World War Two.  The Free French effort expanded from 1943 forward, even if it would never see the restoration of a French army the size of the of the one defeated by the Germans in 1940. 

The Soviet effort was colossal, and is something that Americans simply tend not to look at.  Over 80% of all German battlefield deaths were sustained fighting the Soviets. That doesn't mean that our effort was unimportant (which I think some people secretly fear would be the result of looking at the Soviet effort) and the USSR could not have sustained its effort without first British, and then American, material support.  But this just goes to show the extent to which the war was an Allied effort.

It should be noted that when we look at the war against Japan, the equities of who did what are quite different.  In the war against the Japanese, the US, UK, India, New Zealand, Australia, and China were the major Allied powers.  The USSR did come in at the end, to be sure, but the US has a better claim really to being the singularly most important nation in the war against Japan, although the other Allies were indeed major contributors.  Japan had more troops committed against China during the war than against any other power, which makes sense given that it was fighting in China prior to 1939 and had never failed to achieve a negotiated peace with Nationalist China, like it had hoped to.

The basic point is, however, that when looking at the Second World War, it isn't really possible to look at one nation and claim that it won the war.  Without the British refusing to surrender in 1940, the Soviets likely would have been defeated by the Germans (with Italian, Hungarian and Romanian assistance) in 1941 (with the likely assistance of the Japanese, who didn't abandon plans to take on the Soviet Union until well into 1941).  Without the massive Soviet contribution of ground forces in 1940 to 1945, it'd be difficult to see how the western Allies could have dislodged the Germans in 43 to 45 from western Europe.  Without the huge material contribution to the Soviet Union by the British and the Americans, it is difficult to see how the USSR could have sustained its war effort in those years.  It was truly an Allied effort.

D-Day brought the Allies back to Europe.

This is a historical canard that goes back to the early histories of Operation Overlord.  Its never been close to true, and its odd how it's persisted.

 U.S. troops crossing the Rhine in assault boats.

The western Allies returned to Europe with the invasion of Sicily, a joint British and American operation, which took place in August 1943, just under one year prior to Operation Overlord.  The successful capture of Sicily from the Germans and Italians was followed up by Allied landings in Italy in September, 1943.  The US captured Rome coincidentally with Operation Overlord.

There's a tendency to overlook the Italian campaign for some reason, and that's likely because it didn't have the obvious impact that landing in France did.  Landing in Normandy actually positioned the main force of the western Allied effort within striking distance of Germany.  That was hugely significant.  It was quite clear that there was no earthly way that the Allies were ever going to be able to push up from Italy into France and then up into Germany, and some have even questioned if the entire Italian campaign was a waste of time, effort and blood.  It probably was not, but what is actually the case is that landing in Normandy gave the Allies a straight, if bloody, path into the Third Reich.  The war would last less than a year after that and while it saw a lot of hard fighting, the landings were indeed a critical factor, perhaps the critical factor, in ending the war in May 1945.

It wasn't, it might be noted, the last amphibious operation in Europe during the Second World War.  Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France, started a couple of months later in August, 1944.  Like the invasion of Italy, Operation Dragoon has been criticized as unnecessary, but it probably wasn't.  Dragoon allowed the Allies to commit troops to France from the Mediterranean, where the Allies had a massive effort already underway, and in the end troops committed to Dragoon advanced so far that they caught up with the forces that landed in Overlord and formed the right flank of the Allied advance into Germany, when the time came.  Dragoon was a big operation, which, like Overlord, featured the deployment of airborne troops and landing craft.

Operation Overlord is often regarded, and probably rightly, as the opening of the second front in Europe that resulted in the final German collapse.  But to the extent that it is truly a second front there can at least be a debate.  The Germans, British and Italians had never really ceased being engaged in some ground combat due to the war continuing on in North Africa with the Germans and Italians being too over extended to be able to bring on a concluding result there. With the commitment of  American troops to that effort in 1942, that front became a bigger one. The war had returned to the European mainland in the west by 1943.  Operation Overlord, however, allowed the drive in Europe to form a campaign that undoubtedly sped up the end of the war and which made it possible for the Allies to win in 1945.

The French are a bunch of chickens

One persistently irritating comment that seems to get inserted into anything concerning France, including landing on it, is that the French are weenies.  This is simply incorrect.

As I've noted elsewhere on this blog, France has a martial record which is pretty significant, including a large number of fights they've gotten into, not all wisely, since World War Two. We can accuse the French of being many things, but cowards is something they are not.

In regards to D-Day, the common theme is that we saved the French from the Nazis, to whom they'd cowardly surrendered, and they should be eternally grateful.  Well, that just doesn't accurately reflect the record, for good or ill.

France did of course surrender to the Germans in 1940.  But it isn't as if they just gave up.  France found itself to be the battleground against an army that was highly mobile and had already proven itself in battle.  Basically, France was outfought.

While it may be naive, most of the armies of early World War Two expected a new war against Germany to repeat the experience of World War One, and didn't take battlefield mobility to be a foregone conclusion.  France planned on fighting behind the Maginot line, and in fact the line did really hold well. France had failed in its desire to extend it into Belgium, and so the Germans were able to do an end run around it, repeating the early history of World War One. The difference this time is that the Germans retained battlefield mobility, which they hadn't in 1914.  France was flat out defeated on the battlefield.

Even at that, however, a remarkable number of Frenchmen kept on fighting.  Sure, there were French collaborators, and that's a story that itself has never been fully developed. But quite a few Frenchmen decided to illegally take up arms and keep fighting with the British, either over the channel, or in France itself.  That's pretty darned brave and quite remarkable.  Following Operation Torch in North Africa those numbers grew, as the standing French army began to defect to the Allies.

That it was a defection tends not to be noted.  France was a defeated nation, under partial occupation, and at peace when the Allies landed on French colonial soil in 1942.  The legal obligation of French troops in 1942 was to fight the Allies, and some did, but not for long, and by and large French units defected wholesale to the Allied cause.

For that matter, some French forces, including naval forces, had years earlier.

There was no fighting on the British and Canadian beaches.

It's unfortunately the case that there is very little attention paid, in some American treatments of the landings, to the British and Canadian beaches and air landings, and there is by extension a belief that the Americans had the hard beaches and nothing occurred on the other ones.

In reality, the landings overall were amazingly successful, which is a tribute to the extremely effective overall nature of the planning, naval bombardments, etc.  But all the landings were opposed.

It may be the case that the perception exists that the Americans had the hard targets as it turned out that Omaha Beach featured the toughest fighting, and it was really the only beach where the  Germans were able to set the Allies behind for some time.  Omaha was an American beach.  The fact that it was stoutly defended turned out to be bad American luck, but it doesn't mean that there was no fighting on the other beaches, there was.

Additionally, one thing that's somewhat overlooked by Americans is that the British and Canadians were the beneficiaries of experience in landing on coast France due to the enormous Canadian raid at Dieppe. The scale of the raid was so huge that it's difficult to actually conceive of it as a raid. The British landed Canadian troops at Dieppe in such numbers that they actually landed vehicles and armor on the beaches, a far greater operation than a conventional raid.  The goal of the August 1942 raid was to actually seize a port on a temporary basis. While it was a failure, the lessons learned in the huge effort were not lost on the British or the Canadians, who had effectively participated in what amounted to a seaborne invasion of France on a prior occasion.  As part of this, they equipped themselves with specialized armor that they also offered to the US, but which the US largely rejected. The equipment they deployed was accordingly unique and very effective, resulting in very effective beach operations.  Contrary to what some might suppose, this also aided the British and Canadian forces in moving rapidly off the beaches, a goal that they very much had in mind given their prior experience in amphibious operations.

Montgomery didn't know what he was doing.

This is a matter of opinion, rather than a "fact", per se, but having said that, this common American belief is ill founded in my view.

In the American folk view, and in quite a few historical works as well, Field Marshall Montgomery, the commander of the British forces, was slow moving in his command style and as a result British troops moved slowly.  In the most romantic view of this topic, American generals, particularly Gen. George Patton, were quick thinking, quick moving commanders, and the British reluctance to follow our lead caused the war to last longer than it should have.

In reality, American generals like Patton (and Patton wasn't alone in favoring high mobility) were a minority.  Nearly ever American general who favored speed was a cavalry office, and cavalry officer formed a minority of high ranking American officers.  The Army was dominated by infantry officers.

Most American infantry officer believed that the war in France would resemble that of World War One, with advances being slow moving, slowly developed affairs. They opposed cavalry branch officers who thought that the way to progress was to dash forward and exploit any opening.

This is important in the context of this story as it is well known that the Allied advance ground down to a slow moving one only shortly after D-Day. This is commonly blamed on the Norman bocage, and on Montgomery. The bocage did prove to be a huge problem, but Montgomery was no more slow or fast moving that U.S. senior commanders were.

Indeed, Montgomery had a proven ability to bring around combat results, but his style required careful planning and training.  This was largely because Montgomery was used to working with much thinner resources than any American commander was, and he was required to do so.  He was very effective on the offensive, but he couldn't afford to waste anything in one, and didn't.  He operated in this fashion in Europe as he had in North Africa and the Mediterranean.  He didn't "break out" of Normandy, but then the American infantry commanders didn't either.

It was the armor that did break out, under Patton's command.  The difference here, however, was that Patton was a cavalryman and when he got rolling it tended to panic his fellow infantry commanders who often wished he, and those who shared a similar view, would slow down.  He deserves a lot of credit, but not to Montgomery's discredit.

The Operation wasn't named "D-Day"

As a minor note, operation which we often hear called "D-Day" wasn't called that.  It was called Operation Overlord, as noted above, and the operation can be best described as a large scale amphibious landing in Normandy.

"D-Day", in military parlance, is the day on which an operation is to occur, with days before and after it being referred to in relation to it. The day an operation occurs is D-Day.  The day after it commences is "D+1", the day before it occurs is "D-1".  And so on.

Likewise, the hour a military plan commences is H-Hour.  It's just the way these periods of time are referred to.  June 6, 1944, became D-Day as it was the day Operation Overlord did commence for the ground forces landing on the beaches (for the air element, it commenced in the very late night of the day prior).  There were a lot of D-Days during World War Two, however, as every Allied operation commenced on some day.  The fact that we remember it as D-Day shows what a big operation this particular one was.

The Big Picture: ZRe entering its hanger

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words

The Big Speech: Ft. Bridger Treaty

1869 Ft. Bridger Treaty, Wyoming (then part of the Territory of Utah) signed, stating:

ANDREW JOHNSON, President of the United States of America, to all and singular to whom these presents shall come, greeting:
Whereas a treaty was made and concluded at Fort Bridger, in the Territory of Utah, on the third day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eigbt, by and between Nathaniel G. Taylor, William T. Sherman, William S. Harney, John B. Sanborn, S. F. Tappan, C. C. Augur, and Alfred H. Terry, commissioners on the part of the United States, and Wash-a-kie, Wan-ni-pitz, and other chiefs and head-men of the eastern-band of Shoshonee Indians, and Tag-gee, Tay-to-ba, and other chiefs and head-men of the Bannack tribe of Indians, on the part of said band and tribe of Indians, respectively, and duly authorized thereto by them, which treaty is in the words and figures following, to wit:
Articles of a treaty with the Shoshonees (eastern band) and Bannack tribes of Indians, made the third day of July, 1868, at Fort Bridger, Utah Territory.
Articles of a treaty made and concluded at Fort Bridger, Utah Territory, on the third day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, by and between the undersigned commissioners on the part of the United States, and the undersigned chiefs and head-men of and representing the Shoshonee (eastern band) and Bannack tribes of Indians, they being duly authorized to act in the premises:

ARTICLE 1.

From this day forward peace between the parties to this treaty shall forever continue. The Government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it. The Indians desire peace, and they hereby pledge their honor to maintain it. If bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will, upon proof made to the agent and forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, at Washington City, proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also re-imburse the injured person for the loss sustained.
If bad men among the Indians shall commit a wrong or depredation upon the person or property of any one, white, black, or Indian, subject to the authority of the United States and at peace therewith, the Indians herein named solemnly agree that they will, on proof made to their agent and notice by him, deliver up the wrong-doer to the United States, to be tried and punished according to the laws; and in case they wilfully refuse so to do, the person injured shall be re-imbursed for his loss from the annuities or other moneys due or to become due to them under this or other treaties made with the United States. And the President, on advising with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, shall prescribe such rules and regulations for ascertaining damages under the provision, of this article as in his judgment may be proper. But no such damages shall be adjusted and paid until thoroughly examined and passed upon by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and no one sustaining loss while violating or because of his violating the provisions, of this treaty or the laws of the United States shall be re-imbursed therefor.

ARTICLE 2.

It is agreed that whenever the Bannacks desire a reservation to be set apart for their use, or whenever the President of the United States shall deem it advisable for them to be put upon a reservation, he shall cause a suitable one to be selected for them in their present country, which shall embrace reasonable portions of the "Port Neuf" and "Kansas Prairie" countries, and that, when this reservation is declared, the United States will secure to the Bannacks the same rights and privileges therein, and make the same and like expenditures therein for their benefit, except the agency-house and residence of agent, in proportion to their numbers, as herein provided for the Shoshonee reservation. The United States further agrees that the following district of country, to wit: Commencing at the mouth of Owl Creek and running due south to the crest of the divide between the Sweetwater and Papo Agie Rivers; thence along the crest of said divide and the summit of Wind River Mountains to the longitude of North Fork of Wind River; thence due north to mouth of said North Fork and up its channel to a point twenty miles (32 km) above its mouth; thence in a straight line to head-waters of Owl Creek and along middle of channel of Owl Creek to place of beginning, shall be and the same is set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Shoshonee Indians herein named, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit amongst them ; and the United States now solemnly agrees that no persons except those herein designated and authorized so to do, and except such officers, agents, and employes of the Government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article for the use of said Indians, and henceforth they will and do hereby relinquish all title, claims, or rights in and to any portion of the territory of the United States, except such as is embraced within the limits aforesaid.

ARTICLE 3.

The United States agrees, at its own proper expense, to construct, at a suitable point on the Shoshonee reservation, a warehouse or store-room for the use of the agent in storing goods belonging to the Indians, to cost not exceeding two thousand dollars; an agency building for the residence of the agent, to cost not exceeding three thousand; a residence for the physician, to cost not more than two thousand dollars; and five other buildings, for a carpenter, farmer, blacksmith, miller, and engineer, each to cost not exceeding two thousand dollars; also a school-house or mission building so soon as a sufficient number of children can be induced by the agent to attend school, which shall not cost exceeding twenty-five hundred dollars.
The United States agrees further to cause to be erected on said Shoshonee reservation, near the other buildings herein authorized, a good stearn circular-saw mill, with a grist-mill and shingle-machine attached, the same to cost not more than eight thousand dollars.

ARTICLE 4.

The Indians herein named agree, when the agency house and other buildings shall be constructed on their reservations named, they will make said reservations their permanent home, and they will make no permanent settlement elsewhere; but they shall have the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found there on, and so long as peace subsists among the whites and Indians, on the borders of the hunting districts.

ARTICLE 5.

The United States agrees that the agent for said Indians shall in the future make his home at the agency building on the Shoshonee reservation, but shall direct and supervise affairs on the Bannack reservation; and shall keep an office open at all times for the purpose of prompt and diligent inquiry into such matters of complaint by and against the Indians as may be presented for investigation under the provisions of their treaty stipulations, as also for the faithful discharge of other duties enjoined by law. In all cases of depredation on person or property he shall cause the evidence to be taken in writing, and forwarded, together with his finding, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, whose decision shall be binding on the parties to this treaty.

ARTICLE 6.

If any individual belonging to said tribes of Indians, or legally incorporated with them, being the head of a family, shall desire to commence farming, he shall have the privilege to select, in the presence and with the assistance of the agent then in charge, a tract of land within the reservation of his tribe, not exceeding three hundred and 20 acres in extent, which tract so selected, certified, and recorded in the "land-book," as herein directed, shall cease to be held in common, but the same may be occupied and held in the exclusive possession of the person selecting it, and of his family, so long as he or they may continue to cultivate it.
Any person over eighteen years of age, not being the head of a family, may, in like manner, select and cause to be certified to him or her, for purposes of cultivation, a quantity of land not exceeding 80 acres in extent, and thereupon be entitled to the exclusive possession of the same as above described. For each tract of land so selected a certificate, containing a description thereof, and the name of the person selecting it, with a certificate indorsed thereon that the same has been recorded, shall be delivered to the party entitled to it by the agent, after the same shall have been recorded by him in a book to be kept in his office subject to inspection, which said book shall be known as the "Shoshone (eastern band) and Bannack land-book."
The President may, at any time, order a survey of these reservations, and when so surveyed Congress shall provide for protecting the rights of the Indian settlers in these improvements, and may fix the character of the title held by each. The United States may pass such laws on the subject of alienation and descent of property as between Indians, and on all subjects connected with the government of the Indians on said reservations, and the internal police thereof, as may be thought proper.

ARTICLE 7.

In order to insure the civilization of the tribes entering into this treaty, the necessity of education is admitted, especially of such of them as are or may be settled on said agricultural reservations, and they therefore pledge themselves to compel their children, male and female, between the ages of six and sixteen years, to attend school; and it is hereby made the duty of the agent for said Indians to see that this stipulation is strictly complied with; and the United States agrees that for every thirty children between said ages who can be induced or compelled to attend school, a house shall be provided and a teacher competent to teach the elementary brances of an English education shall be furnished, who will reside among said Indians and faithfully discharge his or her duties as a teacher. The provisions of this article to continue for twenty years.

ARTICLE 8.

When the head of a family or lodge shall have selected lands and received his certificate as above directed, and the agent shall be satisfied that he intends in good faith to commence cultivating the soil for a living, he shall be entitled to receive seeds and agricultural implements for the first year, in value one hundred dollars, and for each succeeding year he shall continue to farm, for a period of three years more, he shall be entitled to receive seeds and implements as aforesaid in value twenty-five dollars per annum.
And it is further stipulated that such persons as commence farming shall receive instructions from the farmers herein provided for, and whenever more than one hundred persons on either reservation shall enter upon the cultivation of the soil, a second blacksmith shall be provided, with such iron, steel, and other material as may be required.

ARTICLE 9.

In lieu of all sums of money or other annuities provided to be paid to the Indians herein named, under any and all treaties heretofore made with them, the United States agrees to deliver at the agency-house on the reservation herein provided for, on the first day of September of each year, for thirty years, the following articles, to wit:
For each male person over fourteen years of age, a suit of good substantial woollen clothing, consisting of coat, hat, pantaloons, flannel shirt, and a pair of woollen socks; for each female over twelve years of age, a flannel skirt, or the goods necessary to make it, a pair of woollen hose, twelve yards (11 m) of calico, and twelve yards (11 m) of cotton domestics.
For the boys and girls under the ages named, such flannel and cotton goods as may be needed to make each a suit as aforesaid, together with a pair of woollen hose for each.
And in order that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs may be able to estimate properly for the articles herein named, it shall be the duty of the agent, each year, to forward to him a full and exact census of the Indians, on which the estimate, from year to year, can be based ; and, in addition to the clothing herein named, the sum of ten dollars shall be annually appropriated for each Indian roaming, and twenty dollars for each Indian engaged in agriculture, for a period of ten-years, to be used by the Secretary of the Interior in the purchase of such articles as, from time to time, the condition and necessities of the Indians may indicate to be proper. And if, at any time within the ten years, it shall appear that the amount of money needed for clothing under this article can be appropriated to better uses for the tribes herein named, Congress may, by law, change the appropriation to other purposes; but in no event shall the amount of this appropriation be withdrawn or discontinned for the period named. And the President shall annually detail an officer of the Army to be present, and attest the delivery of all the goods herein named to the Indians, and he shall inspect and report on the quantity and quality of the goods and the manner of their delivery.

ARTICLE 10.

The United States hereby agrees to furnish annually to the Indians the physician, teachers, carpenter, miller, engineer, farmer, and blacksmith, as herein contemplated, and that such appropriations shall be made, from time to time, on the estimates of the Secretary of the Interior, as will be sufficient to employ such persons.

ARTICLE 11.

No treaty for the cession of any portion of the reservations herein described which may be held in common shall be of any force or validity as against the said Indians, unless executed and signed by at least a majority of all the adult male Indians occupying or interested in the same; and no cession by the tribe shall be understood or construed in such manner as to deprive, without his consent, any individual member of the tribe of his right to any tract of land selected by him, as provided in Article 6 of this treaty,

ARTICLE 12.

It is agreed that the sam of five hundred dollars annually, for three years from the date when they commence to cultivate a farm, shall be expended in presents to the ten persons of said tribe who, in the judgment of the agent, may grow the most valuable crops for the respective year.

ARTICLE 13.

It is further agreed that, until such time as the agency-buildings are established on the Shoshonee reservation, their agent shall reside at Fort Bridger, U. T., and their annuities shall be delivered to them at the same place in June of each year.
N. G. TAYLOR,
W. T. SHERMAN,
Lt. Genl.
WM. S. HARNEY,
JOHN B. SANBORN,
S. F. TAPPAN,
C. C. AUGUR,
Bvt. Major Genl. U. S. A., Commissioners.
ALFRED H. TERRY,
Brig. Gen. and Bvt. M. Gen. U. S. A.

Attest:
A. S. H. WHITE, Secretary.

Shoshones:
WASH-A-KIE. his + mark
WAU-NY-PITZ. his + mark
TOOP-SE-PO-WOT. his + mark
NAR-KOK. his + mark
TABOONSHE-YA. his + mark
BAZEEL. his + mark
PAN-TO-SHE-GA. his + mark
NINNY-BITSE. his + mark

Bannacks:
TAGGEE. his + mark
TAY-TO-BA. his + mark
WE-RAT-ZE-WON-A-GEN. his + mark
COO-SHA-GAN. his + mark
PAN-SOOK-A-MOTSE. his + mark
A-WITE-ETSE. his + mark

Witnesses:<br /> HENRY A. MORROW,
Lt. Col. 36th Infantry and Bvt. Col. U. S. A., Comdg. Ft. Bridger.
LUTHER MANPA, U. S. Indian Agent.
W. A. CARTER.
J. VAN ALLEN CARTER, Interpreter.

Ratification by United States Government

And whereas, the said treaty having been submitted to the Senate of the United States for its constitutional action thereon, the Senate did, on the sixteenth day of February, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, advise and consent to the ratification of the same, by a resolution in the words and figures following, to wit:
IN EXECUTIVE SESSION, SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, February 16, 1869.
Resolved, (two thirds of the senators present concurring,) That the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of the treaty between the United States and the Shoshonee (eastern band) and Bannack tribes of Indians, made and concluded at Fort Bridger, Utah Territory, on the third day of July, 1868.
Attest: GEO. C. GORHAM, Secretary.
Now, therefore, be it known that I, ANDREW JOHNSON, President of the United States of America, do, in pursuance of the advice and consent of the Senate, as expressed in its resolution on the sixteenth day of February, one thousand eight hundred and sixtynine, accept, ratify, and confirm the said treaty.
In testimony whereof I have hereto signed my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this twenty-fourth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the ninety-third.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

By the President

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State.