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Angry Staff Officer Profile picture
Angry Staff Officer
@pptsapper
History person, Army officer, transplanted Buckeye. Writes stuff. Some Star Wars. One half of @warstoriescast. Views do not reflect or represent the DoD's.
Oct 7, 2018 • 36 tweets • 12 min read
It is 0646. Where is your local crazy historian now? I am the only living soul on Little Round Top. This is surreal.
Sep 28, 2018 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Trigger warning for sexual assault topic:

In college, one of my female friends was sexually assaulted at a party by another male student. I & another friend forcibly entered the room & extricated our friend. She was shaking with rage & fear. She didn't want to report it. However, we convinced her that she should, in order to keep it from happening to other women. We accompanied her to the student life office where she detailed what happened. They said since it happened off campus, they couldn't do anything & she shouldn't have been drinking.
Sep 25, 2018 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
Right now, 100 years ago, Col. George C Marshall was staring at a map very much like the one below, save that he had no idea how far the massed US Army divisions would advance. It was the eve of America's largest battle: the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. And Marshall had planned it. From the Aisne River to the Meuse River stood the largest US Army ever assembled in our history to that point. Fifteen divisions - 28k men each, twice the size of French & German divisions - stacked up, waiting for the word to go. Some were veterans. Most were very, very green.
Sep 22, 2018 • 41 tweets • 5 min read
Well. It's been a week.

So I'm gonna slam some gin and watch The Last Jedi here in about half an hour or so.

Prepare yourselves Oh, for the new folks on here, this means I'm going to get drunk and live tweet The Last Jedi. I've given every other Star Wars movie this treatment so it's about time to hit this one
Sep 12, 2018 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
At 0100 this morning 100 years ago, thousands of US guns opened fire in a deafening crescendo of steel. In the 26th Division sector alone were 202 guns of all calibers, from trench mortars all the way up to massive railway guns. The St Mihiel Offensive had begun. Across the lines, the guns paused for a five minute sound ranging an hour before the infantry advance. Germans who scrambled out of their dugouts to man defensive positions were caught in a hail of steel and high explosive when the bombardment resumed.
Aug 28, 2018 • 27 tweets • 6 min read
Did you know that today is the anniversary of some green midwesterners punching the vaunted and veteran Stonewall Division right in the face?

Details to follow at gin-o-clock CHECK YO WATCHES CAUSE ITS GIN O CLOCK ALL UP IN HERE

listen. Listen. I've got a story. Shuttup and don't interrupt. Ahem.

Once upon a goddam time, on August 28 1862, Thomas Jonathan Jackson made a horrible decision at Brawner's Farm. Ya heard? #drunjhistory
Aug 19, 2018 • 27 tweets • 6 min read
GUYS. Guess what happens in 45 minutes? It's August 19. Know what that means? It's the anniversary of the USS Constitution versus the HMS Guerriere. KNOW what that means? IT'S TIME TO DRINK DRINKS AND TALK ABOUT MY FAVORITE WARSHIP, SHE IS SO HOT YOU GUYS Ok, so, look. The Constitution. Way back when in like the dawn of time or whatever, I dunno, everyone from then is dead, well, GW gets this law to allow for six friggin frigates built. Which is CLUTCH bc T Jeff is gonna be all "gunboats, fuckers" which DOESNT WORK
Aug 15, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The take of "we need the sociopaths in the Army who can't meld into society, they're the ones who win battles" is so absolutely sickening & wrong. Guys like Dick Winters, Joshua Chamberlain, and Sgt York kindly beg to differ with that garbage narrative. Take that nonsense elsewhere. It's part of the "warrior" and "Spartan" vetdouchebro culture that I abhor and which is continuously invalidated by history.
angrystaffofficer.com/2016/12/14/sto…
Jul 19, 2018 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Guys, this Montenegro thing is bugging me. For a few reasons. Not least of which that they're a NATO country fulfilling their obligation in Afghanistan, as I've said. But also because there's a no-shit issue of Russian interference there. Not just in the attempted coup in 2016 The country still is divided between tribes (yes, Montenegro is a tribal country) and the old factions from Yugoslavia. The south, closer to the coast, is very friendly to the West. Pro-NATO. The north, more rural, less money coming in, is more pro-Russia.
Jul 15, 2018 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Okay, so this story is just so good I can't pass up the opportunity to share it. Buckle up for the tale of how one crotchety dude from Ohio took 28000 New Englanders into WWI very much ahead of schedule. So the first thing you gotta know is a lil bit about MG Clarence Ransom Edwards. Cleveland-born, he's an old army dude. Crusty af. Does not play well with others. Irascible as all hell. But the dude knew how to inspire his troops.
Jul 2, 2018 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
"Stand firm ye boys from Maine, for not once in a century are men permitted to bear such responsibility for freedom and justice, for God and humanity as are now placed upon you."
- Theodore Gerrish Happening on the Gettysburg battlefield 155 years ago right about now are three amazing acts of leadership, courage, and sacrifice. One is the aforementioned 20th Maine on Little Round Top, where one small regiment managed to win the battle of wills despite the odds.
Jun 23, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Ok, so, some story time I heard today from a friend. When he was in Afghanistan with the Australian equivalent of an ODA (SOF), he discovered that the Aussies had a secret weapon for getting info out of the Taliban: hedgehogs. So this dude would roll out with the Aussies and he notices that their cargo pockets are...moving. Doesn't know what's going on till they roll up their first Taliban dudes. The Aussies walk in and the Talib dude isn't talking. So out come the hedgehogs from their pockets
Jun 18, 2018 • 34 tweets • 7 min read
GUYS. I have some thoughts. It's been 243 some years since some people dug a hole on top of a hill on Charlestown BUT HANG ON WITH YOUR JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS ABOUT but yes this about Bunker Hill and I've had Gin. So like, on June 16, 1775, there's General Thomas Gage hanging the fuck out in Boston, and he's like "yo, Tommy Howe, there's that hill over there in Charlestown and it's bugging me old chap" and Howe was like "yessir, hill taken just like yesterday's mistress, sah"
Apr 20, 2018 • 31 tweets • 10 min read
Listen my children and you shall hear of the mad shit that went down when the British decided to get all fancy and shit outside Boston in 1775

Yeah, I had some wings and some booze and now I wanna talk about Lexington & Concord So I mean, goddam, it was like...243 years ago today or something. But wait. Back it up. Where we at.

April 18. Boston. Place smells like shit because it's the 18th century and everything smlt like shit.

So anyways, the port of Boston was locked the fuck down by the Brits
Apr 6, 2018 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
Someone dropped off a newly discovered scrapbook of WWI US newspaper clippings. This is incredible. And horrific. It appears to be a mix of photo clippings from the Boston Globe and other misc WWI photos
Apr 2, 2018 • 19 tweets • 7 min read
For Confederate Heritage Month, here's Virginia-native General Winfield Scott, senior officer in the US Army at the outset of the Civil War, whose strategy eventually won the war and who kept his oath to his country. Also, Alabama brothers David and William Birney. David would rise to division & corps command, William commanded black troops in combat. Both rose to the rank of major general and managed to be true to their country.
Feb 28, 2018 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Troops stationed outside schools sends a message all right. I don't think it's the right message at all. Here's a few thoughts on why I think this is a bad idea. One, the image of military standing outside schools is just horrible. And on most of these types of security missions, not all troops are issued ammo because of the security risk it entails.
Feb 24, 2018 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
So I ran into a former 13F (artillery forward observer) today at a party. Naturally we started telling Army stories. So no shit, there he was, in Iraq, with 2-37 Armor (I think). The unit had picked up a local mutt, as units do, named Trackpad, because, well, armor unit. He was the unit doggo and when guys came back from patrol they had a fuzzy friend to meet them when they rolled back in. However, this is the US Army, where fun is outlawed, so the order came down to get rid of all the dogs on bases.
Sep 7, 2017 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Who reconciled? Mainly white officers of both sides. Some enlisted men, not all. Definitely not America, given Jim Crow laws. Pretending that the Civil War simply solved the issues that caused it overnight is some really lazy & irresponsible thinking.