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Showing posts from February 15, 2015

The Surgeons of Bastogne

The Ardennes Counter Offensive is officially dated from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was not exactly that precise, especially for the participants. Historical periods are chronological aids; actual history knows no such precise periodization. However imprecise, carefully dating periods gives history structure. A historical period is like a grid on a map: the dates are the coordinates that show you where you are. The Ardennes Counter Offensive is popularly known as “The Battle of the Bulge”, which unfortunately is misleading. A “bulge” is journalistic slang left over from World War I. If generals are supposed to fight “the last war”, then journalists tend to wright about “the last war”. I adhere to the formal name, Ardennes Counter Offensive, because it best defines the sequence of events that we are studying. One of the most obvious but little noticed characteristic of history is how ordinary it is. Living during the 1940s with a world war raging was not, as some like to