The Martial Brain

As the now infamous town of Balangiga burned behind him, Capt. Bookmiller famously quoted the book of Hosea: "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind!"

No matter what you call it, the event at Balangiga was the worst defeat of American troops since the Battle of the Little Big Horn!

Funston, four other Americans, and a renegade Spaniard would pose as POWs in the "custody" of a group of Macabebe Scouts in captured Insurrecto uniforms.

"To see nine men, the officers in their drawers and the privates naked, cross such a stream by such means, and drive off an entrenched force not less than ten times their number, in broad daylight, where their number must soon become known, is something not soon to be forgotten!"

I find the story of David Fagen fascinating. We seldom rationally depict such figures in history.

The leaders of the Philippine independence movement had tremendous admiration for the American founding fathers and the government they wrought!

The depth and breadth, the sheer comprehensiveness of Filipino martial technology stands as a shining example, a tribute to defiance in the face of tyranny and oppression!

But it turns out that the Filipino people didn't WANT themselves and their property to be the property of the United States!

On June 12, 1898, the Filipino rebels officially declared independence from Spain, in a document that, ironically, in light of what was to come, drew elements from the American Declaration of Independence.

Pershing was an instructor at West Point when the war broke out, and quickly sought to rejoin his old unit, the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry.