triage

[Jonathan Lighter]

Normal for the period everywhere. Except for the officer class, military or
naval service was regarded as the last resort of the loser who couldn't or
wouldn't earn a living and was too cowardly to rob coaches. Conditions in
the army and navy were so awful that there was some truth to the charge.

The Duke of Wellington famously referred to his enlisted men as "the scum
of the earth...all enlisted for drink."

Undoubtedly his opinion was confirmed by the three-day sack of Badajoz in
Spain in 1812, which he and his officers seemed incapable of stopping.

The image of the "embattled farmers" at Lexington and Washington's
patriotic Continentals at Valley Forge was, well, revolutionary.

JL


On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: triage
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 1/31/2013 11:25 PM, W Brewer wrote:
> >BB: <<<I assume "assessment to determine order of urgency" is the key
> >issue.>>>
> >WB:  First order of urgency to determine:  rank of patient / social
> >standing of caller.
>
> After the battle of Concord, Lexington, and Menotomy on that
> ever-memorialized April 19, the first "return" to General Gage of the
> killed, wounded, and missing named all the officers and merely
> counted the number of anonymous non-commissioned men.
>
> Joel
>
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