Random Seven Meme

While I harbored plans to provide an intellectually stimulating post on "decisionmaking" today, I instead have to respond to General of the Hordes Subadei's "randomness meme".

Update: I've been double-tapped, this time by The Strategist.

The Rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. (Done, above)
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you'd like.

So, beginning with #5, here is an image from (IMHO) the most significant moment of the most significant battle of the Civil War: Gen. Stonewall Jackson succumbing to friendly fire.


This fateful shot, near dusk in the rugged woods of central Virginia in early May 1863, felled the maneuverist spirit of the Confederate States Army -- and left General Bobby Lee with only Longstreet's "static defense" a few short weeks later at Gettysburg. Had Stonewall Jackson been present in Pennsylvania, I have no doubt that he would have listened to Hood and his Texans' idea of flanking Meade and the Army of the Potomac well south of Little Round Top -- and many more of us would to this day be sending our income tax returns to Richmond....

Seven random facts about me:

1. I have been in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Actually, I've been under the DMZ -- in an intercept tunnel dug by the R.O.K. into a mostly-completed tunnel from the north. It was wide enough for two soldiers to walk abreast, or for one division per hour to move through.

2. I've lived in six different states of the U.S., including (for two years) Hawai'i. So quit your whining about the price of food & gas -- we were paying nearly six bucks for a gallon of milk ten years ago.

3. Along with college buddy Tony, I used to brew my own beer. A doppelbock we brewed in the early 1990s won an "Honorable Mention" at the Del Mar Fair in San Diego -- despite being a simple extract brew.

4. My grandmother was a Marine in World War II. As was my grandfather (which is how they met, gearing up for Operation OLYMPIC and the invasion of Japan in 1945; thank God for the Manhattan Project!). Other Marines in my family include my step-dad, my uncle and my cousin. Alas, I wasn't good enough ("4-F" medical disqualification at the entry processing station after graduating from college).

5. I met my bride on a plane. I was going to Jackson Hole, Wyoming with the ski club from the Navy lab where I worked; she was going to her grandmother's funeral. She sat in front of me from San Diego to Denver, and again (a week later) right in front of me from Denver back to San Diego. (Makes it hard to be agnostic with that kind of blatant interventionism going on! :-)

6. I missed just one math question on my college prep exam (the ACT), taking my possible score of 36 (out of 35) all the way down to a 33. The question? Area of a circle. Every time I think about it, refrains of "π are square" echo in my head....

7. I once wanted to major in philosophy, probably due more to the fact that I was a lazy student incapable of serious, deep study than for any real interest in epistemology. Parental intervention (i.e., "Fine - but YOU have to pay for your tuition, books and lodging!") gently nudged me back on the physics track.

In the interest of seeing how the fairer sex addresses Rule #5, I hereby tag:

BeeDiva
Citizen Netmom
Baby Brewing Cocktail Mommy
Trina
ex:urbs
Sydney Liles (as ZenPundit has tagged Sam :-)
Cheryl @ Whirled View