{"id":108773,"date":"2020-12-28T07:00:55","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=108773"},"modified":"2020-12-27T19:32:58","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T00:32:58","slug":"why-do-men-throughout-history-in-all-cultures-fight-to-the-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=108773","title":{"rendered":"Why do men throughout history, in all cultures, fight to the end?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_108777\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108777\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/alamo.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-108777 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/alamo-500x333.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/alamo-500x333.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/alamo-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/alamo-768x513.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/alamo.jpeg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-108777\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">You don&#8217;t remember the Alamo?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Poe sends in <a href=\"https:\/\/pjmedia.com\/richardfernandez\/2020\/12\/26\/explaining-last-stands-n1286645\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this PJ Media piece<\/a> that provides some insight.<\/p>\n<p>Going back to antiquity there are countless stories of warriors fighting to the last man against overwhelming odds. What is it in our nature that leads us to do this? PJ Media takes a look at Michael Walsh\u2018s survey of historical Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost. They say it&#8217;s &#8220;not about dying, as the title might suggest, but about why people chose to live out their last moments in a certain way. The book covers famous episodes from antiquity to the early Cold War.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some of the famous last stands the book explores are;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>The Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.)<\/li>\n<li>Cannae (216 B.C.) and the Teutoburg Forest (9 A.D.)<\/li>\n<li>Masada (73\/74 A.D.) and Warsaw (1943)<\/li>\n<li>The Battle of Roncevaux Pass and La Chanson de Roland (778\/1115)<\/li>\n<li>The Battle of Hastings (1066)<\/li>\n<li>The Last Stand of the Swiss Guard (1527)<\/li>\n<li>The Siege of Szigetv\u00e1r (1566)<\/li>\n<li>The Alamo (1836) and Camar\u00f3n (1863)<\/li>\n<li>Grant at Shiloh (1862)<\/li>\n<li>Custer at the Little Bighorn (1876)<\/li>\n<li>Rorke\u2019s Drift (1879) and Khartoum (1885)<\/li>\n<li>The Battle of Pavlov\u2019s House: Stalingrad, 1942<\/li>\n<li>The Chosin Reservoir, 1950<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If Sergeant Major Dan Daly&#8217;s &#8220;Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?&#8221; doesn&#8217;t rate its own chapter, I don&#8217;t know what else will. I&#8217;m sure Chesty&#8217;s description of the situation at Chosin, &#8220;We&#8217;ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We&#8217;ve finally found him. We&#8217;re surrounded. That simplifies things.&#8221; is featured in that segment of the book. What motivated them to continue to do what they did? Both of those men had long already distinguished themselves (Daly had two Medals of Honor around his neck before setting foot in France and Puller had already earned four Navy Crosses).<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve featured some valiant last stands in my Valor Friday posts. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=86230\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adolph Metzger<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=85509\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ben Salomon<\/a> immediately come to mind, but there are many others. I&#8217;ve even talked about one of the men at Custer&#8217;s Last Stand, Custer&#8217;s brother <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=91985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Thomas Custer<\/a>\u00a0(who also had received two Medals of Honor before his final battle).<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to Poe and PJ Media, I might have to pick up this book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Poe sends in this PJ Media piece that provides some insight. Going back to antiquity there &hellip; <a title=\"Why do men throughout history, in all cultures, fight to the end?\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=108773\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why do men throughout history, in all cultures, fight to the end?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[406,10,389],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-link","category-historical","category-valor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108779,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108773\/revisions\/108779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}