Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
We don't celebrate Pickett's Charge in America the same way the Charge of the Light Brigade is celebrated in Europe. We respect the valor of those men, but we curse the vain, tragic stupidity of the order that sent them up that slope.
but does "Europe" celebrate the Charge of the Light Brigade? A charge by British light cavalry against Russian troops and batteries during a small bit of an obscure war on a peninsula in the Black Sea? Isn't "The Charge" really only famous outside Britain due to its relation to literature?

Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
We respect the valor of those men, but we curse the vain, tragic stupidity of the order that sent them up that slope.
Tennyson's poem respects the valor of the British, but also in its turn curses the vain, tragic stupidity of the order that sent them up that valley futilely "charging an army, while all the world wonder'd."

"Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die"