Hi Tequila,

Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
IMO the romanticization of such blunders often serves primarily not the memories of the dead soldiers (who are most often anonymized and forgotten into one martyred mass) but rather acts as camouflage for the incompetence of the strategy or the uncomfortable nature of the political/military situation.
Agreed totally on the Custer scenario. On Tom's Alamo analog, I'm not as sure, and on something such as Leonidas I would totally disagree. All had roughly the same immediate outcome, but fairly different long term effects and (possibly) motivations. It strikes me that in some (by no means all!) instances, the annihilation of an entire unit can have effects totally out of proportion to the combat; Thermopylae being the classic example.

I certainly agree that romanticizing a blunder, and the idiot who made it happen, is a critical mistake, but I have to wonder if it isn't a fairly "normal" reaction to any such type of a loss?