Jupiter High School Marching Band Order Form: Fill & Download for Free

Many Anime shows and Manga are have quite some quirky naming conventions. Some follow a particular pattern while others contain some meaning behind each.Wolf Boss has already mentioned quite a list of them, so I’ll try to list some others as well, here in my answer.01] Anime/Manga: 07 GhostThe Anime/Manga uses, "Kapitel", inplace of "Episodes" and “Chapters” when naming. It's German for "Chapter".02] Anime/Manga: Argento SomaArgento Soma’s episode names are two words that progress from each other. "Rebirth and Death", "Death and the Maiden", "The Maiden and the Meeting", etc. It comes full circle with the last episode.03] Manga: Ame Nochi Hare / Clear Up After RainEvery chapter in Ame Nochi Hare is suffixed with hPa, which stands for hectopascal, and is used by meteorologists as a unit of measurement for air pressure. This is relevant to the plight of the five protagonists who will transform into girls whenever it rains.04] Anime/Manga: Aldnoah.ZeroAldnoah.Zero uses sci-fi novel titles.05] Manga: Ai KoraAi Kora uses "Parts" to refer to chapter numbers: Parts 1, Parts 2, etc.Each chapter is numbered as "Parts #".06] Anime: Ah My Buddha Katsu / Amaenaide yo!! Katsu!!Ah My Buddha Katsu, uses "Don't _____!!"07] Anime/Manga: Air GearAir Gear, an anime about rollerskating uses "Trick".08] Anime/Manga: AnotherAt first I thought that the titles were a bit odd, until I realized that they were about building a creepy mannequin doll like in the show. Amazing!09] Anime/Manga: Assassination Classroom / Ansatsu KyoushitsuAssassination Classroom uses "Time".It is an allusion to the school theme ("time" is synonymous to "period") and the time limit to kill Koro-sensei.10] Anime/Light Novel: Beyond the Boundary / Kyoukai no KanataKyoukai no Kanata's episode titles are colour themed.11] Anime: Blue Drop: Tenshi-tachi no GikyokuAll episode titles in Blue Drop: Tenshi-tachi no Gikyoku are scientific names of flowers.12] Anime/Manga/Light Novel: BakemonogatariBakemonogatari anime has the name of the girl attacked, followed by the name of the monster, followed by the number of the episode in the story arc, as titles.13] Manga: B.IchiB.Ichi uses "bones" (like the ones the hero uses).14] Anime: Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 uses 1970s heavy metal/hard rock song titles as episode titles.15] Anime/Manga: Ben-ToBen-To uses the name of a bento box featured in its respective episode, followed by its calorie count. For example, Episode 1 is called "Sticky Natto Okra Rice with Cheese Topping Bento, 440kcal"16] Anime/Manga: Black Butler / KuroshitsujiBlack Butler has "His Butler, _____"17] Anime/Manga: Black CloverBlack Clover uses "Page". It has a literature motif, referring to spellbooks.18] Anime/Manga: Death NoteDeath Note also uses "Page"; and has literature motifs, the titular book of death.19] Manga: Blame!Blame! uses "LOG. X," where X is the number of the chapter being referred to.20] Anime/Manga: Cromartie High School / Sakigake!! Cromartie KoukouThe chapters of the Cromartie High School manga were all references to song, albums, or lyrics. Similarly, the four volumes of the DVD in the American release were named after song and had covers parodying the names of albums.21] Manga: Change 123 (Ecchi Warning)Change 123’s chapter titles are always some kind of mathematical term.22] Anime/Manga: Cardcaptor SakuraCardcaptor Sakura uses "Sakura".23] Manga: ChiralityChirality uses "Case".[PS: - Since the genre of this manga includes Ecchi & Yuri, and also that the panels are NSFW, I didn’t share the whole panels here. Instead, I just cropped a part to show that the chapters are labelled as “Cases”.]24] Manga: Classi9Classi9 uses "Movement", with reference to the different movements in various music pieces.25] Anime/Manga: ClaymoreClaymore uses "Scene".26] Anime/Manga: Code GeassCode Geass uses "Stage" (stages of a plan) for its first season and "Turn" (turns in a game of chess) for its second.27] Anime/Manga: Cowboy BebopCowboy Bebop uses "Session" (music terminology).Most episodes are named after a musical concept of some sort, usually either a broad genre (e.g. "Gateway Shuffle") or a specific song (e.g. "Honky Tonk Women”).They are designed to be reminiscent of song titles (sometimes actual titles) or styles: "Waltz for Venus", "Jupiter Jazz", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Mushroom Samba", etc. The finale was titled "The Real Folk Blues", also the name of the show's end Theme Tune, and the movie is called "Knockin' on Heaven's Door".28] Anime/Manga: The Severing Crime EdgeThe Severing Crime Edge uses "Cuts".29] Anime/Manga: Delicious in DungeonEvery chapter of Delicious in Dungeon is named after the food the party make in it, e.g. "Hotpot" and "Tart".30] Anime/Manga: D.N.AngelEarly chapters in the manga version of D.N.Angel start with "A Warning of _______", referencing the fact that Dark always sends warning letters before he steals something. This was dropped later in its run, and didn't carry over to the animated adaptation.31] Anime/Manga: Daily Life With Monster Girls / Monster Musume no Iru NichijouDaily Life with Monster Girls uses "Species" (referring to the extraspecies girls). The rest of the title is always "Daily Life With [plot descriptor/name of characters introduced]".32] Anime/Manga: DanchigaiDangaichi uses “Buildings”.33] Anime/Manga: Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody / Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai KyousoukyokuDeath March to the Parallel World Rhapsody ends all titles with "... that began with a death march".34] Anime/Manga: Detective ConanDetective Conan uses "File" for manga chapter numbering.35] Anime/Manga: Elfen LiedElfen Lied uses "Vector" (in-universe reference).If you notice closely, you’ll see that the last words of the titles of every episode are in german, and all of them are dark, which perfectly describes the atmosphere of Elfen Lied.36] Anime/Manga: El Cazador de la BrujaEvery episode title in El Cazador de la Bruja contains the word "Man" or "Woman", usually referring to the character in the focus of a particular episode. The only exception is episode 14, which is also the biggest continuous Mood Whiplash in the show.37] Anime/Manga: Eureka SevenEureka Seven likewise uses variations of song titles for most of its episodes, with electronic music being the most common genre.38] Anime/Manga: Ergo ProxyErgo Proxy uses "Meditatio." (That's not a misspelling, but the Latin word for meditation.)The side story called, Ergo Proxy: Centzon Hitchers and Undertaker which is a manga, contains titles of every chapter labelled as “The __________ Night”.39] Anime/Manga: Eyeshield 21Eyeshield 21 (about American football) uses "downs" for chapters, with the final chapter being "touchdown."40] Anime/Manga: FLCLThe Japanese titles of all six episodes of FLCL are written with four katakana morae, possibly as an imitation of the yojijukugo style, but using abbreviated English (or nonsense) words in place of Japanese words.41] Anime/Manga: Future Diary / Mirai NikkiEvery Future Diary anime episode title is in some way related to phones.42] Anime/Manga: Fuan No TaneThe first, second and third volumes of Fuan No Tane have a “#”, a “♭” and a “Ω”, respectively, in front of the chapter numbers.Now let me start my own analysis here. xD# and ♭ symbols which are used in scores for music, and they are called “sharp” and “flat” respectively. But there is no such thing called Ω in music scores.Also thing is that this ain’t a manga related to music, but is rather based on horror. There isn’t a single music related thing here, so I assume that this is not “flat” rather something else.I tried searching up the net for what else ♭ could mean, but no luck.After having a long ass debate and discussion with Vinnie and Yandere-chan, I came to the conclusion that either this has some meaning and co-relation which I can’t understand and crack, or else the mangaka was high on weed.P.S- I still don’t have any damn idea what these symbols mean, all I get that is this is definitely a pattern. If anyone is interested to research about this, go forward, and if you end up finding something, please do share it with me, as this has been bugging me for a while.43] Anime/Manga: Galaxy AngelEpisodes of Galaxy Angel are phrased as titles to very strange recipes, such as "Milfeulle's Special made Cake for Surprise & Hug Hug Hug Pot," "Ambition and Poverty BBQ Chicken & Chain-linked Noodles without the Link" and "Dried Pork Legs & Top-Gun Fried Tofu mixed with Vegetables." Keep in mind that the series has Edible Theme Naming concerning the girls.44] Anime/Manga: Gourmet Girl GraffitiGourmet Girl Graffiti episode titles are descriptions of food taste like "warm, juicy".45] Anime/Manga: GenshikenEach episode of Genshiken has a long, convoluted, scholarly sounding title (e.g., "The Sublimating Effects of the Dissimilation Brought on Through Makeup and Costume on Mental Obstacles", an episode about cosplay). It turns out that the former President of the club was a graduate student in sociology and was secretly studying the club members as part of his thesis, and presumably, each episode title corresponds to an academic article he wrote based on the events of the episode. After he graduated, the titles become more normal sounding.46] Anime/Manga: GintamaGintama is full of this. Episode titles are generally whole sentences (if not paragraphs), often things like "When you're tired, eat something sour!" or "A life without gambling is like sushi without wasabi." They often constitute a bit of Fridge Logic, since they seem completely random until you really think about the episode. (Some are a bit more obvious though.)Gintama episode titles are fucking wisdom. You can’t argue with this point."People Who Make Good First Impressions Usually Suck""People Who Say That Santa Doesn't Really Exist Actually Want To Believe In Him""Stress Makes You Bald, But It's Stressful To Avoid Stress, So You End Up Stressed Out Anyway, So In The End There's Nothing You Can Do""So in the Second Season of Prison Break, They've Already Broken out of Prison, but the Name Works Once You Realize That Society Is a Prison"Gintama uses "Lesson" for it’s manga chapters (alludes to apprenticeship).47] Anime/Manga: Great Teacher OnizukaGreat Teacher Onizuka uses "Lesson".48] Anime/Manga: Guilty CrownGuilty Crown uses "Phases".Also you can also notice the pattern in the episodes name too. Two terms or phrases are stated, separated by a “:”.49] Anime/Manga: Gundam Seed & Gundam Seed DestinyGundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny also use "Phase."GUNDAM SEEDGUNDAM SEED DESTINY50] Anime/Manga: Haganai: I don't have many friends NEXT / Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NextHaganai uses the characters for the show's own canonical portmanteau name — "Haganai" (はがない), itself derived from "Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai ("wa" and "ha" are interchangeable in Japanese) — on its episode titles, followed by a ShiftJIS emoticon frequently seen on Japanese Message Boards.51] Anime/Manga: HellsingHellsing uses "Order" (alludes to the structure of the organization).Also, the episode titles are kinda dark and relates to the title of this show quite well.52] Anime/Manga: Hajime no IppoHajime no Ippo uses the term "Round", referring to a boxing match.53] Anime/Manga: The Hating GirlThe Hating Girl uses "Head", a reference to the main female character's predicament of having an arrow through her head.54] Anime/Manga: HyakkoHyakko drops the word "tiger" in every single episode title, since the title of the series is a reference to Byakko, the white tiger of The Four Gods.55] Anime/Manga: Highschool of the DeadHighschool of the Dead replaces a word in famous names and titles with dead, eg. The Girl Next Dead, Dead Storm Rising, and so on.56] Anime/Manga: Higurashi: When They CryThe arcs of Higurashi: When They Cry are in the format of "two-kanji word" + shi-hen: (Onikakushi, Watanagashi, Tatarigoroshi, Himatsubushi, Meakashi, Tsumihoroboshi, Minagoroshi, Matsuribayashi).57] Anime/Manga: High Score GirlHigh Score Girl, which centers on arcade games, uses "Credit".58] Anime/Manga: Is This a Zombie? / Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?The episode titles from Is This a Zombie? are responses to the question "Is this a zombie?" like "Yes, I'm a Magical Garment Girl", "No, I'm a Vampire Ninja", etc.59] Anime/Manga: Is the Order a Rabbit? / Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka?Is the Order a Rabbit? uses counter 羽 (wa) for episodes, which is normally used to count rabbits. This is translated as "bunnisode" in some English subtitles.60] Anime/Manga: Karin (Chibi Vampire)Karin uses "Embarassment" at the end of it’s episode titles and in front of the Manga chapters.61] Anime/Manga: Kill la KillThe title of each episode is named after a Japanese classical pop song selected from within the iTunes collection of Kill la Kill head writer Kazuki Nakashima, an idea which he came up with as he wrote the script.However, Episode 20: Far From the Madding Crowd is the name of a movie.62] Anime/Manga: Katekyo Hitman RebornKatekyo Hitman Reborn uses "Target".63] Anime/Manga: The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery ServiceThe Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service uses "[Nth] Delivery".Each chapter is titled after a song. They try to arrange it so that all the chapters in a particular tankoubon are songs by the same artist.64] Anime/Manga: Astarotte no Omocha / Astarotte’s Toy (Ecchi Warning)Every episode of Lotte no Omocha includes the name of a punctuation mark: exclamation, semicolon, parentheses, etc. (That and a few suspiciously shaped objects leads one to suspect a typography fetish is at work here.)65] Anime/Game: THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella GirlsTHE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls’s episode titles all reference some aspect of the Cinderella fairy tale. For example, the first episode mentions pumpkin carriages, the second episode mentions castles, and the third episode mentions balls.66] Anime/Manga: Last ExileAs a chess player, I enjoyed Last Exile's titles all being related to chess.67] Anime/Manga: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions / Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!Almost all the episode titles of Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions have for some reason an ellipsis (...) in them, save for the last two. That's probably because Rikka is forced to grow out of her delusions in those episodes.68] Manga: Lost+BrainLost+Brain uses "Sign."69] Anime: Mashiro-iro Symphony: The Color of LoversEvery episode title of Mashiro-iro Symphony has something to do with colors. Most are of the form "X-colored Y," where X and Y are things that have no obvious meaning in this context: "Annoyance-Colored Anxiety," "Search-Colored Bath Time," etc.70] Anime/Manga: MagikanoMagikano episodes always ask a question. Example: "The Cat Panties are Cursed?!"71] Anime/Manga: Millennium SnowMillennium Snow uses "Snow" (First Snow, Second Snow, etc.).72] Anime/Manga: Mnemosyne: Mnemosyne no Musume-tachi / Rin: Daughters of MnemosyneEpisode titles in Mnemosyne always follow the pattern "subject negation verb". Excepting the final episode, "Then, to the Gates of the Kingdom".73] Anime/Manga: Magi: The Labyrinth of MagicMagi: The Labyrinth of Magic uses "Nth Night", following the Arabian Nights theme.74] Anime/Manga: Mobile Suit Gundam: We are Federation Hooligans! / Kidou Senshi Gundam: Orera Renpou GurentaiMobile Suit Gundam: We are Federation Hooligans! has each chapter named after a western song or album, ranging from glam rock albums, Jay-Z albums, rock songs, or even “The Eye of the Tiger”.75] Anime/Manga: Mawaru-PenguindrumMawaru-Penguindrum uses "Station", matching the subway imagery.The Eye Catches even show the episode's station number on a rail map.76] Anime/Manga: MushishiEach episode of Mushishi is named using a poetic description of something related to the mushi of that episode: like its effects or the people affected by it. Example, #3 is "Tender Horns," which refer to the horns growing on the victim.77] Anime/Manga: Mahou Sensei Negima!/Negima & Negima!? / Negima!? Magister Negi MagiMahou Sensei Negima! / Negima had all of its titles in Latin in the first series anime.It’s second series called, Negima!? / Negima!? Magister Negi Magi all the episode titles were all quotes from various characters.Episodes of Mahou Sensei Negima!/NegimaEpisodes of Negima!? Magister Negi MagiThough, in the manga you can notice that Negima Magister Negimagi uses "Period" (school terminology).78] Anime/Manga: Neon Genesis EvangelionNeon Genesis Evangelion uses "Genesis" followed by "0:" then the actual episode number (Biblical allusion).79] Anime/Manga: Nodame CantabileNodame Cantabile uses "Lesson" on his 1st phase and "Leçon" on the Paris arc.80] Anime/Manga: The Prince of TennisThe Prince of Tennis uses "Genius", referring to the fact that Ryoma Echizen (the main character) is a tennis prodigy.81] Anime/Manga: Piano: The Melody of a Young Girl's HeartThe episode names of Piano are Italian musical terms, starting with "con", which indicate how something should be performed—for example "con amore" (with love).82] Anime/Manga: Pet Shop of HorrorsIn Pet Shop of Horrors every chapter is named with a D word as if guessing what the D in Count D's name stands for.83] Anime/Manga: Penguin Musume♥HeartAlmost every episode of Penguin Musume Heart is a thinly disguised spoof of another anime's title. Sample titles include "Mae, Otome", "Roze no Tsukaima", “The Girl who Leapt through Time” and "Marie-sama ga Miteru".84] Anime/Manga: Princess ResurrectionPrincess Resurrection uses "Story." Also, the title of almost every "Story" (and every anime episode) is "Princess __________," making the series doubly idiosyncratic.85] Anime/Manga: Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt(Almost?) All of them are references to actual movie/television series titles and many of them, as warped as they are, actually kind of fit their episode.86] Anime/Manga: PsyrenPsyren uses "Call" (alluding to telephones—a significant plot device)87] Anime/Manga: Restaurant to Another World / Isekai ShokudouEvery episode of Restaurant to Another World is the name of a dish (e.g.: "Beef Stew", "Breakfast Special", "Minced Meat Cutlet").88] Anime/Manga: Rage of Bahamut: Genesis / Shingeki no Bahamut: GenesisRage of Bahamut: Genesis episodes always include the name of location where the action happens.89] Anime/Manga: Rolling☆GirlsRolling☆Girls uses song titles by a Japanese punk rock band Blue Hearts. All the songs in the show are also Blue Hearts covers.90] Anime/Manga: Stratos 4Stratos 4 numbers the episodes as "CODE XYY: [name]", where [name] is appropriately aeronautics-themed. X refers to the season and YY refers to the episode number.Example: episode 10 of the first season is "CODE 110: Mission Abort". The OVAs are CODE X-1 and CODE X-2.91] Anime/Manga: Saiunkoku MonogatariThe episode titles of Saiunkoku Monogatari are all common proverbs. During the first season, someone always title dropped the proverb in dialogue, though the practice was mostly abandoned for the second season (probably because of how forced some of the title drops were).92] Anime/Manga: Sundome (Ecchi Warning)Sundome uses "Collar", a reference to the "collars" the main character believes his love interest has put on him in their...exceedingly strange relationship.92] Anime/Manga: Scrapped PrincessEvery episode of Scrapped Princess starts with a musical movement style ("Elegy", "March", "Concerto", etc.) and usually ends with a short description of a major character or event to be introduced in that chapter. The closest thing to a deviation ("Distant Ricordanza") still makes sense because the narrative featured multiple locations set some distance from each other.93] Anime/Manga: SimounWhile the individual episodes of Simoun weren't named idiosyncratically, the DVDs were, using musical terms: Choir of Pairs, Orchestra of Betrayal, Rondo of Loss, Crescendo of Lamentation, and Song of Prayer. It makes sense, since the teams of pilots that flew the titular aircraft were called chor (choir).94] Anime/Manga: s.CRY.edNearly every episode of s.CRY.ed is a proper noun, the name of some character, place or thing within the series, without any predicates or verbs.95] Anime/Manga: Samurai ChamplooEvery episode of Samurai Champloo is written with four kanji that form a Yojijukugo (four-character idiomatic compound is one translation), which would never translate, so the dub uses alliteration (ex. "Bogus Booty", "Hell Hounds for Hire").96] Anime/Manga: Tengen Toppa Gurren LagannTengen Toppa Gurren Lagann uses a line of dialog from each episode as it's title. Each Story Arc uses a different character's dialog — first Kamina, then Nia, then Rossiu, and ultimately Simon.The episode titles are also written in a font appropriate to their speaker (Kamina and Simon's titles are in a graffiti style, Nia's are extremely cutesy, and Rossiu's are angular and futuristic.)97] Anime/Manga: Tenchi Universe / Tenchi Muyou!Tenchi Universe uses "No Need for..." ("____ Muyo!" in Japan) as its episode titles, usually followed by a noun relating to the plot of the episode and an exclamation point.For instance, "No Need for Swimsuits!" was the episode focusing on the group's trip to a beach-like planet and the girls' subsequent entry into a bikini contest. This is significant because "Muyo" from the title of the OVA, Tenchi Muyo (and part of all the series' Japanese titles), literally means "No Need For" - in other words, "No Need for Tenchi". (Among several other meanings)98] Anime/Manga: The Promised Neverland / Yakusoku no NeverlandEvery episode title of The Promised Neverland is a compressed form of the episode's date in-universe, written in a DD/MM/YY format; the first episode is titled "121045" because it's the 12th of October 2045, the next episode is titled "131045" because it takes place the following day, etc.99] Anime/Manga: Weiß Kreuz & Weiss Kreuz Gluhen / Knight Hunters & Knight Hunters EternityIn Weiß Kreuz, episode titles begin with a single Gratuitous German word. Weiss Kreuz Gluhen, meanwhile, uses the titles of the Weiss's previously released Image Songs as episode titles.Weiß KreuzWeiss Kreuz Gluhen100] Anime/Game: World Destruction: Sekai Bokumetsu no Rokunin / Sands of DestructionThe anime based on this game has all of its episode titles begin with "There are Two Kinds" (except for Ep. 10: "There Are 108 Laws of Clockwork Robotics").Footnotes and Credits:➤ Anime & Manga / Idiosyncratic Episode Naming - TV Tropes➤ Idiosyncratic Episode NamingThese websites also have more of these interesting namings and many which I couldn’t include here in the list. Do check them out if you are interested!That’s all from my side!~ Ipsita Mondal

Thanks for A2A, that’s my first one!Okay, let’s see. An army of Saturn V rockets and launch pads…(Not the same picture but you get the idea.)Yup, this is going to be a long one. I’m on a time crunch, so spelling mistakes will be made. Bear with me!So, how many, exactly, are in an army? Google gives between 20,000 and 150,000. Even the 20,000 number doubles the number of orbital launches there has been, so let’s go with 20,000.First off, I’d go to SpaceX and tell them that if they send me to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter’s moons, and on a flyby of Venus, they can have half of them.I’m pretty sure they’d accept.I’d give 5000 to NASA. I mean, give? How exactly do you transport 7,500 gigantic spaceships?2500 would go to the various Russian launch providers.I’d give a thousand to ULA, five hundred to the ESA, 200 each to JAXA, CNSA, Arianespace, and ISRO. 150 of the remaining 200 I would distribute to miscellaneous space agencies all over the world.I’d save the fifty remaining ones for myself.So, what exactly happens when you distribute nearly THREE BILLION metric tons of orbital lift capacity around the world (about 7,000 ISS’s worth)?IMMEDIATELYImmediately, not much. We last flew Saturns around four decades ago. We have actually lost the blueprints, so we’d spend some time trying to re-learn how exactly they work.I’d launch one of mine right away (within a day) and go to the moon with my crush. Because, why not? I’d be the fourteenth person on me moon, and my now girlfriend would be the thirteenth, as well as the first woman.THE FIRST YEARFirst off, everyone’s going to rip out all of the old computers and replace them with modern ones. I’m not going to mention that type of upgrade in here.Wait, why rip them out? Just patch an IPhone in there and you’re good to go!NASA would launch theirs next, first as a few orbital tests to make sure that this wasn’t some sick prank. The first one of their moon landings would take place by the end of the first year.ROSCOSMOS wouldn’t really know what to do immediately. They would have to convert Imperial to Metric, and a great deal of them would have to learn English. They would launch a few gigantic satellites and maybe finally launch the remainder of their space station segment. Production of a modernized Buran shuttle may begin at this point, to be flown Saturn-Shuttle style. Also, they’d paint over all of the “USA” markings.SpaceX would launch a lot of them, but in a scientific manner, learning as much as possible. They would begin research into how to rapidly reuse Saturn V’s, or something similar to Saturn V’s. They would also partner with Bigelow Aerospace in an attempt to make a huge tourism station. A “Dragon 3” or “Mini ITS” capsule would be designed to launch on a 2 staged Saturn V variant and carry a few dozen people into orbit. They would also come up with a plan to boost the orbit of the ISS and convert it into a museum, as it is already starting to fall apart.CNSA (China) would accelerate its manned moon program. They would reverse engineer the Saturn V’s and begin designing a new rocket in the Long March series to increase national pride. They would, however, jump at the launch opportunities and launch the core of their multimodular space station and also land on the moon.JAXA would probably land on the moon as well and start working on their own space station concepts.ULA is an interesting story. They, like SpaceX, were purely a commercial launch provider driven by revenue (and a few other sources). They were in the process of designing Vulcan, their next-gen launch system. However, they now have hundreds of rockets an order of magnitude more powerful than Vulcan. They would start by designing a scaled up variant of ACES (a long life cryogenic stage) that will be useful with Apollo hardware. They would clear their launch manifest using the Saturn.Arianespace would put people on the moon. So would the ISRO, and everybody else.I, on the other hand, would sell one of my rockets, buy a school bus, modify it to have a pressurized compartment in the front, and add hypergolic rockets to the back. I would dock an Apollo command module to the front and I would fly my Magic School Bus around the moon, leaving it in an elliptical orbit and re-entering in my command module.THE NEXT FIVE YEARSNASA would have begun construction of a space station several times the size of the ISS, and is working on a plan to upgrade all of the Saturns to modern-day computer systems. They are also partnering with SpaceX to soft land third stages on the Moon to use as a moon base. They have also sent large probes to the outer planets. Oh, yeah, and they are beginning work on the Deep Space Gateway, now renamed as the International Lunar Space Station.ROSCOSMOS would have contributed to the aforementioned stations and base, and are now launching Saturn-Buran. They have completed a test flight of a storable cryogenic version, which can fly around the moon. They are working on an artificial gravity space station.SpaceX would have sent several things toward Mars and are wrapping up development of their ITS upper stage, which can land 40t on Mars and return (with refueling). Due to their increased launch cadence, they foresee running out of Saturns. They have redesigned some of the Apollo hardware to be reusable, including Falcon style vertical landing first stages. They are preparing for a manned Mars mission in the next five years.China would have a moon base and a space station. They would have also launched planet probes.Japan would be partnering with others to make MOAR STATIONS!ULA would have finished Saturn-ACES and now has a vehicle which can deliver massive space station modules to Lunar orbit.Blue Origin, whom I neglected to mention earlier, falls under the “other agencies” category. Unfortunately, they only have ten. They continue developing New Glenn. They do, however, use five of their launches to build a small Lunar station and land two people on the moon.Arianespace/ESA/ISRO would build and fly stuff to stations and send probes.Orbital ATK would be developing massive SRB’s to be used to boost the SV’s lift capacity even more.Me? In those five years, I would have modified a 1960’s Imperial Crown and Airstream into a space station and launched it. I would have a space station made entirely out of cars and trailers. I would also have launched a gigantic inflatable Kerbal to geostationary orbit so that I could see it at night. I would record an album in space, and I would have gone to all of the stations and bases.Someone would work on cleaning up the orbital debris.THE NEXT TEN YEARSEveryone has their sights set on going to other planets. People start deciding to work together……Which is how we end up with a Saturn V with a reusable SpaceX first stage, a remastered NASA second stage, a ULA ACES third stage, and a school bus on top.NASA, after completion of their moon bases, space stations, and lunar exploration program, would assemble three massive motherships in Earth Orbit. They would be named “Joey Tempest,” “Bon Jovi,” and “Martin Molin.” I would be able to name them because I gave the rockets to NASA in the first place. If you can’t tell, those are all famous musicians. Joey Tempest would go to Mars, Bon Jovi would fly by Venus, and Martin Molin would begin on a journey to Jupiter.ROSCOSMOS would have also finished most of its stations. The long range Buran would be used for trans-lunar crew. They would develop a single use Mars spaceship and also send men to Mars and around Venus.SpaceX would have fully blended their ITS program into the Saturn program. Their Mars highway would be up and running. Full Saturn reusability is within sight.China would have built a space station and then strapped boosters on it and went to Mars.Everyone else is either working towards Mars or partnering with people who are going to Mars.I would have flown by Venus and gone to Mars by this point. My supply of Saturn V’s would be dwindling, I’d say around twenty by this point, out of the fifty I originally had. I’d have one permanently mounted outside my high school as a monument to myself. There would be a “launch tower” from which you could go into the CM. It would also be the tallest building for many dozens of miles in every direction.THE NEXT TWENTY-FIVE YEARSLaunch rate has ballooned to about 500 Saturns per year. This means that at the current rate the world will run out at the end of this 25 year period. Nobody seems to realize this for the first eighteen years of this time.Nearly everyone has banded together to send people everywhere in the system. The moonstations and bases have been replaced by more modern ones. The moon bases are self sustaining.Nuclear Thermal Rocket engines are common now. They offer greater efficiency than normal rockets.Mars has its own countries. They all get along peacefully. Terraforming is being seriously considered as a possibility for the next fifty years.There are balloon outposts on Venus, and a few expeditions to the surface in really strong pressure vessels have been made. There is a large station around Venus.The first manned mission to Mercury has taken place.Mars’s moons have scientific outposts on them.Several of the moons of Jupiter have outposts on them. Science is being done at a very rapid rate. The Great Red Spot is now fully understood. Stations are there as well.The first manned ships have begun to explore Saturn and its moons. Probes have entered the polar hexagon. The rings are studied in great detail. There are bootprints on most of the major moons.One manned mission has reached Uranus. Moon exploration is progressing, albeit slowly.Only probes have reached Neptune and Pluto.We have sent something into the sun.We have launched a probe that will reach the nearest star within a hundred years. However, we launched it towards the Trappist system, which it will reach in a thousand years.I would have toured the moons of Jupiter and I have been to Mercury and the moons of Mars. I used most of my remaining Saturns on novelties. I have three remaining now.Towards the end of the twenty-five year period (After 41 years of Saturns, or in the year 2058) we have three major problems facing Planet Earth.Overpopulation.An energy crisis.We are running out of Saturns.I’ll start with problem three. The Terran Space Program, what used to be SpaceX, NASA, and everyone else, has several dozen reusable Saturn first stages. However, nearly no second stages remain. All hardware left over is four decades old and turning to dust quickly. Earth ramps up production of a new mega rocket designed to replace the Saturn V. They come up with the Planetary Colonization Spaceship, also known as the Saturn X. It is the size of the Burj Khalifa and can take a thousand people to Mars. It is fully reusable. Production begins around the world.Problem one: Overpopulation. Luckily, with the Saturn X, we can colonize the system. We now have more space (pun intended).Now, the interesting one: Problem two. Earth is running out of energy and resources. For resources, we dredge the asteroid belt for minerals, which we bring to Earth. But the energy… There was an asteroid discovered, about a tenth of the size of the moon. It would pass relatively close to Earth. A plan is made to redirect it into an orbit of the Earth.Why, you ask?You know what happens when you take a piece of copper and spin it around a piece of iron?In some form, this system could potentially produce practically infinite free energy.THE NEXT ONE HUNDRED YEARS (2059–2159)I pass away in 2092 after walking on Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon, Minmus (because what else would you name Earth’s second moon?), Mars, Phobos, Demios, most of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as briefly visiting Haley’s comet. The final Saturn V left in the world, one of the ones I saved, is launched carrying my body to the Car Space Station, which, docked to is mothership “Martin Molin,” first ship to Jupiter. The ship, unmanned with my body on board, is de-orbited into the sun, where I receive the best burial one could imagine.But, enough about me. What about humanity?In the year 2159, humanity has terraformed Mars and is beginning to consider terraforming Venus. Mostly subterranean colonies exist on the moons of the Gas giants. A few of those moons have actually been terraformed. Earth is designated a Solar System Heritage site. It is still chugging along. Long term plans have been made to protect Earth from the rage of humanity.There are thirty-five billion humans in the solar system. Spaceships are now as cheap as houses were in 2017. The last Saturn V, somehow preserved, is transported to the Moon, where it is placed on display next to the landing site of Apollo 11, which is next to the Steven Scheuermann museum.Science has also advanced. The discovery of a diquantum field (made up name because it sounds sciencey) has allowed for faster than light communications, paradox free. An antimatter research facility has been established on Io, which is developing spaceships which can cross the system in a matter of weeks. Later, Io will become the system’s biggest producer of Antimatter, its equator completely covered in particle accelerators.3001 - THE FINAL ODYSSEYIn the 2400’s, a massive project was initiated to make a particle accelerator ring around Jupiter to produce antimatter. Most of the planets and Moons are terraformed and living sustainably. Plans are underway to create a Dyson sphere.In the 2800’s, all countries band together. The name “Steven Scheuermann” is known just as widely as “Neil Armstrong.” The anthem of Mars is “The Final Countdown,” as per Steven’s dying wish. 100 billion humans inhabit the system. Antimatter probes have been launched towards the nearest stars.In the year 2986, the secret to faster than light travel has been uncovered. Experiments are underway.In the year 3000, Steven Scheuermann’s frozen body is discovered in an elliptical orbit of the sun inside a 1960 Airstream. Somehow, it did not fall into the sun. Steven is brought back to life and given a life-extending surgery. He should survive another forty years, give or take a decade. He is shown the ending to what he started. He is proud of humanity.3001 - Steven Scheuermann and his crew undertake the first flight of a warp drive ship. The ship is built around the hull of the Saturn V that Steven placed in front of his high school more than 900 years ago.The Trappist system is then explored.And we find alien intelligence.And on behalf of humanity, Steven says “We come in peace.”

“Why does the U.S. cavalry seem in history to be inept, and isn't a revision due?” Your question assumes facts not in evidence, specifically that the cavalry branch of the US Army was inept. This is like saying “George Washington was incompetent,” which is an unsupportable assertion. He, like all of us, was incompetent (mostly because he was inexperienced) at many things, but superb at other things, and he outlasted and finally outfought many professionals who were “more competent” than he was.What you might have asked was, “How effective was the US cavalry in mission X (X = fighting Apaches, fighting Confederates, fighting Mexicans, reconstructing the South, or fighting Germans). Why? What constraints affected their performance?” Science Fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein famously said, "You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity." In this case you have made an accusation of ineptitude, but the real villain is the totality of their situation. We often ask ourselves what we would have done differently in a historical situation, but we use only the data we can see. The story of the US cavalry is complex, tragic, and has acts both villainous and noble. Reducing the story of the service of thousands over almost two centuries to a dichotomous soundbite merely for the convenience of easy moralizing is neither just nor informative. Let’s try to understand before we judge.The modern perception of the US cavalry, like that of the “cowboy,” was invented by pulp novelists during the last half of the 19th century, and by Hollywood during the early days of film. British General Brian Horrocks, when briefing his commanders on the upcoming Market Garden operation in the Netherlands in September 1944, is reputed to have likened the attack of XXX Corps to the US cavalry, riding in at the last second to save the beleaguered wagon train. Scores of movies (and later, television episodes) portrayed the cavalry as always arriving just in time; it became a metaphor for what the in theater is called deus ex machina, the gods always rescuing the protagonist through rather contrived means *. The charge bugle call became synonymous with “saving the day” or “coming to the rescue.” It was comforting trope in an age of uncertainty, that a man from our tribe, on a white horse, with the full and unstoppable force of government behind him, would come bravely rushing in just in time to deliver justice and secure the future. The feeling this elicits, and the faith in a rescuer, resonates, to some extent, with all of us, albeit substituting different symbols depending on your identity. When the chips are down, a man on the horse will risk his life to save us. This is our fantasy, and the cavalry’s burden.The problem with myths is that close scrutiny always leaves them wanting, and rarely is a retrospective judgement either circumspect or fair. The men of the US cavalry were human, no better or worse than their contemporaries. They lived in an age when racism, sexism, and casual cruelty were as common as eating chicken is to us. The strove, endured, and rarely triumphed in ordeals that would make us cringe. They drank, gambled, whored, stole, donated, sacrificed, suffered, and gave their lives. They felt, thought, grew, resisted change, failed, and died just just us. Many were heroes, many others were scoundrels, and most were just working men doing a difficult and dangerous job. It’s a sad shame that we now look at them through the lens of myth, but just as they were only human, so are we.The US cavalry was significantly different from its European counterparts. Unlike their British cousins, nearly all American colonists were free landholders, and more likely to own horses. In western Europe, cavalry units were state-supported, brightly uniformed, high in status, and their primary peacetime duty was preening like peacocks and occasionally rushing to meet local threats. Any peasant levy could be turned into a marginally-effective infantryman with a few weeks’ training, but a cavalryman took years to create. The purchase price of a commission in a British first-tier cavalry regiment was much higher than one in even the most elite Guards infantry battalion. Hussars, Cuirassiers, Uhlans, Lancers, Dragoons, and all the other permutations of smartly-dressed horse soldier were used to oppress rioters, patrol the public roads, and escort nobles to and fro. In units like the Scots Greys, all the horses were one color (gray, of course) so they would look better on parade. When wars started, they were expected to be the mounted arm of decision, breaking through or flanking the enemy’s line and pursuing his fleeing troops. They were often squandered by their commanders, like the Scots Greys at Waterloo and the Light Brigade at Balaclava, but just as often they rode to glory in an age when that word was not just a punchline. Soldiers were noble, but there was something special about a cavalryman. The European cavalryman was an idealized figure, romantic and elegant, a flawed but still errant knight for the modern age. The American horse soldier was, in reality, another creature altogether.The American regular army (peacetime standing forces, as opposed to wartime militia state units) cavalry was always a tiny force, over-tasked and undermanned. They started out as dragoons, light cavalry armed with carbines in addition to their swords, whose mission was theoretically scouting and patrolling in support of a field army. What combat on the North American continent really called for was not a handful of European-style dragoons but rather a large number of mounted riflemen who could move as fast as cavalry and hold ground like infantry, but only one regiment was ever formed, and it was quickly converted to conventional cavalry. Patterned after the European dragoon, they were too lightly armed to hold ground and too few to patrol the vast spaces of the frontier. After the Civil War, the entire US Army west of the Mississippi was 19,000 men (mostly infantry), smaller than the modern New York Police Department. They were scattered rather than concentrated, unable to exert more than nominal influence over their strategic situation. Regiments, companies, or even squads were deployed and redeployed in response to political demands. If the (federal) regular army wasn’t present in large enough numbers, the states mobilized and unleashed their own militias, resulting many horrific events (the Sand Creek Massacre, conducted by Colorado militia) for which the army took the blame. The regulars themselves were no angels; Custer led a winter attack on a peaceful village because the Indians they were looking for were nowhere to be found (and later took a Cheyenne captive as mistress). While many officers were sympathetic (John Bourke’s book on the Apaches is an example of ethnography before it became fashionable), many cavalrymen had buried the bodies of their tortured and mutilated friends and countrymen and women, and they responded in kind.Soldiers demonstrated all the vices and virtues of their contemporaries, but in environments that dramatically reduced their quality and length of life. Many regiments moved so often that they had to live in tents year round even in peaceful years. When not actually fighting, duty was often so boring and depressing that men like Ulysses Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman resigned their commissions. The daily grind focused on lock-step, appearance-based superficiality, with shiny buttons and boots and lots of fanfare, but few units practiced even rudimentary marksmanship. Discipline was harsh and corporal; shirkers and thieves would be whipped or forced to sit on a wooden rails for days at a time. Desertion among the white regiments (23 infantry and eight cavalry) was stunningly high, with 50% of Custer’s 7th Cavalry going over the hill in a single year (he has disciplined for executing several deserters without due process). Desertion from the two infantry and two cavalry regiments manned by black soldiers was negligible. Each regiment had a schoolhouse and paid teacher, but most solders preferred to drink and play cards, which said less about the army than the men who joined (many took advantage of the program, which continues to this day - every military base has an education center, and the night classes are usually packed).As the old Russian saying goes, “Amateurs discuss tactic; professionals discuss logistics,” and the logistics of the frontier soldier was dictated by penny-pinching politicians, corrupt contractors, and gouging locals. Garrisons had to grow their own vegetables while continuing to patrol their sectors (and guard the gardens against animals, civilians, and even Indians). Their food was revolting, often consisting of shelf-stable food rejected by both civilian and government buyers, though probably not as bad as the food issued to Reservation Indians. Unlike settlers, soldiers had to set up in often desolate places as the tactical situation demanded, and leaving your perimeter to get firewood or fill canteens was likely to get on either a Medal of Honor (e. g. Little Big Horn) or a death by torture that lasted hours or days. The cavalry was if anything worse off than the infantry; they had to spend endless hours grooming their mounts and shoveling out stables, and their budget horses were often too old to stand up to heavy campaigning, turning the cavalry into infantry halfway through a pursuit (innovative commanders like George Crook mounted infantry on mules). Cavalry units, both burdened with equipment and were rarely able to catch fleet Indian raiders in their unburdened ponies. Their dark blue wool uniforms were too hot in the desert, too cold in the mountains, and little protection against the wind, rain, and snows. The availability of inexpensive buffalo hides (slaughtered not by soldiers but rather by civilian hunters in response to the demand for ground-bone fertilizer from the East) eventually provided winter clothing for the men standing sentry (against poachers) in the new National Parks, Yellowstone and Yosemite. The government sold off their thousands of nearly-new repeating rifles and replaced them with single-shot weapons rebuilt from old muzzle-loaders, citing economy (this lack of firepower proved catastrophic at Little Big Horn). Their field equipment was heavy, usually old, and sometimes dangerous. The standard issue belt carried cartridges (bullets) in tanned leather loops, which created a patina on the brass shells that often caused hot rifles to jam, and at Little Bighorn many 1873-model Springfield carbines were found abandoned with brass shells inextricably stuck in their breeches. In a cash-based age before direct bank deposit, pay was intermittent (numerous pay shipments were robbed, others delayed by politics and weather), and one year congress neglected to appropriate money for officer pay. It’s amazing that they performed as well as they did.Military officers in the 19th century were nothing if not traditional. Long after the British gave up their red coats in favor of more practical khaki, the Americans clung to the idealized version of the soldier as shiny puppet. Uniforms were designed for smartness more than serviceability, and marching and inspections superseded combat training, even in wartime. Pennsylvania and Texas had useless lancers during the civil war; the Texans were slaughtered by infantry during their first and last charge, and the Pennsylvanians never got a chance to use their polearms. The simple magnificence of western European horsemen troopers continued to hold its appeal as shown by how many times the Americans tried to copy them. American dress uniforms in the late 1800’s sported Prussian spike helmets, and tight-fitting blue clothes were standard issue throughout the frontier period, replaced in the field by “fireman” shirts and Stetson-type hats. The broad-brimmed (and relatively functional) “Hardee Hat” worn by Indian-fighters was replaced just before the Civil War by the kepi, a purely ornamental cap which provided neither shade nor warmth, because the kepi was worn by elite regiments in France **. Despite living in tents and cabins on the edges of civilization, parades and inspection trumped combat training. One infantry regiment, ordered to build a new fort on the Bozeman trail (ironically, one reason for the fort was to protect the Crow Indian treaty lands from their more powerful Lakota enemies), arrived late in the year because their progress was slowed by dragging with them a large grass-cutting machine to keep the parade ground clear (50 Indian attacks in three months didn’t help, either). Their late arrival meant that they were still building their defenses and gathering firewood when winter struck, and their Oglala foes gleefully took advantage of the situation (look up the Fetterman Massacre and Wagon Box Fight).US 9th or 10th Cavalry, formed for the daily full dress “retreat” (end-of-the-duty-day) parade on a frontier post when they could have been out fighting Indians. Spit and polish were the primary daily regimen, even in combat zones; the army didn’t require or provide ammunition for marksmanship practice until the late 1870′s.How the same regiments looked in the field, drawn by someone who actually saw then in wartime, as opposed to Frederic Remington, who did spend time with cavalry units long after the Indian Wars had ended, and drew idealized images that helped feel the myths we still live with.The accomplishments of the US cavalry are not few, nor are they insignificant. They slogged through the Florida swamps in two ill-conceived Seminole wars, dying in droves more from disease than arrows. They prowled the hottest and coldest parts of the frontiers on the cheapest horses the government could buy from corrupt contractors. They provided a presence that deterred both vengeful Indians desperately fighting for survival and White and Mexican law-breakers trying to slip between jurisdictions. They fought countless small engagements with natives, Mexican and American bandits, and their own Byzantine bureaucracy. Major Lewis Merrill and K Company, 7th Cavalry eradicated the original Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina after the civil war (Merrill’s previous mission had been removing white settlers from Indian land in Kansas). Colonel Ranald MacKenzie led his entire regiment across the border into Mexico to frighten Kickapoo raiders into submission (in the John Wayne Movie, the Indians were Apaches holding white children captive, and no mention was made of the fact that the Kickapoos had merely been exacting revenge against Texans for Confederate Army treachery a few years earlier - where is the movie about that story?). The 6th Cavalry helped relieve the trapped diplomats in Peking (now correctly named Beijing). The 26th (Philippine Scouts) drove back advancing Japanese with a mounted pistol charge, then ate their horses as the noose tightened on Bataan. A soon-to-be-released movie portrays a real Special Forces Operational Detachment (“A-Team”) charging Taliban tanks in Afghanistan (just like Rambo!). The big American Green berets on their small, borrowed Asian mounts did plenty of fighting, but neither they nor their Northern Alliance friends charged through advancing armor. Their real actions were plenty valorous enough, but Hollywood know that the movie-going public requires a charge.Tactically speaking, every night was amateur night. Just as the highly-trained American field force found itself unprepared for insurgency in 2003 Iraq, the pre- and post-Civil War army never really figured out how to fight Indians. Better officers would have made a difference, but probably not much of one. There really isn’t an effective way for a small, poorly equipped and supplied force of foreigners to combat a larger, more mobile local guerrilla band that knows the terrain intimately. Like this to urban law enforcement: the cops arrive from elsewhere and have to stay together, while the criminals they are chasing can simply split up and meet later at home. Don't forget fuel; grain-fed army horses had difficulty chasing grass-fed mustangs. An Indian camp was a vulnerable target, but it also had the advantage of all the tribe’s boys acting as lookouts. Add to all this the fact that more than half of soldiers were immigrant city boys who had no wilderness skills and often barely spoke English (the last man to see Custer alive was an Italian-born bugler who had fought with Garibaldi), and complex military operations were impossible. Military doctrine was based on the “big war” concept, and many behaviors (skirmish lines, shouted and bugled orders) were based on the loud battlefield of the Civil War (Lakota relayed orders by prearranged waving of blankets; Apaches signaled with bone whistles and mirror flashes). Fighting on the enemy’s home ground, the emphasis was to keep soldiers together so they could not be individually captured. The soldiers had to make the Indians stop fighting, while their opponents just had to survive and escape. As in Iraq, it sometimes must have felt like the army’s leadership was divided between officers who wanted to solve the Indian problem kinetically (“kill our way out of it”) and those who hoped that keeping the two sides apart (settlers and Indians) would solve the problem. In 1867, the twelve troops (60–80 men each, supposed to be 100) of the 8th cavalry were spread throughout eight posts in five states. In 1882, twelve under-strength regiments (at best 600 men each) garrisoned 55 posts throughout the West, meaning that there were rarely enough soldiers in one place to conduct major operations. When the soldiers massed, so did the Indians; General Crook’s force moving to meet Custer in 1876 was met by an equally large force of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors, and, out of ammunition, limped back to their base claiming a victory. The eastern press demanded either the honoring of treaties the government had treacherously violated, or extermination of the Indians, depending which paper you read. With every new precious metal strike, the public hounded their elected legislators to move the Indians aside. Whole Indian populations were exterminated not by soldiers, but by white settlers (to be fair, they also massacred Mexicans and Chinese, too). The Bureau of Indian Affairs, responsible for supplying the reservations with the food and goods stipulated by treaty, was so corrupt that virtually the whole staff was fired and the reservations were turned over to Quakers to run honestly (where’s the movie about them?). Everything was complicated, and everyone had an agenda. The cavalry was a small piece of the puzzle, but one upon which an out sized portion of the responsibility has been placed.The many separate Indian Wars were constantly flaring up and dying down. The government would sign a peace treaty with the Lakota, only to find that the Lakota weren’t willing to stop attacking their Crow neighbors, or the Chiricahuas would come to the bargaining table only to insist that they be allowed to continue their slave raids into Mexico. Every time it seemed like one war was over, another would start. Fighting Navajos in New Mexico was completely different from Blackfeet in Montana, or Comanches in Texas, so the learning curve was always steep, and there was no professional training to prepare officers for command in these new challenges. It seemed like the final peace was about to be achieved, then it Geronimo would jump the reservation again. Just as the American armies in Vietnam and Iraq resisted the adoption of counterinsurgency as a raison d’etre, many officers of the frontier period thought of Indian-fighting duty as a distraction from, rather than the main business of, their careers (the promotion rates of general officers during the Iraq War would seem to validate this ideology, with ticket-punchers advancing while battle-proven innovators were passed over for promotion). Much of their duties revolved around diplomacy, and the meetings and peace conferences between officers and Indians are beyond counting. As in many wars, victories won on the battlefield were given away on the negotiating table, to the detriment of the natives. When every treaty is later abrogated by the government that promised to respect Indian lands “in perpetuity,” even the most honorable officers were not trusted by their opponents. They were told to do a job, and the best among them resented the betrayal of the opponents with whom they had negotiated. The (distant) second-most tragic figure of the era, right behind the Indian, was the honorable soldier.Results were demanded, but innovation was stifled. Many commanders distrusted Indian scouts, often not without reason; the men scouting for the army had their own list of grudges predating the soldiers’ arrival, and at least once used the soldiers to attack the wrong enemy, either to protect the renegades they were looking for or to destroy a traditional enemy which had taken no part in the current hostilities. Good officers were hampered by lack of good enlisted men. Companies authorized often had around fifty or sixty, many far fewer. One mayor demanded that a captain protect the town with his company, and he responded, “But I have only twelve men!” the rest having been detached by higher headquarters for various non-combat duties. Lieutenant Colonel George Custer, about whom so many books and screenplays have been penned, was a publicity hound who courted the press and sought his own aggrandizement at the expense of both truth and mission. Both he and his wife Libby wrote books about their army time, Abby’s book “My Life on the Plains” being routinely referred to by other officers as “My Lie on the Plains.” Custer’s obsession with publicity made him the darling of the eastern press and public, right up until his arrogance got him and 264 of his men killed. But you’ve heard of him, and you probably haven’t heard of George Crook. Major General Crook was innovative, indefatigable, and many things we would call “politically correct” nowadays; he refused to exterminate the families of his Apache foes (as demanded by the civilian population and local government), he desperately tried to get better conditions on the reservations, and he gave the Chiricahuas many chances to settle in peace, meeting alternatively with success and failure as Geronimo repeatedly surrendered, then fled again (he surrendered four different times). His career damaged, he left the southwest, and his brutal successor, General Nelson A. Miles, starved and hounded the Apaches into submission, then bundled all of them of to a pestilential prison in Florida, including those who had served as scouts for the army. After release from prison, they were drafted into the army to serve as scouts (while still prisoners of war).That is what happened, but not why the question was asked. The US cavalry is an American icon not because of things that happened, but because of things that didn’t. The media, certainly the press but more so the entertainment industry, created a myth around the cavalry just as it had around the cowboy. The last half of the 19th century saw the publication of thousands of pulp “dime novels” purporting to tell about life on the frontier. Names like Custer, Kit Carson, Doc Holiday, and Billy the Kid became household names in the East. Every school boy knew about the quick-draw gunfight in the street (not a single instance in the record), the noble gunfighter defending the honor of widows and orphans (presumably when they weren’t drunk or robbing someone), and the many versions of the OK Corral (Wyatt Earp became an early Hollywood technical adviser, and got the last laugh on all of us). Many stories featured a last-minute rescue by a troop of cavalry, always gallant, never late. With them was usually a crusty but good-hearted white scout and his faithful Indian sidekick. It became a trope that continued into the silent movie age, then the talkies, then television. The TV show “MacKenzie’s Raiders” stretched out a single operation lasting less than 24 hours into thirty-nine episodes, with nightly raids across the border into Old mexico (and it made MacKenzie look like a well-rounded all-American hero instead of a temperamental PTSD sufferer who died in a mental asylum). In 1959 there were 29 TV prime-time westerns, and every one of them was guaranteed to have an occasional appearance by troops on horseback. Westerns were everywhere; Gene Roddenberry tried to sell a script idea called “Wagon Train to the Stars,” but it was changed to “Star Trek.” Even the East Germans made some westerns, showing the Indians as oppressed workers. Westerns are still being made, some of them taking place in outer space (If you’re thinking “Firefly,” yes, but I was referring to “Outland” 1981 with Sean Connery as a marshal on a mining colony on a moon of Jupiter. Westerns have shaped how Americans feel about themselves. President George W. Bush said that his favorite movie was “High Noon,” a simplistic tale in which a town is full of settlers afraid to help the marshal, who has to fight outlaws alone (80% of these settlers should have been Civil War veterans, and when Cole Younger and Jesse James’ gang tried to rob the bank in Northfield, MN, the townsfolk passed out guns and shot the crap out of them). We remember the myth, not the facts, and it molds and sometimes perverts how we define ourselves.If there’s an incident that proves the power of the western myth, it’s this one. In 1849 veteran scout Kit Carson, the hero of hundreds of dime novels written by eastern writers who had never been west of Pittsburgh, and a troop of the 1st Cavalry were hot on the trail of Jicarillo Apaches who had massacred a small party of whites and abducted Ann White, her infant child, and a black servant. After 12 days of tracking, the party found the Indians, who promptly killed Mrs. White and took off on horseback, losing only one of their number. On Mrs. White’s body was a copy of the popular dime novel “Kit Carson: Prince of the Gold Hunters.” It was a story about Carson saving a beautiful woman from death at the hands of a band of Indians. If we’re disappointed in the history of the US cavalry, it’s because we’ve bought into the myth and disregarded the truth. Life is never as clean and simple as a movie.Cavalry regiments also marched in the bloodless military expedition against the Mormons in Utah (demanded by media-fueled public outrage to put a stop to the scourge of polygamy), and this episode is the illustrative example of the frontier troops’ reality. They were soldiers, and they went where the duly elected government told them to, even if they knew there were more important and less onerous jobs that needed doing. The American whites were in the process of taking over a vast area sparsely occupied by people (Indian and Mexican) determined but ill-equipped to defend themselves, and the army got the thankless job of being the taxpayers’ bully. They took their orders from fossilized generals, self-serving politicians, and the American people. As the trial counsel (court martial prosecutor) put it in the book “Flight of the Intruder,” “…(t)he military has obeyed the civilians who are the elected government. Now, they may not have always been right, or wise, or even smart. But they were elected.” The soldiers were told to march, and march they did, on the Trail of Tears and the trail to Little Bighorn and San Juan Hill and the Ia Drang Valley and the deserts of the Middle East. They are marching still, and the myth marches with them.* Deus ex machina was brilliantly parodied in the movie “Dodgeball;” when the anti-hero wins a ton of money through a backhanded bet, the casino worker rolls the cash out on a cart labelled “deus ex machina.”** The reprehensible habit of blindly copying other people’s military fashons has not ceased, as evidenced by the unpopular 2001 decision to make all soldiers wear berets.