History Trip

This tunnel of trees is the scenic entry road to the town of Eufaula, Alabama. Both sides of the street are lined with historic Antebellum, (meaning "before war" in Latin), homes. They represent the grand old South before the civil war and today stand as a reminder of how grand it was. Eufaula has a large share of these treasures and it makes for a beautiful showcase as you drive into town.

Our friends, Gary and Anne Swain, live near the center of this beautiful area and have invited us to be their house guests for a few days. Not only are they great cooks but they are also great tour guides.

We started today with a trip to the new National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center in Columbus, Georgia. This place is impressive. The physical plant is huge and very well equipped to tell the story of our country's infantryman through the many wars where they have been called to action. Inside of the IMAX equipped museum there are displays and artifacts from the various wars and they show the developments in equipment, uniforms and weapons through the years.

I was surprised to find an M29 Davy Crockett on display. This amazingly small weapons system could fire a small atomic bomb, up to two and a half miles and had the power of 10 to 250 tons of TNT depending on how the operator set it up. The vehicle that moved and shot the thing was a Jeep. If they ever punched you in the nose with this nimble little device, you'd bleed. The secret weapon was deployed in Europe but was later withdrawn as it had the distinctly annoying feature of delivering a fatal dose of radiation to its operators on use. A soldier might think twice about pulling the trigger once he knew about that possible downside. The plutonium warhead part only weighed 51 lbs. and at 11 inches in diameter by 15 inches long for a potential 250 tons of TNT bang, this finned watermelon was simply too dangerous to use.

Later we went to the Ft. Mitchell Cemetery and thought about how quickly a place like this could be filled with today's weapons; very scary.

Back when the Russians were our adversaries, we could rely on their desire to live to keep us all safe from the use of these horribly powerful bombs. Today however, our potential enemies may think mutually assured destruction means they win. We get harps and wings, they get 72 virgins. Any rational, uneducated kid, who's been denied the companionship of any female, except his goat, might just think martyrdom offers a better deal than milking goats for the rest of his miserable life; no matter how pretty the goat's eyes are. This worries me much more than the Russians did.

We ended the evening with a great dinner and a trip to the Swain's cabin where we found an unidentified bit of antler. If you recognize this bone please let us know what animal might have owned it. It sure looks like jackalope to me.