Reflections on D-Day

You may ask why, of all places, I chose to go to France for my precious two weeks of leave from Iraq. Certainly, I could have gone home. I could have gone to a lot of places. Of course, I'd been to France before a few years back, but only saw a little bit of Strasbourg and only spent one rainy day in Paris. In a sense, you might think, I was only making up for that.

But the truth is much deeper than that. I live in perpetual awe of the deeds of America's greatest generation - the children of the depression who grew up to be the men and women of an army of freedom. A generation who grew up with nothing, but who gave everything. A generation that fought to restore freedom in a troubled, dark time. Not just for their own sake. Certainly, many generations in human history have fought for the understandably selfish goal of freedom for their own country. Never to this extent, however, have so many fought so bravely for the freedom of complete strangers.

These men, then, are my heroes. They are to me what Achilles and Hector, Diomedes and Odysseus were to the Greeks of Plato's age. They are our knights, but more than that, they are real and human heroes. Not unimpeachable, unreachable myths of greatness, but ordinary men who just did their job. The same old, genial men we pass silently in the grocery store, at the barber's shop or on the highway. Men who did the impossible, but who are impossibly humble. Nothing we do today can compete, though their example can nonetheless make us all better.

France then, was the fulcrum of that time, the crucial moment when these men boldly stepped into harm's way and began the drive to liberate a continent from tyranny. No, it was not Paris that I came to see, though I certainly did that. What brought me to France above all was the place where this great drama truly began. A small strip of coastline on the Western reaches of Europe: Normandy.

In late March, therefore, I visited the battlefield - a series of battlefields, really, stretching over hundreds of square miles - to get a sense of what it was like, and to pay my tribute.

The D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944 began with the dropping of paratroopers behind the German lines. These daring men would isolate the beaches, blocking German reinforcements during the crucial hours of the landing. They were dropped in the dark hours of night in a chaos of confusion that resulted in them being spread across the French countryside. No one arrived where they were supposed to. Many were shot as they came down. Some landed in the ocean or in rivers, and drowned. One of them even landed on the steeple of the old Norman church in Ste. Mere Eglise (See photo below).




But one by one, the paratroopers formed into groups, then companies, and moved towards their objectives. Delayed, but not daunted, by mid-morning of the next day they had seized the key points they were tasked to take and doggedly held their ground as the landings unfolded behind them.

A dozen miles away, the dawn broke to a sight unseen before or since in World History: an invasion fleet of nearly 6,000 ships of all sizes, from the largest battleships to cruisers, to destroyers, transports and small landing craft carrying a dozen men. The German gunners on the beaches, who had survived a powerful - but ineffective raid by hundreds of bombers, prepared themselves. This, their general, Erwin Rommel had told them, would be the Longest Day.



In a chain of bunkers, concrete forts and batteries, they waited. As the first of the landing craft approached the shores, the great batteries, such as the one above, opened fire - and would continue to do so until they were silenced by Naval gunfire, tanks, or infantrymen. As the landing craft drew nearer to the shoreline, German small guns and machine guns - placed in pillboxes at angles to the beach and thus protected from naval shelling - prepared to meet the onslaught with as much death as their operators could deal out.

One of the most dangerous batteries, Allied experts believed, was a series of positions that sat between two of the key beaches. The Pointe du Hoc was a position that could fire on all of the beaches and on the ships in the harbor as well. But despite weeks of bombardment, none of its massive concrete bunkers had even been cracked. Only an assault by determined men could get in and do the job, in brutal, close combat.

But Pointe du Hoc was not an easy target. Perched above a cliff, it could only be reached by land from the rear or by sea by an impossible climb up the 200-foot cliffs under fire. The man who volunteered to lead this impossible mission was the commander of a Ranger battalion, James Earl Rudder, a graduate of Texas A&M University (who would one day return to be the school's president). Defying all predictions, he led his men up the cliff, and in hard combat that sometimes involved troops exchanging grenades with enemy positions only feet away, won the hill. When it was discovered that the dreaded guns were not in fact there, Rudder's men, undaunted, pushed inland despite their small numbers and found the guns, concealed in a secondary position. They quickly destroyed them, thus neutralizing this threat to the beachhead. (Photo: myself at Pointe du Hoc. The craters behind me are the results of the allied aerial bombardment 64 years ago).

Back down at the beaches, the small, flat-bottomed landing craft pushed for the shoreline. There they faced a landscape of ingenious traps set by their German foe to destroy them. Huge logs which were placed below the waterline and topped with mines. Asterisk-shaped steal beams that could tear the bottom out of a boat and send its crew to their deaths. Concrete pyramids topped with mines and large iron gates that could scuttle the craft or trap boats on shore, preventing them from returning for a second trip (see below.

To avoid these dangers, the allies chose to land at low tide - not the high tide that had always been made in invasions past. But there was a cost to this decision, for low tide would dramatically increase the distance that the troops would have to advance, under fire, before the final assault on the German lines on the ridges overlooking the beaches.

(Photo: Omaha Beach - the most bloody spot on D-Day, where thousands of Americans died in the first waves. The houses had been leveled by the Germans and the ridges bristled with barbed wire, machine gun nests and mine fields.)

The landing craft hit the beach and disgorged their cargo of men. Many were struck down in the first moments. Many more were trapped in boats rent asunder with shell fire. The first two waves were ineffective, with barely a handful of soldiers making it across the vast beach, where they crouched in impotence behind a small rock-strewn pile known as a shingle, which provided minimal protection.

This is Omaha Beach close to low tide - how it looked the day allied forces landed. The storm barrier on the left is roughly the spot where the shingle was. American soldiers who made it through the wall of steel across this beach were pinned down in wave after wave there. But soon the tide would turn. Smaller ships out to sea - destroyers - closed the gap and engaged the batteries. Soldiers began peppering the machine gun nests with fire. Soon, the number of troops on the beach began to grow, until like the paratroopers inland, they formed squads and companies and began to assault the German positions.

One by one, the German positions fell silent. But not all. Huge concrete walls blocked all the beach obstacles, and engineers moved forward to blow them up. Late in the morning, troops began climbing the ridgeline.

By the end of the first day, a small toe hold had been made on the soil of France. Soon, from bloody Omaha, and from Utah Beach, Gold, Sword and Juno, the Allies - Americans, British, Canadians, Free French and others - began moving into the countryside. As they moved forward, more men and equipment flowed to the beaches. The paratroopers and the soldiers from the first waves doggedly blocked German counter-attacks as the buildup of forces grew in the next few days.

Before he had launched the most ambitious military attack of all time, General Dwight D. Eisenhower had written a letter. In it, he stated that he regretted that the invasion had failed, and that he had been forced to pull the troops back. The fault for the failure, he said, was entirely his. Late on the afternoon of June 6, Eisenhower finally breathed a sigh of relief. The message would never be sent. D-Day was a success.

The story did not stop there. Over the next few months, the Western Allies pushed through France and liberated Paris, then moved on to Germany. On the eastern front, the Soviet Union launched a major offensive and began the march to Berlin. In the next year, tens of thousands of villages, hundreds of cities and dozens of countries would be liberated. The war would gain new meaning for its soldiers as they began to liberate the heinous Nazi concentration camps.

But it had come at a price. For America, it was a steep downpayment indeed. Within the first two days of landing on the soil of France, more American soldiers were killed than have been killed in five years in Iraq. And the population of America in 1944 was nearly half of what it is today.


These soldiers, and many others who fought for our country lie, in dozens of military cemeteries across the world, as well as in the hometowns where they grew up, went fishing, played baseball and met their sweathearts. But the most moving, and most hallowed of resting places is where they lie together. On a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach is a cemetery. Row after row of white crosses - and the occasional Star of David - stand side by side, as if the dead are enjoying one last formation together.

If you've seen the movie "Saving Private Ryan" you know the place I'm talking about. Moving as these pictures may be, there is nothing quite like the feeling of being there. Seeing the names. Reading the dates of birth, and the all-too repetitive dates of death. Doing the math. 18 years old. 22. 45. From Pennsylvania, Georgia, California. And every one of the crosses is perfectly aligned, facing westward.

Westward to home.

Having finally visited these vast outdoor shrines to heroism, I felt good. Over the course of three days, I had trudged up the hillsides, climbed up the hedgerows and slowly, breathlessly took in the beaches, so peaceful today. I didn't want to live in the past, but just reflect and appreciate what the men of the past have done to build the world that we all enjoy. What these men - our grandfathers and our neighbors - did to keep us free and to free millions of the oppressed.

As I stood on Utah beach in the bitter chill, wearing my "Camp Victory South - Iraq" baseball cap and watching the waves crash in, all these thoughts came to my mind. As I started back, I noticed footprints in the sand. My own. Although I had brought civilian clothes on my trip, I had no proper hiking shoes except my combat boots.

It was these, then, which had left a print. The same boots which had carried me in my journey from the training fields of Wisconsin to the deserts of Kuwait to the rocky sand - and marble palaces - of Iraq. The irony made me smile, and I snapped a picture.

The boots that had trod across this very beach 64 years ago are boots that I don't feel I could ever fill myself. But something, some warm feeling of kinship passed through my mind at that moment. For myself, and all those who serve with me today, are part of a long, unbroken tradition of service. A tradition that was already ancient on that cloudy, heartbreaking day in 1944, and which continues on in Iraq and Afghanistan, and anywhere in the world where Americans stand guard. It is an honor beyond description to count myself a part of that tradition. For myself, and my generation, we can only hope that what we do in our lives uphods it as well as those men who crossed this very beach so many years ago.

That is the debt we owe, and the challenge we embrace.

Relics of War - The Artificial Ports of World War II

The key to victory at D-Day in 1944 was to get troops ashore, consolidate the beaches and begin the push to Paris before the Germans could mount a successful counter-attack. To move the vast amount of troops and supplies, you need a deep water port. Unloading at sea to smaller vessels that can drop off supplies at a beach is simply not possible.

The Germans knew this, and it was at the heart of their defensive plan. They had to defend thousands of miles of coastland from Norway to Spain, but in reality, there were only a few places that the allies can land. A deep water port with suitable landing beaches nearby. Because for the allies to be successful, they had to get ashore and seize a port to open the way for follow-on troops. Without a port, the initial troops could easily be overwhelmed by German reinforcements.

That's one reason why the Germans dismissed Normandy as a landing point. The first reason was that it was much more difficult than Calais - the closest French port to England. But a second compelling reason against a landing in Normandy was the availability of ports. The closest port was Cherbourg, a good distance away to the Northwest. The Germans felt certain that in the event of an allied landing at Normandy, they could isolate the beaches before Cherbourg fell, and if it did, they could dynamite the port facilities (which they eventually did).

Certainly, the idea of constructing an artificial port occurred to them. But Normandy is almost not even in the English Channel. It's practically the Atlantic Ocean, which means big, thunderous waves and storms which would easily wreck a flimsy temporary port.

The Allied Solution was Mulberry - not just an artificial port, but an artificial bay. So, working in secret in England, they constructed massive floating concrete blocks (yes, concrete that can float!). These were hollowed out and affixed with rudders, so they could be steered like ships. Two-hundred feet long, they were built to match the precise depth of the water, so that when sunk, they would rest on the bottom, jutting out of the water just enough to accomplish their mission. Once completed in England, they were quietly sunk in the estuary of the River Thames, where they would be invisible to German aircraft flying overhead, and easily re-floated by pumping them full of water.

Shortly after the D-Day landings, Mulberry went into operation. There were two ports planned. The concrete blocks were re-floated, and along with the steel components for the artificial port itself, they were slowly, carefully towed across the English channel.

One port was planned at the French coastal town of Arromanches, situated on a narrow flatland between two large hills. Located between the American Omaha Beach and the British Gold Beach, it was secured a few days after D-Day. Below is a picture of Arromanches today, which I took on my visit in late March:

As you can see, many of the massive concrete pilings are still there. Linked together in a continuous chain, and supplemented by the deliberate sinking of old freighters, they formed the breakwater which turned this turbulent beach into a relatively calm and easily navigable bay. As you can see, the line of concrete blocks stretched out from the coast on either side of the town, going more than a mile out to sea, forming a protective bubble. In the next photo, you can see some of the blocks further out from the coast.

Within this bubble, the remarkable port was built. Named Port Winston after the British Prime Minister, it consisted of additional concrete blocks linked with massive steel piers sunk well off of the coast, in deep water that even the largest freighters could navigate. These piers were then linked to land by two long bridges consisting of steel sections of road (see below) that would sit atop large, anchored floats that would litterally allow the bridge to bend, but not break, with the gentle (thanks to the breakwaters) sea.

Looking at this bridge section, you can easily imagine how the floats would have been attached where the concrete piers are today.

When it was completed, the two spans of roadway allowed for continuous flow of traffic - one direction with cargo-laden trucks heading to the beaches and another for the empty trucks to return and pick up a new load of supplies.

It was all organized with typical American assembly-line efficiency, and the ultimate effect was a flood of supplies that secured our invasion beachhead and allowed for the quick breakout which devastated the German Army. Along with a massive underwater pipeline that pumped fuel for our trucks, tanks and airplanes directly underneath the English Channel, these logistical innovations made possible the fastest-moving military offensive in world history. And time was crucial. Hitler, realizing France was lost, gave orders to his commanders to blow up the entire city of Paris. But the advancing Allied armies were too fast, and their quick advance to the city (and the traitorous action of a German officer who delayed the laying of explosives until it was too late) saved the French capitol from destruction.

Ultimately, a massive storm smashed one of the two Mulberry ports, but by then, the issue was virtually decided. They gave the Allies a crucial window in which to build up supplies. Before long, the harbor of Cherbourg was cleared and additional harbors were seized. The Mulberry ports had done their job, and faded into history.

Their remains to this day are a testament to the genius and determination of allied engineers, and the ultimate truth that strategy wins battles, but logistics wins wars. They were possible because the free world, when united and determined, can come up with innovative, out-of-the-box solutions that can match and beat the best that fascism and tyranny can come up with. They were an important part of the greatest effort of the greatest generation: the crucial battle that won the war and liberated millions, and to this day remains the greatest moment in American history. I'll speak more about that moment, that crucial day, next time.

Relics of War - Marston Mats

World War II was a war of inventions, more so than any other in history. Some changed the world, like the jet engine, the helicopter, the portable telephone, canned beer and the atomic bomb. Some were more obscure and though they revolutionized our world, most people have never heard about them.

In war, roads and airfields are at a premium. You can't always expect them to be where you need them to be, and often have to make your own. In the Civil War, soldiers cut down trees and layed down the logs to make "corduroy roads." In World War I, trenches and mud dominated the landscape, and the technology was little improved. When the limited breakthroughs in enemy lines happened late in the war, only tracked vehicles like tanks could easily move through the quagmire. For an army to be mobile - and exploit such breakthroughs, a better solution had to be found.

Shortly before WWII, American Engineers were looking for a way to quickly build roads, airfields and dozens of other projects with mass-produced materials that could be quickly brought to the front and assembled. In short, they were looking for the "legos" of infrastructure.

The solution they came to was Marston Mats - sheets of interlocking pierced steel planking that could be pieced together quickly. They could provide all-weather traction over mud in the South Pacific, Tundra in the Aleutian Islands, volcanic ash on Iwo Jima and Sand on Normandy. And once a flat base had been bulldozed by Army Engineers or Seabees, they could be laid down as the foundation of a temporary airfield.

To give you an idea how it worked, here is a photo from a museum in Normandy. The planks aren't all inter-linked, but the museum did that to show how they worked.


One of the most ingenious features of the matting is that after the U.S. military moved on to the next road, the next airbase or whatever, the planks could be disassembled and recycled. Many times they were, but as the war went on, we seized rail lines and airfields and other traditional infrastructure, and the matting faded in importance.

After the war, of course, there were millions of tons of marston matting lying all over Europe and the Pacific. Most of it was abandoned. The U.S. Military only needed so much. Some of it remained part of the infrastructure. If you fly to the South Pacific today to scuba dive, it's likely that the airfield you land at is the old U.S. airfield, perhaps with a layer of asphalt thrown over the still-existing marston matting.

The matting, of course, has an infinite variety of uses, and what the U.S. military left behind, the locals still used. Here, for example, is some matting that I saw in a park in Nancy, France. It was piled up next to the public restroom and had evidently been pulled up recently - and was probably being recycled for a new use.

As you notice, the stuff has hardly corroded at all, even after over 60 years in the dirt. That's because of the unique mixture of steel and maganese.

This was likely used for a base for the walkways in the park, perhaps with gravel thrown over it.

Marsten matting is visible all over France, and I also discovered this wonderful example in Bayeux. The first city in France that was liberated, Bayeux was captured virtually intact, with no bombing or major damage - avoiding the fate of so many cities in Normandy and France. Bayeux is located just inland and virtually in the middle of the five invasion beaches that the allies used on Normandy. So it was one of the first cities to see the massive influx of personnel, weapons and supplies that followed after the invasion.

It was also inundated with Marston Matting. Naturally, the Americans didn't recover it all, and much was left behind. Here is what one enterprising Frenchman did with some he found. Not sure if this is to create a cool screened porch along the waterfront or a security fence. Either way, it's a fascinating relic - a footprint in time - of the U.S. military presence in Europe in WWII.

Next time, I'll introduce you to some relics of war that are even more impressive. What happens when you have to pour millions of men, weapons and equipment into a foreign shore in a very short time and the enemy controls or destroys all the available ports?

Easy. You bring your own port with you. More next time.

Back in Baghdad

Just got back from leave. Had more fun and adventures than I can possibly describe, though I will post at length shortly on my trip to the D-Day landing beaches.

Flew in on a C-17, which is like a luxury liner compared to the C-130. Of course, you're still squeezed in like sardines in seats designed for normal-sized people, not people wearing body armor. And ultimately, you're still cargo.

But hey, I'm here.

More later.

Republic of Texas Embassy, Paris, France

As you well know, I'm a big Texas history buff. So, with ample time here in Paris, I chose to visit one of the most obscure tourist sites imaginable: The site of the former legation of the Republic of Texas in Paris.

Yes folks, that's right. Texas used to have an Embassy in France. And France used to have one in Texas too.

I'm not sure who was more a fish out of water, the French ambassador in Austin, or the Texian ambassador in Paris.

The French Ambassador found himself living in a ramshackle town with mud for streets named Austin. The town had originally been named "Waterloo" - after the battle in which Napoleon Bonaparte met his Waterloo (an amazing coincidence - like Lou Gherig contracting Lou Gherig's disease).

Of course, the French Ambassador was the frequent dinner guest of Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar, who just happened to be named after two great Frenchmen of the revolutionary generation, so if he felt slighted by the former name of the town, he probably got over it. What he didn't get over, as the historians tell us, is coming out of his front door one day and having an arrow from a Comanche raiding party sail past his head and stick in the wall nearby.

The Texian ambassador's exploits are less well recorded, but they certainly must have been interesting. He was quartered here at this spot at the Place Vendome (whether this exact building was here at the time or not I was not able to tell, but the address matches).

Place Vendome is much more commonly known as the site of a square featuring this monument, which was built to honor Napoleon Bonaparte's exploits. The Texian ambassador, representing a country whose capitol was in a log cabin, probably couldn't enjoy the finest dinners in Paris, but at least he could see this out his window every day:


Unfortunately, this is a replica. In 1871, after the Prussian Army captured Paris, a communistic uprising in the city attacked monuments they associated with the militarism that they claimed had failed France and led to its prostration (though it could be argued that it was an insufficient militarism by that point). Anyway, the protesters tore down this monument, and it was a few years later when it was replaced using the original patterns.

For those interested in Texas' diplomatic exploits as an international diplomatic powerhouse, we also maintained embassies in Washington, D.C. and in London. Not sure of the location of the D.C. embassy (I'll research before I go there the next time), but the embassy in London is very well-known. The building that houses it later became the headquarters of the White Star Line, a transatlantic passenger liner service. You may have heard of it. The company went under a few years after its flagship, the Titanic, went under itself.

The Texian Embassy in London has actually been converted into a Texas-themed restaurant. Here's their webpage.

BIAP, Paris, Chuck Norris and Davy Crockett

I'm off to Paris on 16 days of leave! This evening marks the first time I have not gone to work in 161 straight days, and it was an odd feeling.

Right now, I'm typing away from an Internet Cafe at BIAP, the Baghdad International Airport. It's been a long night of sleeping on dusty concrete slabs in the open air, trudging across the gravel-paved walkways to the port-a-johns and taking showers with wet-wipes.

I have plenty of experience with BIAP by now, having already gone through here three times before this. We're on the old Iraqi military side of the airport, and facilities are downright primitive - though they are dramatically improved from the way they were the last time I was here five months ago. The U.S. military is constantly improving and upgrading our bases and facilities here - part of the vast dough that you, the taxpayer, are coughing up.

I got off work yesterday morning, since it was my half day, and promptly got some sleep to transition to a normal sleep cycle. After spending the day running errands to prepare for my two weeks of freedom, I went to a 1930 debriefing for folks going on leave. Then I went to the armory and turned my weapon in.

The folks in my unit lined up a truck and I was chauffered to the airport and dumped. This place, as I said, is bad, but it's improved a heck of a lot. They actually have a terminal building over here, instead of just a tent. There's a full civilian terminal across the airport, but our facilities are much more limited. The remnants of the old Iraqi air force infrastructure are all around - concrete hardstands for their Mig fighter jets, with big holes in the top where U.S. missiles punctured them like they were made of pudding. Can't describe much of what we have built up for our avation assets for security reasons, but suffice it to say it's bare minimum. It reminds me in a way - though it's not quite this bad - of the island airfields we built in WWII where the most modern planes would land and taxi up and the pilots would get out and go get debriefed in improvised tents.

I reported for my flight at 2200. We stood in ranks and they took our IDs. Then they told us to come back in 30 minutes, which of course turned into an hour and a half. Then they gave us back our IDs and our bording passes. I looked at mine. It said to report at 0630, with the flight leaving at 0900. There was an option to go to Camp Slayer and get a tent for the night, but by the time I rode the bus there, went to the billeting office for a tent, and got in bed, there would only be about 4 hours of sleep time for me. And it was only then that I realized that I didn't have an alarm clock of any kind.

So I forewent dreams of fluffy beds and pillows and threw my backpack onto a concrete slab under a steel awning out in the open. I had my small camouflaged pillow with me, so I pulled that out. I had my sleeping bag too, but the concrete was literally covered in half an inch of sand, so I decided against pulling it out. I'd never get it clean, and as I backpack through France, the one thing I need most is a clean sleeping bag. So I spread out on the ground, my earplugs in to somewhat dampen the sound of prop blast from the tarmac only 100 feet away, and went to sleep.

Occasionally, I'd get up and go use the facilities, which amounts to a bunch of port-a-johns. They're full of graffiti. Much of it is the same stuff I've been seeing since I was a kid, but a huge part of it these days - both here in Iraq and Kuwait - are "Chuck Norris Facts." Stories about Chuck Norris' prowess and abilities. You've heard them. "Chuck Norris isn't afraid of Death, Death is Afraid of Chuck Norris."

So it was odd this morning that as I checked my email here, my friend Mike sent me the following link about this very trend. The article is spot on. There is literally a Chuck Norris cult over here. Read it:

http://in.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idINL0854496320080310

I've thought about this stuff a lot, and it occurred to me a few months ago that Chuck Norris is essentially the Modern Day Davy Crockett. Well before he became a martyr at the Alamo - see my Texas History posts - Davy Crockett was a media sensation. Stories of Davy's amazing hunting exploits - most of which were wildly exaggerated - filled the media. Entrepreneurs - some with Davy's blessing, some not - wrote "Davy Crockett Almanacs" to cronicle his exploits.

Here's a good link that talks about this 1800s media sensation:

http://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/mexhibevents/Past%20Exhibits/crockett_almanacks/Bibliography.html

So that's my thought for today. I leave in 30 minutes on my flight, so I've got to go. I'll try to post some about my leave, which should be fun. Paris, Normandy, perhaps Verdun. Maybe a bit of Germany. But ultimately, I'm out of Iraq for two weeks, and if all I do is sit in a cafe in Paris reading for that time, it will still be an incredibly liberating experience.

Part IV: Revolution and Epilogue

Back in Washington-on-the-Brazos, the mood was grim. The inspired letters of Travis, forwarded on from Gonzales, had not yet achieved heroic status. This wasn't history yet. It was the present, and everyone gathered in that cold, drafty, half-finished wooden building knew someone inside the Alamo.

The battles of the last few months had pushed these men towards a decision that only a few months ago they had thought impossible. Even as the Alamo was besieged under a flag of reconciliation and hope for reform in Mexico, the delegates knew that was a false hope. They had seen the failure of revolt in other Mexican states. The appearance of Santa Anna's massive army only confirmed their worst fears.

On March 2, 1836, the delegates assembled in a solemn mirror of 1776, put pen to paper and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, formally breaking ties with Mexico. This transformed the revolution and instantly would bring increased support from America, where few were willing to send costly munitions to mere rebels with no interest in separating from Mexico.

But there was still scant hope of success. Before most of those arms would arrive, Santa Anna's force would have pushed through the colonies and conquered, or been beaten. They would have to hold off the "Napoleon of the West" with a rag-tag army of farmers and hunters. Their rifles, to be sure, were the best in the world. But all of their big cannons were at the Alamo, and the little Gonzales cannon which had started it all, had been unceremoniously tossed into a river when its cart broke down.

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence, like those at the Alamo, were from all over. Yet in a strange irony, those at the Alamo were more likely to be new arrivals, while those in Gonzales and Washington represented the settlers had longer and stronger ties. Among them were those who had arrived years ago, as well as two of the state's most prominent Tejanos: Juan Antonio Navarro and Lorenzo de Zavala.

Zavala (see Part II), had now passed through a series of historical moments and offices almost unique in History: Member of the Spanish Cortez, or parliament; Mexican Revolutionary; Co-author of the Mexican Constitution of 1824; Texian Revolutionary; Signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Within the year, Zavala would top it off by being elected as the first Vice President of the Republic of Texas.

Much like Zavala, Sam Houston had lived through nine lives of politics. As he signed the declaration on his own birthday, little did he know that he would top of his career as Governor of Tennessee, frontier fighter and Commanding General of the Texas Army with two terms as President of the Republic of Texas, several as a United States Senator, and one term as Governor of the State of Texas.

Houston, of course, was a man of many talents. Though he had his detractors who cursed his caution as cowardice, he understood better than all of them just what the consequences of signing that document were. He knew that the early, easy victories over conscript, dispirited and ill-equipped Mexican garrison troops would not be the same thing as fighting a hardened professional force led by the man who had won victory after victory against the fabled Spanish Army. Houston's discerning logic was matched by his intuition and frontier wisdom.

It is hard today to realize what life was like back then. There were no instant communications as we know them. Yet there were some things that they could do in that age which would be impossible today. On March 6, four days after the signing, and fully a week before news would arrive about the fate of the fortress, Sam Houston, the old Creek Indian fighter and adopted Cherokee, jumped down from his horse and put his ear to the ground.

"The Alamo has fallen," he said. Those with him asked how he could tell. He stood up and dusted himself off. "The cannons have stopped firing," he said, and climbed back onto his horse. The spot he had been standing at was 200 miles distant from the battle.

Runaway scrape

When news of the defeat arrived, panic ensued. Coming like a double blow from a hammer, word also arrived of the massacre of Fannin's forces at Goliad. Fannin had finally started out from Goliad to relieve the Alamo, but shortly after doing so, he got word the fortress had fallen, and turned back. His forces were then caught in the open and trapped by a second powerful army commanded by the best field commander either side had: General Jose Urrea.

Trapped in an open field, Fannin formed a Napoleonic square and his troops fought off attack after attack by the Mexicans in what would become known as the Battle of Colleto. Finally, low on water, Fannin surrendered. General Urrea gave him honorable terms, but Santa Anna, hearing of the battle, contradicted his subordinate and sent orders - in triplicate - demanding that the Goliad soldiers be executed. Urrea, with heavy heart, obeyed the orders of his general and president. On Palm Sunday, the Texians were marched out into a field - they thought to a new prison camp. The Mexicans halted them, turned, and opened fire. 350 men were massacred in cold blood.

With word of the double catastrophes, the settlers of Texas frantically loaded up their belongings onto carts and headed East. Houston, abandoning Gonzales, followed with them, pausing to train where he could, but moving his army inexorably on.

He was roundly criticized for not standing and fighting, but he had few options. As Santa Anna pushed forward through small towns like Bastrop in Central Texas close on Houston's heels, Urrea moved up the coast. If Houston stood and faced Santa Anna, Urrea could slip behind him and cut off the colonists or capture the government, now meeting in the tiny town of Velasco on the Texas Coast (Today's Surfside Beach). Further complicating matters, Santa Anna split off a wing of his Army and sent it North, threatening Houston with a pincer move. Even if he chose to attack that wing, the best he could get would be equal odds.

There was risk too in retreating, for at some point, Santa Anna's army would meet up with Urrea's and their combined force of several thousand would easily outclass Houston's pitiful band of fewer than 800. But a final factor weighed in Houston's mind. Every day he traveled North and East, his supply lines shortened. Every day Santa Anna followed, his lengthened. While his soldiers were still relatively fresh, Santa Anna's army had been on the move or in battle for over four months.

When late March rains swelled the rivers and Santa Anna was at last stopped, Houston paused his army at a nearby farm and began to train. He also got a new present: two impressive new cannons donated months ago by the citizens of Cincinnati, Ohio. Christened the "twin sisters," they would become critical in the coming battle.

Finally, Sam Houston reached a crossroads. One road pointed North - and to humiliating retreat out of Texas. Another led East - to battle. His soldiers by now were near mutinous, itching to fight. Without a word, but with a simple point of his finger, Houston gave the direction. The soldiers let out an excited cry, and the army turned East.

On April 18, Santa Anna's exhausted army arrived on a marshy coastal plain known as San Jacinto. They knew Houston was in the area, but they outnumbered him nearly 2-1.

Santa Anna's massive army of 6,000 was now a shell of its former self, however. They had suffered large casualties at the Alamo, anywhere between 800-1,500. Additional troops had been left in San Antonio to guard the town and care for the wounded. Groups of soldiers had split off to sweep through the Texian settlements and burn what they could find. Like his hero Napoleon, Santa Anna's army was slowly, almost imperceptibly bleeding off men. He was now down to barely 1,000 men.

And not only were there numbers to consider, but quality. Some of his best officers had died at the Alamo. Others had grown dispirited and angry at his brutal conduct. Many more were simply exhausted.

Finally, on April 20, 1836, the two armies were encamped on the same plain, both weary from their marathon journeys. A cavalry skirmish ensued. During the fighting, one Texian was unhorsed and surrounded by the Mexicans. Dashing through the enemy position, a Texian horseman plucked the man from the ground, and escaped to the Texian lines. It was an amazing feat which the Mexican horsemen proudly saluted. The Texian who had done it had been a private in the army before it. By the end of the day, he was a colonel. In two years, Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar would be the Second President of Texas.

That night, approximately 600 additional Mexican troops arrived and joined the Army. Rising in the morning, Santa Anna was supremely confident. The Texians showed no interest in attacking. In a few more days, more stragglers of his vast army would arrive and its numbers would grow insurmountable. He could have waited longer for Urrea's army to join him, but by now Santa Anna was growing wary of his dashing underling stealing his glory. The victory had to be his.

Seeing no movement in the Texian lines, Santa Anna took his afternoon siesta. His exhausted soldiers, having finished constructing a berm of brush piles and baggage as a makeshift defense sat down to rest. Had the Mexicans not been so confident, the piles would have been built thicker and higher. But they were a mere formality. None of the Mexicans expected the Texians to attack.

But Sam Houston saw it another way. He had missed an opportunity to attack Santa Anna the day before, when the armies were closer to evenly matched. But it made no difference. The haggard Mexicans who stumbled in the night before didn't impress. In fact, this disheveled bunch of late arrivals were the soldiers of Martin Perfecto de la Cos. They had been defeated at Bexar in December, marched to the Rio Grande border in January, marched back in February, fought at the Alamo, and had marched through hundreds of miles of wilderness through most of March and April. These soldiers were definitely not ready to fight.

Santa Anna's artillery was also way behind, and the Mexican army had only one artillery piece to the Texians' two. Houston also had good ground. If he attacked and failed, he could withdraw. But the Mexicans had camped with their backs to a bayou, hemming them in on three sides. For them, there was only one exit: a single, narrow bridge crossing the river. Houston turned to his best scout, Erastus "Deaf" Smith, who had lived in Texas a decade, and knew every part of the colony. Deaf - who was only hard of hearing, not actually deaf - was asked if he could destroy the bridge. He smiled and said he would.

It was late in the day, nearing sundown, when Houston's army moved forward. Battles in that day and age were often all-day affairs, and attacks were usually launched at dawn. Houston chose the later hour to give his soldiers time to rest and prepare, and to put the Mexicans off their guard. He also was likely hedging his bets. If things went badly, the sun might set in mid battle, giving his troops cover to extricate themselves.

As the Texian army advanced in the center, Lamar led the cavalry in an attack on the right flank of Santa Anna's army - against Cos and his long-suffering troops. With Lamar on horseback - and amongst the infantry with Houston, were Juan Seguin's Tejanos, who had stuck pieces of cardboard into their hats to identify themselves as "good Mexicans" and avoid the friendly fire of their revenge-minded Anglo allies.

For revenge was the foremost thought on the minds of the Texians as the marched, double-timed, and then ran towards the Mexican lines. As they broke over a low rise, they shouted, "Remember the Alamo!" "Remember Goliad."

The Mexicans were caught entirely unprepared. Their weapons had been stacked, and many weren't even loaded - a time-consuming process in those days. Had they merely presented a strong front rank of bayonets, they could have bought time for the reserves behind them to load and prepare. But the front rank, rising from their slumber and seeing fiery-eyed Texians storming down upon them, simply broke and ran. As the other soldiers woke to see their countrymen fleeing through their tents and baggage, they too began to run.

But the Texians were still a long way away, and some Mexicans stood to fight. As the Texians' "Twin Sisters" boomed, launching hot lead at the disorganized army, a handful of Mexicans gathered around their cannon - the "Golden Standard." With them was General Castrillon - the chivalrous humanitarian who had tried so hard to convince Santa Anna to offer surrender at the Alamo and then to delay his attack to reduce the casualties among the Mexican soldiers.

The two sides exchanged volleys, and the superior range of the Texian rifles crushed the thin wall of Mexican defenders. While almost all of the Mexican shots fell short, the Texians hit with a murderous efficiency. Outside of the confined spaces of the Alamo, they had regained their natural advantage that had won them the early victories. As his position was overrun, Castrillon was the only man who did not run, beg or plead. With supreme dignity, he stood with head upraised, jaw outstretched, facing his fate like a gentleman. Although one Texian tried to spare this noble officer, the same murderous fever that had gripped the Mexicans 36 days before at the Alamo had now possessed the Texians. Castrillon was struck down and killed.

The Texians pursued the Mexicans through their camp and the battle soon became a slaughter. With nowhere to retreat, the Mexicans were pushed into the bayou. Many conscripted Indians didn't know how to swim. Others were shot dead on the banks. Months of anger, frustration, need for revenge and fear - just plain fear - drove the Texians to shoot anything that moved.

But unlike the Mexicans at the Alamo, who were under orders to kill every single opponent, the Texians were not, and gradually the leaders and individual soldiers began to bring the situation under control. Pleading Mexicans were disarmed and hauled out of the putrid, muddy water. When it was all said and done, 600 Mexicans were dead, and 750 were captured. The entire battle had only lasted 18 minutes.

The next day, the Texian cavalry was rounding up stragglers and bringing them into a makeshift prison camp. When a frightened man wearing the uniform of a Mexican private was brought within the camp, a soldier recognized him and called out, "El Presidente!"

The Texians, who didn't need to wait for the translation from their Tejano friends, hauled the man before Sam Houston. There, beneath a tree, Houston sat, nursing a wound. During the battle, three horses were shot out from under him. Nonetheless, the Texian Army had suffered amazingly few casualties. For 1,300 Mexicans killed and captured, the Texians had suffered only 9 killed and 26 wounded. Houston, leading from the front, had been one of the latter.

As Santa Anna was brought before the conqueror, Houston looked at his men. Many were prepared to hang the man who had slaughtered their brothers at the Alamo and Goliad. But Houston knew that Urrea's army was still around - strong, battle-hardened, and undefeated. Even if he could beat them, Mexico might never recognize Texas independence. Santa Anna dead was just another dead Mexican. Santa Anna alive was still the President of Mexico and Commander in Chief. Only he could call off Urrea. Only he could sign a treaty. Sparing his life, Houston showed the compassion that Santa Anna could not. Dejectedly, Santa Anna would sign the Treaty of Velasco and guarantee Texas Independence forever.

A few weeks later, a small group gathered around a pile of ashes in San Antonio. Before them was the funeral pyre of the heroes of the Alamo. Only two were missing: Gregorio Esparza, whose brother, a Mexican soldier, had been given the body for burial, and Juan Segiun. Seguin, who was among the most fiercely patriotic Tejanos, had been amongst the Alamo defenders. As the moment of the final battle drew near, Travis penned his final letter from the fortress. In the dark of night, he knew his courier would be challenged by the Mexican pickets. Only a Spanish-speaker, who knew the land like the back of his hand, could possibly make it through. Seguin was chosen, and bidding a heart-felt goodbye to his friends, rode out of the walls of the Alamo.

And now, here he was again. Presiding over the gathering of mourners, Seguin spoke a eulogy in both English and Spanish. Finishing his touching speech, Juan Seguin bade his friends farewell for a second time. As the sarcophagus was taken to the San Fernando church - where it remains to this day - the final remains of the mortal men of the Alamo were laid to rest. As men, their days were gone forever. As heroes, of course, they would live on, and never be forgotten.



God bless Texas!