July 18, 2019 • 24 mins
When George S. Patton decided to found a tank training school in the tiny French village of Bourg, the mayor approached him in tears. "An American soldier has died here," said the mayor, "and I would like to lead you to his grave." Patton followed the lachrymose politician to the grave site -- but he wasn't prepared for what he would find.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. May
(00:27):
God have mercyful my enemies, because I won't welcome to
Ridiculous History. My name is Ben. That is a quote
by George S. Patton Jr. My name is no. And
that was a very grizzled sounding impression there. I liked
it very much. Is that what he sounded like? I mean,
he's he's living life in the middle of wars man.
That's that's like a war voice. He is known as
(00:48):
one of the most grizzled generals, as portrayed by what
is it George C. Scott got it? Yeah, Casey on
the case That Casey on the case is uh. Nod
to our super producer, Casey Pegram. That was a nice
doubling up of those moments there, Ben. I really like that.
So who was General Patton? Ben? Great question? Uh? In
(01:11):
addition to be in the main character of today's Strange
Ridiculous anecdote, George Smith Pattent Jr. Was a general of
the U. S Army who commanded the seventh Army in
World War Two, the Third Army in France and Germany
after D Day UH the Allied invasion of Normandy in
June of nineteen forty four. He also makes an appearance
(01:34):
in one of my favorite graphic novel series, Uber, which
I highly recommend checking out if you are a World
War Two buff, if you're a sci fi buff, if
you just like good stories. He was born into a
family with a very storied military background, both in the U. S.
(01:54):
Army and in the late Confederate Army. He went to
West Point, he study the fencing. He even designed the
M one cavalry saber more commonly known as the patent
saber today. Fun fact about him he competed in the
nineteen twelve Summer Olympics. I know it's true. He was
a triathlete, or excuse me, a pent athlete swimming, riding, fencing,
(02:18):
running and shooting. Man, that is a real uh pent
tuple threat? Yes, yeah, I mean forget about Broadway, right,
what do they have? Just triple threats? But now it's true.
This was in the nineteen twelve Olympic Games in Stockholm.
What a guy. And on his way up to all
of these accolades, it was later were later to come
for a patent. He was one of the inaugural members
(02:41):
of the first ever United States Tank cores established in
nineteen seventeen, so he thought he would see more action
with these newly invented armored vehicles than what if he
had just stayed with the infantry. And before the year
had passed nineteen seventeen, Patent becomes a colonel and he
sent to France and he's ordered to find a good
(03:03):
location in France to train people in the use of tanks.
He finds a village named Borg b o U r
G and he says, you know what this, this will do.
That'll do pig because it has so much mud that
they can practice driving in. It's true. It turns out
the Borgs primary exports are fish and mud. Oh is
(03:25):
that is that true? Okay? Oh? How how? Why are we?
Why are we mentioning the village? And we we didn't
even check with you, Casey, What can can you illuminate
the Francophone perspective on this village Borg? Well, Borg is
like a generic kind of um word that you see
in lots of city names, like Luxembourg or something. Um.
(03:48):
It's like Pittsburgh that we see here in America. But
it just means, basically, it's like a village that's on
the larger side and features markets and you know, would
be sort of a meeting place or a trading place
for other smaller villages nearby. So that's a boorg. But
this one is just called Org so they didn't bother
(04:09):
specifying anything more, you know, precise, just Burg. So it's
like a town named town. Yeah, kind of casey on
the case. So it seems like a little bit of
an uncreative burg Borg here, but you know that makes
sense where they would be so lousy with fish and mud,
but not a bad place to train Tanksman, what do
(04:31):
you call a tank a tanker? Where where the fish
coming from? I don't know, just my imagination. Okay, well
they're a long water so a little coastal r. What
do you call a tank driver, pilot, a pilot. No,
you don't call them a pilot. You would call them
a driver. The driver drives the tank, but they're not
really in charge. They're just steering their following orders. Yes,
they have a professional backseat driver called the commander, and
(04:54):
they're in charge of the whole tank. Oh that's got
to get a little bit awkward sometimes a professional backseat
dry ever. Well, yeah, they but they're also in charge
of telling the gunner and the load or what to
do and communicated with Okay, so you got they're not
just sitting there. You got a gunner, a loader, a driver,
and a commander. So it's a four person team in
one of these things, yes, or three if there's an
(05:15):
auto loader installed, because the then the loader doesn't need
to be there. They would just be watching the auto loader.
But back to pattent back to the board. Uh, no
relation to the board from Star Trek which dissimilate, which
I loved. You remember when Picard gets taken by the
(05:35):
borg and turns into Locutis gets borged. You could tell
he had some heft behind the scenes at that point
because his face wasn't really covered the way all the
other board where he just got a little dally bop
on his one of his temples, a little laser. He
was like a high ranking board. Yes, yeah he was.
He was. I think they even made a film about it. Man,
(05:57):
I forgot. I wonder if the board aged well. I
used to love the idea when I was a kid.
But that's a story for another day. Today's story still
has us talking with Patton. He's found the perfect place
to create his tank training school, and while he's there,
something very strange happens. The mayor of Borg comes to
(06:20):
Patton and he is weeping. This mayor openly, openly because
he feels terrible. I forgot to tell you, colonel. He
says to Patton that there is an American soldier, one
of your countrymen, who has died in this our small town.
So Patton, like in a frenzy, He's like, oh, man,
have I lost someone? Am I one man down? And
(06:41):
he looks through his ranks and finds that is not
the case. But the mayor says, no, no, there's definitely
been a dead soldier that was left behind here and
there's a soldier's grave. I'm confused about this relationship here.
What is he talking about? Why is he's he's saying
there's a dead soldier that is from your company, a
dead soldier from a previous engagement here, a dead American soldiers,
(07:02):
not necessarily as specific as from your crew that you're
taking to train in tankery. He's alluding to other some
other group of soldiers that passed by, and he feels
like he needs to inform them, but Patent, as you said, no,
he checks through. He says, well, all of my people
are fine, and the mayor insists, no, no, look, will
(07:25):
you at least go visit this guy's grave. We should
also mention that Borg is a really small town, and
like some other small towns in France, Board's population declined
considerably during World War one and two. So this is
this is a very small place. And the mayor takes
pattent to this grave site. To this quote unquote grave site,
(07:47):
there's a mound of dirt. There's a stick post in
the ground at one end, and nailed crosswise on that
stick such that it forms a rustic looking cross like
you see on a grave, is another piece of wood,
and it has what perhaps the mayor thought was the
name of the fallen soldier. It's it's a strange name.
(08:07):
It's not a very common name, I would say, then
or now for a person. The name is abandoned rear
conjured so much imagery. So you've got the mud, and
stacked on top of the mud, you got a pile
of dirt, and shoved into the dirt, you got a stick.
And then on the stick there's a sign that says
abandoned rear um and yeah, and the and the French
(08:29):
mayor had apparently made a little bit of a goof
and and thought this sign was across. Like you said,
I don't know, how do we keep spinning this yarn
bend before we do the big reveal? Or how do
we how do we do this? Let's set the sea
just a little bit good because patents reading this and uh,
you know, he has probably never heard of someone with
that name. And we can only speculate, my friends, we
(08:51):
can only imagine, hopefully optimistically, that the French mayor is
is kind of weeping, you know, by this very straight
a somewhat bellicost officer and then saying like, oh, can
you imagine the life he could have led, the humanity,
the inhumanity of war. He was but a youth, a child,
(09:13):
oh abandoned rear. Yeah. The French are known as being
somewhat emotional individuals, right, and you know they like to
weep openly while eating cheese and drinking tiny cups of coffee.
Watch out, we have a lot of French listeners. I'm
just kidding, French listeners. Goodness, gracious, we don't want to
we don't want to get the La Bush contingent. Look,
Americans only eat cheeseburgers and drink large, big gulp Coca Cola's.
(09:39):
And um what else do we do? We ride seguys
everywhere we go. No, I don't know. I'm just trying
to stereotype everyone. That's gonna be my new thing. I'm
gonna do on the show. That's your new thing. So
what happened? What happened? What could you tell us the
(10:00):
story of abandoned Rearnal? How did this? How did this
grave come to pass? Oh? Well, he certainly made a
grave mistake in identifying this, uh, this spot as a grave, because,
as it turns out, the mayor it made a terrible decision.
Wasn't a grave at all. But it was a latrine,
a potty, a privy, yes, a toilet. Uh, this latrine
(10:25):
was dug in the woods. It's it's a very common
part of camp hygiene to bury your you know, your leavings.
I went to camp hygiene when I was a kid.
It was great. They taught you how to like brush
your teeth and put on deodorant and just stay nice
and fresh. Like is the bit you went to a
place named camp camp hygiene. Okay, is the real thing? Oh,
(10:46):
it's kind of like space Camp, but it's camp hygiene,
good hygiene. Oh Man, space Camp. I know, dude, I
really did go to space Camp. I know you did.
I went to space Camp as well. Casey, which one
did you go to? Phil? Yeah? I went to I
went to Huntsville as well. Matt also went to space Camp.
From our other show, I have not been to space Camp,
(11:06):
only Camp Hygiene. I feel like he didn't miss very much. No,
really that he did. You to do the gyroscope? I
love the gyroscope? Did the gyroscope? You do the moonwalk?
Which is way cooler than the Michael Jackson moon walk.
I was moderately cooler than the Michael Jackson moon walk. Uh,
contrary to what the eighties film would have you believe,
you don't actually accidentally end up in a space shuttle.
(11:27):
But I learned a lot. But did you learn how
to diggle a train? Ben? Yeah? I did that in
Boy Scouts? OK. Well that's what I learned in Camp hygiene,
And that's what they were looking at that they thought
was a grave, but it was in fact. What does
a band in rear mean? Does that mean we've I
don't understand what does a band in rear. That's just
what someone used to describe their their leavings or their latrine.
(11:51):
Here's the thing. People find out about this story in patents,
autobiographical accounts which he drew from his Die Harry entries,
and he says that the French when they had taken
this newly doug latrine for a cross, it wasn't old.
It was a freshly doug latrine. He decided not to
(12:11):
tell them the truth. So he just let it ride,
or let it roll, i should say, as he was
into tanks at the time. And because he didn't tell
the residents of the town the truth about this spot.
But what do you think happened? Did they just keep
up with the grave, because you know, you wouldn't desecrate
a grave, and they had been up to that point,
(12:33):
they had been maintaining it right right, And since he
didn't tell them, we can only we can only assume
that they didn't randomly decide to desecrate this grave. And
now we come into a question of authenticity. Because the
only record of this story is the general's autobiography, and
this was incomplete at the time of his passing in
(12:55):
nineteen we have we have some questions and so we
have some questions and we want to hear what you
all think. If you don't have a knowledge of French
or English names, then maybe you know, like, maybe you
could assume the French mayor thought abandoned rear was a
(13:17):
name that would be common in the US. But the
problem with that is that the word abandoned means the
same thing in both French and English. Isn't that right? Casey, yeah,
casey on the case. So maybe he thought abandoned was
a rank in the army that makes sense, sure, or
like a defector of some kind. I don't know. Interesting, Yeah, yeah,
(13:41):
maybe it's like a coward's death. And yet they still
treated it with such with the with the utmost respect. Um,
didn't it also smell? How much dirt did they put
on it? You know how to diggle a treating? You
went to camp hygiene. There's a science to this and
there are standards. It's right, you gotta dig it at
least five feet down. Uh, And yeah, I don't know, Okay,
I've gotta come clean. Um. Camp hygeene is not a
(14:04):
real thing. And I've never dug a latrine. I've never
I've never even pooped outdoors dude. Sorry that you remember that.
I remember that. I remember. Yeah, you're not a camper.
You don't like to go Campa. Well, I mean, look,
I want to be more of a camper. I want
to be more of an outdoors man. I am trying
to meet somebody in my private life who's really into that,
(14:25):
because I tend to, you know, broaden my horizons when
i'm when I'm kind of like, what does exactly? Yeah, exactly,
That's how I That's how I actually ended up vegetarian
for like a decade. But I went back. Yeah, I
went back. It's actually this is unrelated. But you know,
(14:45):
to ever tell you when I stopped becoming a vegetarian,
well you you had become one at that point. I
assume I I had been one for several years and
then I started eating meet again when I was in
Central America because where I was living, you know, people
are being very gracious making you dinner or something, and
it's very I think it's very privileged and pretty inconsiderate
(15:07):
to tell somebody that's worked very hard on something, especially
if they don't have a lot to go around anyway,
to be like, I'm too good for this food. They'd
be lovingly given me. I've got scruples, Okay, scruples when
it comes to being prepared a nice meal. No, No,
it's a very good point, you know. It's like, especially
when you're in another country you're trying to honor customs,
(15:27):
it's very do Maybe if you don't even speak the
language super well, it's really hard to explain this without
sounding like a kind of an elitist jerk exactly. And
maybe this is similar to see, you thought we weren't
going anywhere with this, folks, but this is not just
a tangent. Maybe Pattent was in a similar situation where
he said, uh, because again this the French mayors proclaimped
(15:50):
you know, he's very upset. He's a lachrymose would be
a good word for it. So maybe Patton says, it
might be awkward for me to explain to this guy
that this is clearly not a grave. I don't want
to upset him even further. Yeah, I think the official
term as a whole, or I guess maybe technically like
(16:12):
a troth barrow, a barrow implies mobility, though, right kheel barrow, Well,
one of the old terms for a barrow is a
large mound of earth or stones, but that's over the
remains of the dead. So I'm probably conflating my word.
My word of the day I walked away with this
(16:32):
one was lachrymoset I love is a great word. This
story doesn't end just there, though. In nineteen forty four,
during World War Two, General Patton returned to borg the
as you said, Casey, the town of town, and was
given a heroes welcome by the people who remembered him
from the last time he was there in seventeen nineteen seventeen,
(16:53):
and he relived memories. He went to his old office,
he went to where he used to live back when
he was a huge deal general, and then he said, wow,
in the village is still respectfully maintaining the grave of
abandoned rear. Here. Here's my question, Ben, was it would
(17:16):
it have been more polite and ultimately less humiliating to
just tell the guy, tell the townsman townspeople that it
was in fact that they had made a mistake, so
they didn't just keep up this charade for all of
these low these many years. What's more humiliating, you know,
a moment of embarrassment or a lifetime of you know,
(17:36):
maintaining a latrine as though it were a grave. I
would say even further, what if the town of Boorg
is still doing this? What if he never told them?
You don't think they read Snopes and Borg. I don't know,
I don't know, but yeah, Snopes does have an interesting
article on this. Oh there's one last piece of specular
(18:00):
ation regarding how the mayor could have thought it was
a fallen soldier. Maybe the soldiers were in a hurry
and the soldier last name was Rear, that was their surname,
and they just abandoned them there and then, so it
would be like, you know, the same thing as abandoned Pegram.
(18:20):
I still think that's a stretch. I don't know what
led the mayor to believe this, and it's not clear
whether Patton felt sorry for the mayor or whether he
just privately thought it was hilarious. The Snopes article does
point out a really nice, sort of ironic, little twist
to this story of abandoned Rear that involves the general's
(18:42):
own battle record. Let's say he was only ever injured
in battle once during the muse ar Gone Offensive of
September nineteen eighteen where he and five other foot soldiers
were charging into machine gun fire and he's the only
one that survived. No, actually four of his companions were killed.
(19:04):
One of them was Okay, he got hit in the thigh,
and this is from his memoir quote it came out
just at the crack of my bottom, about two inches
to the left of my rectum. Uh, yeah, that's what
we said. The doctor said that quote. Um, he can't
see how the bullet went where it did without crippling
(19:25):
me for life. He says he could not have run
a probe without getting either the hip joint, sciatic nerve
or the big artery. Yet none of these were touched. Fate. Again,
I have never had any pain and can walk perfectly.
So it makes you, it makes it makes me think
of that million dollar injury the way they would describe
(19:46):
it in the Vietnam War, or something like in Forrest
Gump when the lottery by getting shot in a way
that takes you out of the war zone but doesn't
ruin your life. I think Forrest also got shot in
the keystone in the buttocks. Ye yeah, he shows it
to the to the president, and that really pretty well
doctored c g I footage. Yeah, he showed his buttocks
(20:08):
to um Lyndon Johnson, right, I think because Johnson says
he'd like to see his gunshot wound. Oh. Also, this
goes back to our old episode on what a terrible person,
what a real pill Lyndon Johnson was he had I
think he was the president who had a creepy thing
for scars. Yeah, maybe so. And he also like didn't
(20:30):
even get his pants um Taylor in a certain way
to make room for his bunghole. Wasn't he in the
butts as well? Yeah? Yeah, uh yeah, I've got to
I've got to figure out who that was. That's kid,
that was LBJ. I just I just looked at the
clip on the YouTube. There's even a reaction shot where
Forest kind of shows them the bullet wound and uh l,
(20:50):
b J sort of has a great reaction. Yeah. So
there you have it. If we were to draw oral
from this story, what what would it be? Is it
sometimes that it's the thought that counts? Can we say
that like they yeah, there we go. Because the community
(21:13):
of the town thought they were doing the right thing,
but what was actually inside was not the the fallen soldier.
They were expecting you know what this makes me think.
I would love to hear more about strange monuments, strange statues.
There's so many. I have been talking off air with
some of my friends before, I think with you guys
(21:34):
as well in the past, about the idea of getting
a statue built to yourself, Like who does that is that?
Isn't that something where someone else should build the statue
for you, like they should spontaneously love your work. Back
when our office was in Buckhead, which is a different
neighborhood from where we are currently based, there was a
(21:56):
statue for I believe the founder of the Peace Corps
would who was between our office and the toys r us.
Did you ever walk that way? Casey, do you remember
what I'm talking about? I don't remember the Peace Corps
guy statue. I remember there's a Michael Stipe Foxes. Yeah. Yeah, man,
we need more statues here. I'm a big fan of statues.
(22:16):
In my hometown, there is a true to life James
Brown statue because that's where he was born. Um and
but he appears very short, but apparently is his exact size.
It's weird at my at a town where a lot
of my families from My grandfather actually made tons of
the statues around town, like the ones in banks and
in airports and stuff like that. I think he made
(22:38):
some busts of us precedents too, but I don't know.
If you ever met Lyndon Johnson. I'll have to find
out and update if we can find any more weird
presidential or patent esque trivia. In the meantime, let us
all take this as a lesson in your neck of
the Global Woods. If you have a mysterious local monument,
(23:00):
do some digging. Maybe not literal, that might be illegal,
but do some research and see if it is in
fact what it purports to be. Agreed Uh, If you
want to tell us some stories about some grave mix ups,
you can write to us at Ridiculous at I heart
radio dot com, or you can hit us up on
our Facebook group, which is the Ridiculous Historians. I think
all you have to do is answer a very simple question,
(23:22):
which is who are the hosts of Ridiculous History. It
could be me, could be Ben, could be Casey on
the case, or just make us laugh. I mean, if
you make me laugh, I'm gonna let you in. Yeah,
you're in. Like Flynn, you can also find us as
a show and as individuals on Twitter on Instagram. U
I am on Twitter as at Ben Bolan hs W,
(23:44):
but me and Noel both do Instagram. You can find
my various adventures, misadventures and shenanigan r which is the
word I just made up on at Ben Bullan can
find me at how Now. Noel Brown, Big, big, big
Thanks to Ryan Embarish, to Gabe Lousier, to Christopher A Hasiotis,
to you know and to you Casey. Thanks Ben, thanks
(24:07):
to you as well, thanks to Alex Williams who composed
our theme. And thanks to you kind gentle listeners of
the Internet. We will see you next time. And thanks
to you a bands intervier Casey, can we play some
memorial music for him? For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
(24:43):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. May
(00:27):
God have mercyful my enemies, because I won't welcome to
Ridiculous History. My name is Ben. That is a quote
by George S. Patton Jr. My name is no. And
that was a very grizzled sounding impression there. I liked
it very much. Is that what he sounded like? I mean,
he's he's living life in the middle of wars man.
That's that's like a war voice. He is known as
(00:48):
one of the most grizzled generals, as portrayed by what
is it George C. Scott got it? Yeah, Casey on
the case That Casey on the case is uh. Nod
to our super producer, Casey Pegram. That was a nice
doubling up of those moments there, Ben. I really like that.
So who was General Patton? Ben? Great question? Uh? In
(01:11):
addition to be in the main character of today's Strange
Ridiculous anecdote, George Smith Pattent Jr. Was a general of
the U. S Army who commanded the seventh Army in
World War Two, the Third Army in France and Germany
after D Day UH the Allied invasion of Normandy in
June of nineteen forty four. He also makes an appearance
(01:34):
in one of my favorite graphic novel series, Uber, which
I highly recommend checking out if you are a World
War Two buff, if you're a sci fi buff, if
you just like good stories. He was born into a
family with a very storied military background, both in the U. S.
(01:54):
Army and in the late Confederate Army. He went to
West Point, he study the fencing. He even designed the
M one cavalry saber more commonly known as the patent
saber today. Fun fact about him he competed in the
nineteen twelve Summer Olympics. I know it's true. He was
a triathlete, or excuse me, a pent athlete swimming, riding, fencing,
(02:18):
running and shooting. Man, that is a real uh pent
tuple threat? Yes, yeah, I mean forget about Broadway, right,
what do they have? Just triple threats? But now it's true.
This was in the nineteen twelve Olympic Games in Stockholm.
What a guy. And on his way up to all
of these accolades, it was later were later to come
for a patent. He was one of the inaugural members
(02:41):
of the first ever United States Tank cores established in
nineteen seventeen, so he thought he would see more action
with these newly invented armored vehicles than what if he
had just stayed with the infantry. And before the year
had passed nineteen seventeen, Patent becomes a colonel and he
sent to France and he's ordered to find a good
(03:03):
location in France to train people in the use of tanks.
He finds a village named Borg b o U r
G and he says, you know what this, this will do.
That'll do pig because it has so much mud that
they can practice driving in. It's true. It turns out
the Borgs primary exports are fish and mud. Oh is
(03:25):
that is that true? Okay? Oh? How how? Why are we?
Why are we mentioning the village? And we we didn't
even check with you, Casey, What can can you illuminate
the Francophone perspective on this village Borg? Well, Borg is
like a generic kind of um word that you see
in lots of city names, like Luxembourg or something. Um.
(03:48):
It's like Pittsburgh that we see here in America. But
it just means, basically, it's like a village that's on
the larger side and features markets and you know, would
be sort of a meeting place or a trading place
for other smaller villages nearby. So that's a boorg. But
this one is just called Org so they didn't bother
(04:09):
specifying anything more, you know, precise, just Burg. So it's
like a town named town. Yeah, kind of casey on
the case. So it seems like a little bit of
an uncreative burg Borg here, but you know that makes
sense where they would be so lousy with fish and mud,
but not a bad place to train Tanksman, what do
(04:31):
you call a tank a tanker? Where where the fish
coming from? I don't know, just my imagination. Okay, well
they're a long water so a little coastal r. What
do you call a tank driver, pilot, a pilot. No,
you don't call them a pilot. You would call them
a driver. The driver drives the tank, but they're not
really in charge. They're just steering their following orders. Yes,
they have a professional backseat driver called the commander, and
(04:54):
they're in charge of the whole tank. Oh that's got
to get a little bit awkward sometimes a professional backseat
dry ever. Well, yeah, they but they're also in charge
of telling the gunner and the load or what to
do and communicated with Okay, so you got they're not
just sitting there. You got a gunner, a loader, a driver,
and a commander. So it's a four person team in
one of these things, yes, or three if there's an
(05:15):
auto loader installed, because the then the loader doesn't need
to be there. They would just be watching the auto loader.
But back to pattent back to the board. Uh, no
relation to the board from Star Trek which dissimilate, which
I loved. You remember when Picard gets taken by the
(05:35):
borg and turns into Locutis gets borged. You could tell
he had some heft behind the scenes at that point
because his face wasn't really covered the way all the
other board where he just got a little dally bop
on his one of his temples, a little laser. He
was like a high ranking board. Yes, yeah he was.
He was. I think they even made a film about it. Man,
(05:57):
I forgot. I wonder if the board aged well. I
used to love the idea when I was a kid.
But that's a story for another day. Today's story still
has us talking with Patton. He's found the perfect place
to create his tank training school, and while he's there,
something very strange happens. The mayor of Borg comes to
(06:20):
Patton and he is weeping. This mayor openly, openly because
he feels terrible. I forgot to tell you, colonel. He
says to Patton that there is an American soldier, one
of your countrymen, who has died in this our small town.
So Patton, like in a frenzy, He's like, oh, man,
have I lost someone? Am I one man down? And
(06:41):
he looks through his ranks and finds that is not
the case. But the mayor says, no, no, there's definitely
been a dead soldier that was left behind here and
there's a soldier's grave. I'm confused about this relationship here.
What is he talking about? Why is he's he's saying
there's a dead soldier that is from your company, a
dead soldier from a previous engagement here, a dead American soldiers,
(07:02):
not necessarily as specific as from your crew that you're
taking to train in tankery. He's alluding to other some
other group of soldiers that passed by, and he feels
like he needs to inform them, but Patent, as you said, no,
he checks through. He says, well, all of my people
are fine, and the mayor insists, no, no, look, will
(07:25):
you at least go visit this guy's grave. We should
also mention that Borg is a really small town, and
like some other small towns in France, Board's population declined
considerably during World War one and two. So this is
this is a very small place. And the mayor takes
pattent to this grave site. To this quote unquote grave site,
(07:47):
there's a mound of dirt. There's a stick post in
the ground at one end, and nailed crosswise on that
stick such that it forms a rustic looking cross like
you see on a grave, is another piece of wood,
and it has what perhaps the mayor thought was the
name of the fallen soldier. It's it's a strange name.
(08:07):
It's not a very common name, I would say, then
or now for a person. The name is abandoned rear
conjured so much imagery. So you've got the mud, and
stacked on top of the mud, you got a pile
of dirt, and shoved into the dirt, you got a stick.
And then on the stick there's a sign that says
abandoned rear um and yeah, and the and the French
(08:29):
mayor had apparently made a little bit of a goof
and and thought this sign was across. Like you said,
I don't know, how do we keep spinning this yarn
bend before we do the big reveal? Or how do
we how do we do this? Let's set the sea
just a little bit good because patents reading this and uh,
you know, he has probably never heard of someone with
that name. And we can only speculate, my friends, we
(08:51):
can only imagine, hopefully optimistically, that the French mayor is
is kind of weeping, you know, by this very straight
a somewhat bellicost officer and then saying like, oh, can
you imagine the life he could have led, the humanity,
the inhumanity of war. He was but a youth, a child,
(09:13):
oh abandoned rear. Yeah. The French are known as being
somewhat emotional individuals, right, and you know they like to
weep openly while eating cheese and drinking tiny cups of coffee.
Watch out, we have a lot of French listeners. I'm
just kidding, French listeners. Goodness, gracious, we don't want to
we don't want to get the La Bush contingent. Look,
Americans only eat cheeseburgers and drink large, big gulp Coca Cola's.
(09:39):
And um what else do we do? We ride seguys
everywhere we go. No, I don't know. I'm just trying
to stereotype everyone. That's gonna be my new thing. I'm
gonna do on the show. That's your new thing. So
what happened? What happened? What could you tell us the
(10:00):
story of abandoned Rearnal? How did this? How did this
grave come to pass? Oh? Well, he certainly made a
grave mistake in identifying this, uh, this spot as a grave, because,
as it turns out, the mayor it made a terrible decision.
Wasn't a grave at all. But it was a latrine,
a potty, a privy, yes, a toilet. Uh, this latrine
(10:25):
was dug in the woods. It's it's a very common
part of camp hygiene to bury your you know, your leavings.
I went to camp hygiene when I was a kid.
It was great. They taught you how to like brush
your teeth and put on deodorant and just stay nice
and fresh. Like is the bit you went to a
place named camp camp hygiene. Okay, is the real thing? Oh,
(10:46):
it's kind of like space Camp, but it's camp hygiene,
good hygiene. Oh Man, space Camp. I know, dude, I
really did go to space Camp. I know you did.
I went to space Camp as well. Casey, which one
did you go to? Phil? Yeah? I went to I
went to Huntsville as well. Matt also went to space Camp.
From our other show, I have not been to space Camp,
(11:06):
only Camp Hygiene. I feel like he didn't miss very much. No,
really that he did. You to do the gyroscope? I
love the gyroscope? Did the gyroscope? You do the moonwalk?
Which is way cooler than the Michael Jackson moon walk.
I was moderately cooler than the Michael Jackson moon walk. Uh,
contrary to what the eighties film would have you believe,
you don't actually accidentally end up in a space shuttle.
(11:27):
But I learned a lot. But did you learn how
to diggle a train? Ben? Yeah? I did that in
Boy Scouts? OK. Well that's what I learned in Camp hygiene,
And that's what they were looking at that they thought
was a grave, but it was in fact. What does
a band in rear mean? Does that mean we've I
don't understand what does a band in rear. That's just
what someone used to describe their their leavings or their latrine.
(11:51):
Here's the thing. People find out about this story in patents,
autobiographical accounts which he drew from his Die Harry entries,
and he says that the French when they had taken
this newly doug latrine for a cross, it wasn't old.
It was a freshly doug latrine. He decided not to
(12:11):
tell them the truth. So he just let it ride,
or let it roll, i should say, as he was
into tanks at the time. And because he didn't tell
the residents of the town the truth about this spot.
But what do you think happened? Did they just keep
up with the grave, because you know, you wouldn't desecrate
a grave, and they had been up to that point,
(12:33):
they had been maintaining it right right, And since he
didn't tell them, we can only we can only assume
that they didn't randomly decide to desecrate this grave. And
now we come into a question of authenticity. Because the
only record of this story is the general's autobiography, and
this was incomplete at the time of his passing in
(12:55):
nineteen we have we have some questions and so we
have some questions and we want to hear what you
all think. If you don't have a knowledge of French
or English names, then maybe you know, like, maybe you
could assume the French mayor thought abandoned rear was a
(13:17):
name that would be common in the US. But the
problem with that is that the word abandoned means the
same thing in both French and English. Isn't that right? Casey, yeah,
casey on the case. So maybe he thought abandoned was
a rank in the army that makes sense, sure, or
like a defector of some kind. I don't know. Interesting, Yeah, yeah,
(13:41):
maybe it's like a coward's death. And yet they still
treated it with such with the with the utmost respect. Um,
didn't it also smell? How much dirt did they put
on it? You know how to diggle a treating? You
went to camp hygiene. There's a science to this and
there are standards. It's right, you gotta dig it at
least five feet down. Uh, And yeah, I don't know, Okay,
I've gotta come clean. Um. Camp hygeene is not a
(14:04):
real thing. And I've never dug a latrine. I've never
I've never even pooped outdoors dude. Sorry that you remember that.
I remember that. I remember. Yeah, you're not a camper.
You don't like to go Campa. Well, I mean, look,
I want to be more of a camper. I want
to be more of an outdoors man. I am trying
to meet somebody in my private life who's really into that,
(14:25):
because I tend to, you know, broaden my horizons when
i'm when I'm kind of like, what does exactly? Yeah, exactly,
That's how I That's how I actually ended up vegetarian
for like a decade. But I went back. Yeah, I
went back. It's actually this is unrelated. But you know,
(14:45):
to ever tell you when I stopped becoming a vegetarian,
well you you had become one at that point. I
assume I I had been one for several years and
then I started eating meet again when I was in
Central America because where I was living, you know, people
are being very gracious making you dinner or something, and
it's very I think it's very privileged and pretty inconsiderate
(15:07):
to tell somebody that's worked very hard on something, especially
if they don't have a lot to go around anyway,
to be like, I'm too good for this food. They'd
be lovingly given me. I've got scruples, Okay, scruples when
it comes to being prepared a nice meal. No, No,
it's a very good point, you know. It's like, especially
when you're in another country you're trying to honor customs,
(15:27):
it's very do Maybe if you don't even speak the
language super well, it's really hard to explain this without
sounding like a kind of an elitist jerk exactly. And
maybe this is similar to see, you thought we weren't
going anywhere with this, folks, but this is not just
a tangent. Maybe Pattent was in a similar situation where
he said, uh, because again this the French mayors proclaimped
(15:50):
you know, he's very upset. He's a lachrymose would be
a good word for it. So maybe Patton says, it
might be awkward for me to explain to this guy
that this is clearly not a grave. I don't want
to upset him even further. Yeah, I think the official
term as a whole, or I guess maybe technically like
(16:12):
a troth barrow, a barrow implies mobility, though, right kheel barrow, Well,
one of the old terms for a barrow is a
large mound of earth or stones, but that's over the
remains of the dead. So I'm probably conflating my word.
My word of the day I walked away with this
(16:32):
one was lachrymoset I love is a great word. This
story doesn't end just there, though. In nineteen forty four,
during World War Two, General Patton returned to borg the
as you said, Casey, the town of town, and was
given a heroes welcome by the people who remembered him
from the last time he was there in seventeen nineteen seventeen,
(16:53):
and he relived memories. He went to his old office,
he went to where he used to live back when
he was a huge deal general, and then he said, wow,
in the village is still respectfully maintaining the grave of
abandoned rear. Here. Here's my question, Ben, was it would
(17:16):
it have been more polite and ultimately less humiliating to
just tell the guy, tell the townsman townspeople that it
was in fact that they had made a mistake, so
they didn't just keep up this charade for all of
these low these many years. What's more humiliating, you know,
a moment of embarrassment or a lifetime of you know,
(17:36):
maintaining a latrine as though it were a grave. I
would say even further, what if the town of Boorg
is still doing this? What if he never told them?
You don't think they read Snopes and Borg. I don't know,
I don't know, but yeah, Snopes does have an interesting
article on this. Oh there's one last piece of specular
(18:00):
ation regarding how the mayor could have thought it was
a fallen soldier. Maybe the soldiers were in a hurry
and the soldier last name was Rear, that was their surname,
and they just abandoned them there and then, so it
would be like, you know, the same thing as abandoned Pegram.
(18:20):
I still think that's a stretch. I don't know what
led the mayor to believe this, and it's not clear
whether Patton felt sorry for the mayor or whether he
just privately thought it was hilarious. The Snopes article does
point out a really nice, sort of ironic, little twist
to this story of abandoned Rear that involves the general's
(18:42):
own battle record. Let's say he was only ever injured
in battle once during the muse ar Gone Offensive of
September nineteen eighteen where he and five other foot soldiers
were charging into machine gun fire and he's the only
one that survived. No, actually four of his companions were killed.
(19:04):
One of them was Okay, he got hit in the thigh,
and this is from his memoir quote it came out
just at the crack of my bottom, about two inches
to the left of my rectum. Uh, yeah, that's what
we said. The doctor said that quote. Um, he can't
see how the bullet went where it did without crippling
(19:25):
me for life. He says he could not have run
a probe without getting either the hip joint, sciatic nerve
or the big artery. Yet none of these were touched. Fate. Again,
I have never had any pain and can walk perfectly.
So it makes you, it makes it makes me think
of that million dollar injury the way they would describe
(19:46):
it in the Vietnam War, or something like in Forrest
Gump when the lottery by getting shot in a way
that takes you out of the war zone but doesn't
ruin your life. I think Forrest also got shot in
the keystone in the buttocks. Ye yeah, he shows it
to the to the president, and that really pretty well
doctored c g I footage. Yeah, he showed his buttocks
(20:08):
to um Lyndon Johnson, right, I think because Johnson says
he'd like to see his gunshot wound. Oh. Also, this
goes back to our old episode on what a terrible person,
what a real pill Lyndon Johnson was he had I
think he was the president who had a creepy thing
for scars. Yeah, maybe so. And he also like didn't
(20:30):
even get his pants um Taylor in a certain way
to make room for his bunghole. Wasn't he in the
butts as well? Yeah? Yeah, uh yeah, I've got to
I've got to figure out who that was. That's kid,
that was LBJ. I just I just looked at the
clip on the YouTube. There's even a reaction shot where
Forest kind of shows them the bullet wound and uh l,
(20:50):
b J sort of has a great reaction. Yeah. So
there you have it. If we were to draw oral
from this story, what what would it be? Is it
sometimes that it's the thought that counts? Can we say
that like they yeah, there we go. Because the community
(21:13):
of the town thought they were doing the right thing,
but what was actually inside was not the the fallen soldier.
They were expecting you know what this makes me think.
I would love to hear more about strange monuments, strange statues.
There's so many. I have been talking off air with
some of my friends before, I think with you guys
(21:34):
as well in the past, about the idea of getting
a statue built to yourself, Like who does that is that?
Isn't that something where someone else should build the statue
for you, like they should spontaneously love your work. Back
when our office was in Buckhead, which is a different
neighborhood from where we are currently based, there was a
(21:56):
statue for I believe the founder of the Peace Corps
would who was between our office and the toys r us.
Did you ever walk that way? Casey, do you remember
what I'm talking about? I don't remember the Peace Corps
guy statue. I remember there's a Michael Stipe Foxes. Yeah. Yeah, man,
we need more statues here. I'm a big fan of statues.
(22:16):
In my hometown, there is a true to life James
Brown statue because that's where he was born. Um and
but he appears very short, but apparently is his exact size.
It's weird at my at a town where a lot
of my families from My grandfather actually made tons of
the statues around town, like the ones in banks and
in airports and stuff like that. I think he made
(22:38):
some busts of us precedents too, but I don't know.
If you ever met Lyndon Johnson. I'll have to find
out and update if we can find any more weird
presidential or patent esque trivia. In the meantime, let us
all take this as a lesson in your neck of
the Global Woods. If you have a mysterious local monument,
(23:00):
do some digging. Maybe not literal, that might be illegal,
but do some research and see if it is in
fact what it purports to be. Agreed Uh, If you
want to tell us some stories about some grave mix ups,
you can write to us at Ridiculous at I heart
radio dot com, or you can hit us up on
our Facebook group, which is the Ridiculous Historians. I think
all you have to do is answer a very simple question,
(23:22):
which is who are the hosts of Ridiculous History. It
could be me, could be Ben, could be Casey on
the case, or just make us laugh. I mean, if
you make me laugh, I'm gonna let you in. Yeah,
you're in. Like Flynn, you can also find us as
a show and as individuals on Twitter on Instagram. U
I am on Twitter as at Ben Bolan hs W,
(23:44):
but me and Noel both do Instagram. You can find
my various adventures, misadventures and shenanigan r which is the
word I just made up on at Ben Bullan can
find me at how Now. Noel Brown, Big, big, big
Thanks to Ryan Embarish, to Gabe Lousier, to Christopher A Hasiotis,
to you know and to you Casey. Thanks Ben, thanks
(24:07):
to you as well, thanks to Alex Williams who composed
our theme. And thanks to you kind gentle listeners of
the Internet. We will see you next time. And thanks
to you a bands intervier Casey, can we play some
memorial music for him? For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
(24:43):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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