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A Grave Mistake: The Story of Patton's "Abandoned Rear" · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. May
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  Speaker 1: God have mercyful my enemies, because I won't welcome to
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History. My name is Ben. That is a quote
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: by George S. Patton Jr. My name is no. And
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that was a very grizzled sounding impression there. I liked
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  Speaker 1: it very much. Is that what he sounded like? I mean,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: he's he's living life in the middle of wars man.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: That's that's like a war voice. He is known as
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: one of the most grizzled generals, as portrayed by what
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  Speaker 1: is it George C. Scott got it? Yeah, Casey on
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  Speaker 1: the case That Casey on the case is uh. Nod
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  Speaker 1: to our super producer, Casey Pegram. That was a nice
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: doubling up of those moments there, Ben. I really like that.
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  Speaker 1: So who was General Patton? Ben? Great question? Uh? In
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  Speaker 1: addition to be in the main character of today's Strange
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous anecdote, George Smith Pattent Jr. Was a general of
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  Speaker 1: the U. S Army who commanded the seventh Army in
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  Speaker 1: World War Two, the Third Army in France and Germany
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  Speaker 1: after D Day UH the Allied invasion of Normandy in
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  Speaker 1: June of nineteen forty four. He also makes an appearance
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: in one of my favorite graphic novel series, Uber, which
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I highly recommend checking out if you are a World
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: War Two buff, if you're a sci fi buff, if
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  Speaker 1: you just like good stories. He was born into a
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  Speaker 1: family with a very storied military background, both in the U. S.
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  Speaker 1: Army and in the late Confederate Army. He went to
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  Speaker 1: West Point, he study the fencing. He even designed the
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: M one cavalry saber more commonly known as the patent
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  Speaker 1: saber today. Fun fact about him he competed in the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twelve Summer Olympics. I know it's true. He was
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  Speaker 1: a triathlete, or excuse me, a pent athlete swimming, riding, fencing,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: running and shooting. Man, that is a real uh pent
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  Speaker 1: tuple threat? Yes, yeah, I mean forget about Broadway, right,
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  Speaker 1: what do they have? Just triple threats? But now it's true.
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  Speaker 1: This was in the nineteen twelve Olympic Games in Stockholm.
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  Speaker 1: What a guy. And on his way up to all
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  Speaker 1: of these accolades, it was later were later to come
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  Speaker 1: for a patent. He was one of the inaugural members
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  Speaker 1: of the first ever United States Tank cores established in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen, so he thought he would see more action
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  Speaker 1: with these newly invented armored vehicles than what if he
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  Speaker 1: had just stayed with the infantry. And before the year
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  Speaker 1: had passed nineteen seventeen, Patent becomes a colonel and he
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  Speaker 1: sent to France and he's ordered to find a good
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  Speaker 1: location in France to train people in the use of tanks.
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  Speaker 1: He finds a village named Borg b o U r
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  Speaker 1: G and he says, you know what this, this will do.
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  Speaker 1: That'll do pig because it has so much mud that
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  Speaker 1: they can practice driving in. It's true. It turns out
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  Speaker 1: the Borgs primary exports are fish and mud. Oh is
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  Speaker 1: that is that true? Okay? Oh? How how? Why are we?
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  Speaker 1: Why are we mentioning the village? And we we didn't
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  Speaker 1: even check with you, Casey, What can can you illuminate
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  Speaker 1: the Francophone perspective on this village Borg? Well, Borg is
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  Speaker 1: like a generic kind of um word that you see
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  Speaker 1: in lots of city names, like Luxembourg or something. Um.
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  Speaker 1: It's like Pittsburgh that we see here in America. But
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  Speaker 1: it just means, basically, it's like a village that's on
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  Speaker 1: the larger side and features markets and you know, would
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  Speaker 1: be sort of a meeting place or a trading place
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  Speaker 1: for other smaller villages nearby. So that's a boorg. But
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  Speaker 1: this one is just called Org so they didn't bother
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  Speaker 1: specifying anything more, you know, precise, just Burg. So it's
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  Speaker 1: like a town named town. Yeah, kind of casey on
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  Speaker 1: the case. So it seems like a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: an uncreative burg Borg here, but you know that makes
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  Speaker 1: sense where they would be so lousy with fish and mud,
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  Speaker 1: but not a bad place to train Tanksman, what do
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  Speaker 1: you call a tank a tanker? Where where the fish
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  Speaker 1: coming from? I don't know, just my imagination. Okay, well
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  Speaker 1: they're a long water so a little coastal r. What
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  Speaker 1: do you call a tank driver, pilot, a pilot. No,
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  Speaker 1: you don't call them a pilot. You would call them
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  Speaker 1: a driver. The driver drives the tank, but they're not
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  Speaker 1: really in charge. They're just steering their following orders. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: they have a professional backseat driver called the commander, and
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  Speaker 1: they're in charge of the whole tank. Oh that's got
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  Speaker 1: to get a little bit awkward sometimes a professional backseat
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  Speaker 1: dry ever. Well, yeah, they but they're also in charge
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  Speaker 1: of telling the gunner and the load or what to
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  Speaker 1: do and communicated with Okay, so you got they're not
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  Speaker 1: just sitting there. You got a gunner, a loader, a driver,
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  Speaker 1: and a commander. So it's a four person team in
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  Speaker 1: one of these things, yes, or three if there's an
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  Speaker 1: auto loader installed, because the then the loader doesn't need
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  Speaker 1: to be there. They would just be watching the auto loader.
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  Speaker 1: But back to pattent back to the board. Uh, no
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  Speaker 1: relation to the board from Star Trek which dissimilate, which
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  Speaker 1: I loved. You remember when Picard gets taken by the
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  Speaker 1: borg and turns into Locutis gets borged. You could tell
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  Speaker 1: he had some heft behind the scenes at that point
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  Speaker 1: because his face wasn't really covered the way all the
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  Speaker 1: other board where he just got a little dally bop
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  Speaker 1: on his one of his temples, a little laser. He
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  Speaker 1: was like a high ranking board. Yes, yeah he was.
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  Speaker 1: He was. I think they even made a film about it. Man,
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  Speaker 1: I forgot. I wonder if the board aged well. I
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  Speaker 1: used to love the idea when I was a kid.
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  Speaker 1: But that's a story for another day. Today's story still
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  Speaker 1: has us talking with Patton. He's found the perfect place
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  Speaker 1: to create his tank training school, and while he's there,
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  Speaker 1: something very strange happens. The mayor of Borg comes to
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  Speaker 1: Patton and he is weeping. This mayor openly, openly because
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  Speaker 1: he feels terrible. I forgot to tell you, colonel. He
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  Speaker 1: says to Patton that there is an American soldier, one
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  Speaker 1: of your countrymen, who has died in this our small town.
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  Speaker 1: So Patton, like in a frenzy, He's like, oh, man,
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  Speaker 1: have I lost someone? Am I one man down? And
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  Speaker 1: he looks through his ranks and finds that is not
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  Speaker 1: the case. But the mayor says, no, no, there's definitely
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  Speaker 1: been a dead soldier that was left behind here and
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  Speaker 1: there's a soldier's grave. I'm confused about this relationship here.
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  Speaker 1: What is he talking about? Why is he's he's saying
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  Speaker 1: there's a dead soldier that is from your company, a
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  Speaker 1: dead soldier from a previous engagement here, a dead American soldiers,
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily as specific as from your crew that you're
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  Speaker 1: taking to train in tankery. He's alluding to other some
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  Speaker 1: other group of soldiers that passed by, and he feels
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  Speaker 1: like he needs to inform them, but Patent, as you said, no,
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  Speaker 1: he checks through. He says, well, all of my people
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  Speaker 1: are fine, and the mayor insists, no, no, look, will
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  Speaker 1: you at least go visit this guy's grave. We should
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  Speaker 1: also mention that Borg is a really small town, and
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  Speaker 1: like some other small towns in France, Board's population declined
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  Speaker 1: considerably during World War one and two. So this is
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  Speaker 1: this is a very small place. And the mayor takes
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  Speaker 1: pattent to this grave site. To this quote unquote grave site,
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  Speaker 1: there's a mound of dirt. There's a stick post in
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  Speaker 1: the ground at one end, and nailed crosswise on that
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  Speaker 1: stick such that it forms a rustic looking cross like
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  Speaker 1: you see on a grave, is another piece of wood,
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  Speaker 1: and it has what perhaps the mayor thought was the
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  Speaker 1: name of the fallen soldier. It's it's a strange name.
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  Speaker 1: It's not a very common name, I would say, then
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  Speaker 1: or now for a person. The name is abandoned rear
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  Speaker 1: conjured so much imagery. So you've got the mud, and
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  Speaker 1: stacked on top of the mud, you got a pile
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  Speaker 1: of dirt, and shoved into the dirt, you got a stick.
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  Speaker 1: And then on the stick there's a sign that says
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  Speaker 1: abandoned rear um and yeah, and the and the French
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  Speaker 1: mayor had apparently made a little bit of a goof
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  Speaker 1: and and thought this sign was across. Like you said,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, how do we keep spinning this yarn
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  Speaker 1: bend before we do the big reveal? Or how do
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  Speaker 1: we how do we do this? Let's set the sea
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  Speaker 1: just a little bit good because patents reading this and uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, he has probably never heard of someone with
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  Speaker 1: that name. And we can only speculate, my friends, we
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  Speaker 1: can only imagine, hopefully optimistically, that the French mayor is
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  Speaker 1: is kind of weeping, you know, by this very straight
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  Speaker 1: a somewhat bellicost officer and then saying like, oh, can
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  Speaker 1: you imagine the life he could have led, the humanity,
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  Speaker 1: the inhumanity of war. He was but a youth, a child,
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  Speaker 1: oh abandoned rear. Yeah. The French are known as being
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  Speaker 1: somewhat emotional individuals, right, and you know they like to
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  Speaker 1: weep openly while eating cheese and drinking tiny cups of coffee.
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  Speaker 1: Watch out, we have a lot of French listeners. I'm
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  Speaker 1: just kidding, French listeners. Goodness, gracious, we don't want to
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  Speaker 1: we don't want to get the La Bush contingent. Look,
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  Speaker 1: Americans only eat cheeseburgers and drink large, big gulp Coca Cola's.
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  Speaker 1: And um what else do we do? We ride seguys
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  Speaker 1: everywhere we go. No, I don't know. I'm just trying
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  Speaker 1: to stereotype everyone. That's gonna be my new thing. I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna do on the show. That's your new thing. So
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  Speaker 1: what happened? What happened? What could you tell us the
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  Speaker 1: story of abandoned Rearnal? How did this? How did this
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  Speaker 1: grave come to pass? Oh? Well, he certainly made a
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  Speaker 1: grave mistake in identifying this, uh, this spot as a grave, because,
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  Speaker 1: as it turns out, the mayor it made a terrible decision.
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  Speaker 1: Wasn't a grave at all. But it was a latrine,
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  Speaker 1: a potty, a privy, yes, a toilet. Uh, this latrine
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  Speaker 1: was dug in the woods. It's it's a very common
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  Speaker 1: part of camp hygiene to bury your you know, your leavings.
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  Speaker 1: I went to camp hygiene when I was a kid.
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  Speaker 1: It was great. They taught you how to like brush
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  Speaker 1: your teeth and put on deodorant and just stay nice
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  Speaker 1: and fresh. Like is the bit you went to a
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  Speaker 1: place named camp camp hygiene. Okay, is the real thing? Oh,
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  Speaker 1: it's kind of like space Camp, but it's camp hygiene,
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  Speaker 1: good hygiene. Oh Man, space Camp. I know, dude, I
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  Speaker 1: really did go to space Camp. I know you did.
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  Speaker 1: I went to space Camp as well. Casey, which one
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  Speaker 1: did you go to? Phil? Yeah? I went to I
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: went to Huntsville as well. Matt also went to space Camp.
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  Speaker 1: From our other show, I have not been to space Camp,
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  Speaker 1: only Camp Hygiene. I feel like he didn't miss very much. No,
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  Speaker 1: really that he did. You to do the gyroscope? I
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: love the gyroscope? Did the gyroscope? You do the moonwalk?
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  Speaker 1: Which is way cooler than the Michael Jackson moon walk.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I was moderately cooler than the Michael Jackson moon walk. Uh,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: contrary to what the eighties film would have you believe,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: you don't actually accidentally end up in a space shuttle.
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  Speaker 1: But I learned a lot. But did you learn how
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  Speaker 1: to diggle a train? Ben? Yeah? I did that in
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  Speaker 1: Boy Scouts? OK. Well that's what I learned in Camp hygiene,
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  Speaker 1: And that's what they were looking at that they thought
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  Speaker 1: was a grave, but it was in fact. What does
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  Speaker 1: a band in rear mean? Does that mean we've I
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  Speaker 1: don't understand what does a band in rear. That's just
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  Speaker 1: what someone used to describe their their leavings or their latrine.
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  Speaker 1: Here's the thing. People find out about this story in patents,
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  Speaker 1: autobiographical accounts which he drew from his Die Harry entries,
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  Speaker 1: and he says that the French when they had taken
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  Speaker 1: this newly doug latrine for a cross, it wasn't old.
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  Speaker 1: It was a freshly doug latrine. He decided not to
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  Speaker 1: tell them the truth. So he just let it ride,
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  Speaker 1: or let it roll, i should say, as he was
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  Speaker 1: into tanks at the time. And because he didn't tell
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  Speaker 1: the residents of the town the truth about this spot.
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  Speaker 1: But what do you think happened? Did they just keep
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  Speaker 1: up with the grave, because you know, you wouldn't desecrate
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  Speaker 1: a grave, and they had been up to that point,
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  Speaker 1: they had been maintaining it right right, And since he
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  Speaker 1: didn't tell them, we can only we can only assume
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  Speaker 1: that they didn't randomly decide to desecrate this grave. And
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  Speaker 1: now we come into a question of authenticity. Because the
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  Speaker 1: only record of this story is the general's autobiography, and
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  Speaker 1: this was incomplete at the time of his passing in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen we have we have some questions and so we
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: have some questions and we want to hear what you
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  Speaker 1: all think. If you don't have a knowledge of French
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  Speaker 1: or English names, then maybe you know, like, maybe you
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  Speaker 1: could assume the French mayor thought abandoned rear was a
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  Speaker 1: name that would be common in the US. But the
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  Speaker 1: problem with that is that the word abandoned means the
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  Speaker 1: same thing in both French and English. Isn't that right? Casey, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: casey on the case. So maybe he thought abandoned was
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  Speaker 1: a rank in the army that makes sense, sure, or
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  Speaker 1: like a defector of some kind. I don't know. Interesting, Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: maybe it's like a coward's death. And yet they still
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  Speaker 1: treated it with such with the with the utmost respect. Um,
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  Speaker 1: didn't it also smell? How much dirt did they put
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  Speaker 1: on it? You know how to diggle a treating? You
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  Speaker 1: went to camp hygiene. There's a science to this and
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: there are standards. It's right, you gotta dig it at
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: least five feet down. Uh, And yeah, I don't know, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: I've gotta come clean. Um. Camp hygeene is not a
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  Speaker 1: real thing. And I've never dug a latrine. I've never
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I've never even pooped outdoors dude. Sorry that you remember that.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I remember that. I remember. Yeah, you're not a camper.
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  Speaker 1: You don't like to go Campa. Well, I mean, look,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I want to be more of a camper. I want
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to be more of an outdoors man. I am trying
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to meet somebody in my private life who's really into that,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: because I tend to, you know, broaden my horizons when
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: i'm when I'm kind of like, what does exactly? Yeah, exactly,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: That's how I That's how I actually ended up vegetarian
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: for like a decade. But I went back. Yeah, I
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: went back. It's actually this is unrelated. But you know,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: to ever tell you when I stopped becoming a vegetarian,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: well you you had become one at that point. I
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: assume I I had been one for several years and
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: then I started eating meet again when I was in
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Central America because where I was living, you know, people
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: are being very gracious making you dinner or something, and
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: it's very I think it's very privileged and pretty inconsiderate
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: to tell somebody that's worked very hard on something, especially
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: if they don't have a lot to go around anyway,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to be like, I'm too good for this food. They'd
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: be lovingly given me. I've got scruples, Okay, scruples when
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: it comes to being prepared a nice meal. No, No,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it's a very good point, you know. It's like, especially
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: when you're in another country you're trying to honor customs,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: it's very do Maybe if you don't even speak the
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: language super well, it's really hard to explain this without
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: sounding like a kind of an elitist jerk exactly. And
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: maybe this is similar to see, you thought we weren't
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: going anywhere with this, folks, but this is not just
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a tangent. Maybe Pattent was in a similar situation where
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: he said, uh, because again this the French mayors proclaimped
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: you know, he's very upset. He's a lachrymose would be
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: a good word for it. So maybe Patton says, it
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: might be awkward for me to explain to this guy
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  Speaker 1: that this is clearly not a grave. I don't want
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: to upset him even further. Yeah, I think the official
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: term as a whole, or I guess maybe technically like
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: a troth barrow, a barrow implies mobility, though, right kheel barrow, Well,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: one of the old terms for a barrow is a
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: large mound of earth or stones, but that's over the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: remains of the dead. So I'm probably conflating my word.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: My word of the day I walked away with this
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: one was lachrymoset I love is a great word. This
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: story doesn't end just there, though. In nineteen forty four,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: during World War Two, General Patton returned to borg the
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: as you said, Casey, the town of town, and was
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: given a heroes welcome by the people who remembered him
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: from the last time he was there in seventeen nineteen seventeen,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and he relived memories. He went to his old office,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: he went to where he used to live back when
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: he was a huge deal general, and then he said, wow,
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  Speaker 1: in the village is still respectfully maintaining the grave of
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  Speaker 1: abandoned rear. Here. Here's my question, Ben, was it would
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  Speaker 1: it have been more polite and ultimately less humiliating to
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  Speaker 1: just tell the guy, tell the townsman townspeople that it
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: was in fact that they had made a mistake, so
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: they didn't just keep up this charade for all of
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: these low these many years. What's more humiliating, you know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: a moment of embarrassment or a lifetime of you know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: maintaining a latrine as though it were a grave. I
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: would say even further, what if the town of Boorg
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: is still doing this? What if he never told them?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: You don't think they read Snopes and Borg. I don't know,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, Snopes does have an interesting
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: article on this. Oh there's one last piece of specular
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: ation regarding how the mayor could have thought it was
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a fallen soldier. Maybe the soldiers were in a hurry
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and the soldier last name was Rear, that was their surname,
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  Speaker 1: and they just abandoned them there and then, so it
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: would be like, you know, the same thing as abandoned Pegram.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I still think that's a stretch. I don't know what
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: led the mayor to believe this, and it's not clear
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: whether Patton felt sorry for the mayor or whether he
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: just privately thought it was hilarious. The Snopes article does
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: point out a really nice, sort of ironic, little twist
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to this story of abandoned Rear that involves the general's
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: own battle record. Let's say he was only ever injured
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: in battle once during the muse ar Gone Offensive of
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: September nineteen eighteen where he and five other foot soldiers
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: were charging into machine gun fire and he's the only
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: one that survived. No, actually four of his companions were killed.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: One of them was Okay, he got hit in the thigh,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and this is from his memoir quote it came out
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: just at the crack of my bottom, about two inches
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: to the left of my rectum. Uh, yeah, that's what
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: we said. The doctor said that quote. Um, he can't
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: see how the bullet went where it did without crippling
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: me for life. He says he could not have run
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: a probe without getting either the hip joint, sciatic nerve
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: or the big artery. Yet none of these were touched. Fate. Again,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I have never had any pain and can walk perfectly.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: So it makes you, it makes it makes me think
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: of that million dollar injury the way they would describe
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: it in the Vietnam War, or something like in Forrest
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Gump when the lottery by getting shot in a way
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that takes you out of the war zone but doesn't
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: ruin your life. I think Forrest also got shot in
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the keystone in the buttocks. Ye yeah, he shows it
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: to the to the president, and that really pretty well
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: doctored c g I footage. Yeah, he showed his buttocks
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to um Lyndon Johnson, right, I think because Johnson says
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: he'd like to see his gunshot wound. Oh. Also, this
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: goes back to our old episode on what a terrible person,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: what a real pill Lyndon Johnson was he had I
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: think he was the president who had a creepy thing
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: for scars. Yeah, maybe so. And he also like didn't
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: even get his pants um Taylor in a certain way
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: to make room for his bunghole. Wasn't he in the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: butts as well? Yeah? Yeah, uh yeah, I've got to
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: I've got to figure out who that was. That's kid,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: that was LBJ. I just I just looked at the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: clip on the YouTube. There's even a reaction shot where
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Forest kind of shows them the bullet wound and uh l,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: b J sort of has a great reaction. Yeah. So
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: there you have it. If we were to draw oral
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: from this story, what what would it be? Is it
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: sometimes that it's the thought that counts? Can we say
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: that like they yeah, there we go. Because the community
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of the town thought they were doing the right thing,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: but what was actually inside was not the the fallen soldier.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: They were expecting you know what this makes me think.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear more about strange monuments, strange statues.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: There's so many. I have been talking off air with
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: some of my friends before, I think with you guys
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: as well in the past, about the idea of getting
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: a statue built to yourself, Like who does that is that?
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Isn't that something where someone else should build the statue
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: for you, like they should spontaneously love your work. Back
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: when our office was in Buckhead, which is a different
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: neighborhood from where we are currently based, there was a
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: statue for I believe the founder of the Peace Corps
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: would who was between our office and the toys r us.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Did you ever walk that way? Casey, do you remember
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about? I don't remember the Peace Corps
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: guy statue. I remember there's a Michael Stipe Foxes. Yeah. Yeah, man,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: we need more statues here. I'm a big fan of statues.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: In my hometown, there is a true to life James
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Brown statue because that's where he was born. Um and
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: but he appears very short, but apparently is his exact size.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: It's weird at my at a town where a lot
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of my families from My grandfather actually made tons of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the statues around town, like the ones in banks and
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: in airports and stuff like that. I think he made
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: some busts of us precedents too, but I don't know.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: If you ever met Lyndon Johnson. I'll have to find
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: out and update if we can find any more weird
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: presidential or patent esque trivia. In the meantime, let us
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: all take this as a lesson in your neck of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the Global Woods. If you have a mysterious local monument,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: do some digging. Maybe not literal, that might be illegal,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: but do some research and see if it is in
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: fact what it purports to be. Agreed Uh, If you
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: want to tell us some stories about some grave mix ups,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: you can write to us at Ridiculous at I heart
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: radio dot com, or you can hit us up on
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: our Facebook group, which is the Ridiculous Historians. I think
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: all you have to do is answer a very simple question,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: which is who are the hosts of Ridiculous History. It
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: could be me, could be Ben, could be Casey on
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the case, or just make us laugh. I mean, if
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: you make me laugh, I'm gonna let you in. Yeah,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you're in. Like Flynn, you can also find us as
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: a show and as individuals on Twitter on Instagram. U
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I am on Twitter as at Ben Bolan hs W,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: but me and Noel both do Instagram. You can find
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: my various adventures, misadventures and shenanigan r which is the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: word I just made up on at Ben Bullan can
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: find me at how Now. Noel Brown, Big, big, big
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Ryan Embarish, to Gabe Lousier, to Christopher A Hasiotis,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to you know and to you Casey. Thanks Ben, thanks
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: to you as well, thanks to Alex Williams who composed
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: our theme. And thanks to you kind gentle listeners of
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the Internet. We will see you next time. And thanks
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: to you a bands intervier Casey, can we play some
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: memorial music for him? For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.