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

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous Historians, we're back to you with a classic episode.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: We all remember George S. Patton from earlier, but have
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: you heard about his abandoned rear?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Like, you mean like he lost his butt and he
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: just left it for dead? His own butt?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Now, I've got to be honest with you, Noel, 2019
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: was a long time ago for us. Sure was. No
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: recollection of this one either, buddy. So we are so
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: thrilled that you're joining us today, and we can't wait
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to hear what we said years ago about this. I
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: hope it's good. I hope it's good, too. Oh, my gosh.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Here we go. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: May God have mercy for my enemies, because I won't.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Ridiculous History. My name is Ben. That is
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a quote by George S. Patton Jr.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: My name is Noel, and that was a very grizzled
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: sounding impression there.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I liked it very much. Is that what he sounded like?
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's living life in the middle of wars, man.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: That's like a war voice.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: He is known as one of the most grizzled generals,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: as portrayed by, what is it, George C.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Scott? You got it. Yeah, Casey on the Case. That
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Casey on the Case is a nod to our super producer,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: That was a nice doubling up of those moments there, Ben.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I really liked that.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So who was General Patton, Ben? Great question. In addition
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to being the main character of today's strange, ridiculous anecdote,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: George Smith Patton Jr. was a general of the U.S.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Army who commanded the Seventh Army in World War II,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the Third Army in France and Germany after D-Day, the
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Allied invasion of Normandy in June of 1944. He also
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: makes an appearance in one of my favorite graphic novel series, Uber.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: which I highly recommend checking out if you are a
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: World War II buff, if you're a sci-fi buff, if
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: you just like good stories. He was born into a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: family with a very storied military background, both in the U.S.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Army and in the late Confederate Army. He went to
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: West Point. He studied fencing. He even designed the M1913
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Cavalry Sabre, more commonly known as the Patent Sabre today.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Fun fact about him, he competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I know, it's true.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: He was a triathlete, or excuse me, a pentathlete, swimming, riding, fencing, running,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: and shooting. Man, that is a real pentuple threat.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah. I mean, forget about Broadway, right? What do
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: they have, just triple threats? That's right. No, it's true.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: This was in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: What a guy.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: And on his way up to all of these accolades
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: that were later to come for Patton, he was one
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: of the inaugural members of the first ever United States
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Tank Corps established in 1917.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So he thought he would see more action with these
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: newly invented armored vehicles than he would if he had
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: just stayed with the infantry. And before the year had passed, 1917,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Patton becomes a colonel and he's sent to France. and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: he's ordered to find a good location in France to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: train people in the use of tanks. He finds a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: village named Bourg, B-O-U-R-G, and he says, you know what?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: This will do. That'll do, pig, because it has so
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: much mud that they can practice driving in. It's true.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: It turns out that Bourg's primary exports are fish and mud.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, is that true? No. Oh, okay. Oh, why are
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: we mentioning— the village and we didn't even check with you. Casey,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: can you illuminate the Francophone perspective on this village, Borg?
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Well, Borg is like a generic kind of word that
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: you see in lots of city names, like Luxembourg or something.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: It's like Pittsburgh that we see here in America. But
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: it just means basically it's like a village that's on
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: the larger side and features markets and would be sort
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: of a meeting place or a trading place for other
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: smaller villages nearby. So that's a Borg. But this one
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: is just called Borg. So they didn't bother specifying anything more,
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: you know, precise, just Berg.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: So it's like a town named town?
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Casey on the case. So it seems like a little
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: bit of an uncreative Berg, Borg here. But, you know,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: that makes sense why they would be so lousy with fish.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: And mud, but not a bad place to train tanksmen?
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: What do you call a tanker? Where are the fish
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: coming from? I don't know, just my imagination.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, they're along the water source. They're a little coastal, right?
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: What do you call a tank driver? Pilot. A pilot? No,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: you don't call them a pilot. You would call them
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a driver.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: The driver drives the tank, but they're not really in charge.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: They're just steering. They're following orders. Yes, they have a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: professional backseat driver called the commander. And they're in charge
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: of the whole tank. Ooh, that's got to get a
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: little bit awkward sometimes. A professional backseat driver. Well, yeah.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: But they're also in charge of telling the gunner and
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the loader what to do and communicating with the rest
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of it. Okay, so you got a gunner. They're not
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: just sitting there.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: You got a gunner, a loader, a driver, and a commander.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: So it's a four-person team in one of these things.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, or three if there's an auto loader installed because
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: then the loader doesn't need to be there. They would
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: just be watching the auto loader. But back to Patton.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Back to the Borg. No relation to the Borg from
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Star Trek. Must assimilate. Which I love. Yeah. You remember
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: when Picard gets taken by the Borg and turns into Locutus?
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: He gets Borg'd. You could tell he had some heft
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes at that point. because his face wasn't
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: really covered the way all the other Borg were. He
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: just got a little dealy bop on one of his temples.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: That's right. A little laser.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: He was like a high-ranking Borg.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, he was. He was. I think they even
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: made a film about it. Man, I forgot. I wonder
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: if the Borg aged well. I used to love the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: idea when I was a kid. But that's a story
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: for another day. Today's story still has us talking with Patton.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: He's found the perfect place to create his tank training school.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: And while he's there, something very strange happens. The mayor
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of Borg comes to Patton, and he is weeping, this mayor. Openly. Openly,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: because he feels terrible. I forgot to tell you, Colonel,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: he says to Patton, that there is an American soldier,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: one of your countrymen, who has died in this, our
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: small town.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: So Patton, like in a frenzy, he's like, oh, man,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: have I lost someone? Am I one man down? And
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: he looks through his ranks and finds that that is
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: not the case. But the mayor says, no, no, there's
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: definitely been a dead soldier that was left behind here.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: And there's a soldier's grave. I'm confused about this relationship here.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: What is he talking about? Why is he saying there's
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: a dead soldier that is from your company, a dead
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: soldier from a previous engagement here?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: A dead American soldier. That's what I mean. Right. Not
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: necessarily as specific as from America. your crew that you're
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: taking to train in tankery. He's alluding to other, some
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: other group of soldiers that passed by. Gotcha. And he
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: feels like he needs to inform them. But Patton, as
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: you said, Noel, he checks through, he says, well, all
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: of my people are fine. And the mayor insists, no, no, look,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: will you at least go visit this guy's grave? We
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: should also mention that Borg is a really small town
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: and like some other small towns in France, Borg's population
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: declined considerably during World War I and II. So this
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: is a very small place. And the mayor takes Patton
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: to this gravesite, to this quote-unquote gravesite. There's a mound
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of dirt. There's a stick posted in the ground at
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: one end and nailed crosswise on that stick such that
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: it forms a rustic-looking cross like you'd see on a grave. Sure.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: It's another piece of wood, and it has– what perhaps
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the mayor thought was the name of the fallen soldier.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: It's a strange name. It's not a very common name,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I would say, then or now for a person. The
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: name is Abandoned Rear.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Conjures so much imagery. So you've got the mud and
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: stacked on top of the mud. You got a pile
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: of dirt and shoved into the dirt.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: You got a stick.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: And then on the stick, there's a sign that says
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Abandoned Rear. And yeah, and the French mayor says, had
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: apparently made a little bit of a goof and thought
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: this sign was a cross, like you said.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Do we keep spinning this yarn, Ben, before we do
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: the big reveal, or how do we do this?
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Let's set the scene just a little bit. Oh, good call.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Because Patton's reading this, and, you know, he has probably
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: never heard of someone with that name. And we can
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: only speculate, my friends. We can only imagine, hopefully, optimistically,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that the French mayor is– is kind of weeping, you know,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: by this very straight-laced, somewhat bellicose officer, and then saying like, oh,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: can you imagine the life he could have led? The inhumanity,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the inhumanity of war. He was but a youth, a child. Oh,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: abandoned rear.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the French are known as being somewhat emotional.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Individuals, right?
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: You know, they like to weep openly while eating cheese
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: and drinking tiny cups of coffee.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Ooh, watch out. We have a lot of French listeners.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, French listeners. Goodness gracious. We don't want
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: to get the La Bouche contingent.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Hey, look, Americans only eat cheeseburgers. And drink large, big
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: gulp Coca-Colas. And what else do we do? We ride
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Segways everywhere we go.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: No, I don't know.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to stereotype everyone. That's going to be
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: my new thing I'm going to do on the show.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: That's your new thing? Mm-hmm. So what happened? What happened?
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Could you tell us the story of abandoned rear, Noel?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: How did this grave come to pass?
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, he certainly made a grave mistake in identifying
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: this spot as a grave because as it turns out,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: the mayor had made a terrible decision. It wasn't a
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: grave at all, but it was a latrine, a potty,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: a privy.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, a toilet. This latrine was dug in the woods.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: It's a very common part of camp hygiene here. To
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: bury your, you know, your leavings.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I went to Camp Hygiene when I was a kid.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: It was great.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: They taught you how to like brush your teeth and
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: put on deodorant and just stay nice and fresh.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Like is the bit you went to a place named
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Camp Hygiene? I went to Camp Hygiene. Oh, okay. Is
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: that a real thing?
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: No. Oh, okay. It's kind of like Space Camp, but
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: it's Camp Hygiene.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I see. Where they teach you good hygiene. Oh, man.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Space Camp.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I know, dude.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: I really did go to Space Camp.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I know you did. I went to Space Camp as well, Casey.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Which one did you go to?
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Huntsville.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I went to Huntsville as well.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Matt also went to space camp from our other show.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: I have not been to space camp, only camp hygiene.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: I feel like you didn't miss very much, Noel.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Did you do the gyroscope? I love the gyroscope.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: The gyroscope, you do the moonwalk, which is way cooler
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: than the Michael Jackson moonwalk. Moderately cooler than the Michael
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Jackson moonwalk. Contrary to what the 80s film would have
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: you believe, you don't actually accidentally end up in a
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: space shuttle. But I learned a lot. Yeah, I learned
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: a lot. Did you learn how to dig a latrine, Ben? Yeah,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I did that in Boy Scouts. Okay, well, that's what
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I learned in Camp Hygiene.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And that's what they were looking at that they thought
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: was a grave, but it wasn't fact. What does abandoned
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: rear mean? Does that mean we've– I don't understand. What
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: is abandoned rear?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: That's just what someone used to describe their leavings or
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: their latrine. Here's the thing. People find out about this
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: story in– Patton's autobiographical accounts, which he drew from his
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: diary entries. And he says that the French, when they
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: had taken this newly dug latrine for a cross, it
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't old. It was a freshly dug latrine. He decided
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: not to tell them the truth. So he just let
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: it ride or let it roll, I should say, as
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: he was into tanks at the time. And because he
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: didn't tell the residents of the town the truth about
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: this spot, But what do you think happened? Did they
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: just keep up with the grave? Because, you know, you
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: wouldn't desecrate a grave.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: No. And they had been up to that point. They
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: had been maintaining it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Right, right. And since he didn't tell them, we can
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: only assume that they didn't randomly decide to desecrate this grave.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: And now we come into a question of authenticity. Because
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the only record of this story is the general's autobiography.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: And this was incomplete at the time of his passing
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: in 1945. We have some questions, though. We have some questions,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: and we want to hear what you all think. If
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: you don't have a knowledge of French or English names,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: then maybe, you know, like maybe you could assume the
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: French mayor thought abandoned rear was a name that would
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: be common in the U.S. But the problem with that
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: is that the word abandon means the same thing in
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: both French and English. Isn't that right, Casey? Abandoné, yeah. Yeah,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Casey on the case. So maybe he thought abandoned was
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: a rank in the army?
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Ah, that makes sense, sure. Or like a defector of
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: some kind?
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, maybe it's like a
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: coward's death. Right, and yet they still treated it with
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the utmost respect. Didn't it also smell? How much dirt
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: did they put on it? You know how to dig
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: a latrine. You went to Camp Hygiene. Yeah. There's a
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: science to this and there are standards.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: You got to dig it at least five feet down.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't know.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Okay. I've got to come clean. Camp Hygiene is not
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: a real thing and I've never dug a latrine. I've
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: never even pooped outdoors, dude. Sorry.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: That you remember? That I remember. That I remember. Yeah.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: You're not a camper? You don't like to go camping?
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Well, look, I want to be more of a camper.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I want to be more of an outdoorsman. I am
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: trying to meet somebody in my private life who's really
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: into that because I tend to, you know, broaden my
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: horizons when I'm kind of like.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Do what the SO does. Do what the SO does, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: That's how I accidentally ended up vegetarian for like a decade. Nice.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: But I went back. Yeah. I went back. Meat's great. Actually,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: this is unrelated, but, you know, did I ever tell
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: you when I stopped becoming a vegetarian? Well, you had
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: become one at that point, I assume. I had been
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: one for several years, and then I started eating meat
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: again when I was in Central America. Because where I
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: was living, you know, people are being very gracious, making
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: you dinner or something. And it's very, I think it's
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: very privileged and pretty inconsiderate. To tell somebody that's worked
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: very hard on something, especially if they don't have a
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: lot to go around anyway, to be like, I'm too
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: good for this food that you've lovingly given me. Yeah,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I've got scruples.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: I can't have scruples when it comes to being prepared
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: a nice meal. No, no, it's a very good point.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like, I mean, especially when you're in
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: another country, you're trying to honor customs. It's very, maybe
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: if you don't even speak the language super well, it's
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: really hard to explain this without sounding like a kind
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: of an elitist jerk.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And maybe this is similar to– see, you thought
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: we weren't going anywhere with this, folks. But this is
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: not just a tangent. Maybe Patton was in a similar
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: situation where he said– because, again, the French mayor is pre-clemped.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: He's very upset. He's lacrimose would be a good word
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: for it. So maybe Patton says, it might be awkward
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: for me to explain to this guy that this is
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: clearly not a grave.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I don't want to upset him even further. That's right. Yeah.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I think the official term is shithole. Or I guess
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: maybe technically like a shith trough or a shith barrow.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: A trough?
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. A barrow implies mobility though, right?
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Like a wheelbarrow? Well, one of the old terms for
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: a barrow is a large mound of earth or stones,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: but that's over the remains of the dead, so I'm
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: probably conflating. You might be. My word of the day
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I walked away with for this one was lachrymose. I
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: love it. Which is a great word. This story doesn't
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: end just there, though. In 1944, during World War II,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: General Patton returned to Borg, the, as you said, Casey,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the town of town, and was given a hero's welcome.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: By the people who remembered him from the last time
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: he was there in 1917. And he relived memories. He
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: went to his old office. He went to where he
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: used to live back when he wasn't a huge deal general.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And then he said, wow, in 1944, the village is
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: still respectfully maintaining the grave of abandoned rear. Here's my question, Ben. Yeah.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Would it have been more polite– And ultimately less humiliating
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: to just tell the guy, tell the townsman, townspeople, that
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: it was in fact that they had made a mistake.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: So they didn't just keep up this charade for all
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: these lo these many years. What's more humiliating? You know,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: a moment of embarrassment or a lifetime of, you know,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: maintaining a latrine as though it were a grave.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I would say even further, what if the town of
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Borg is still doing this? What if he never told them?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: You don't think they read Snopes in Borg?
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, Snopes does
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: have an interesting article on this. There was one last
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: piece of speculation regarding how the mayor could have thought
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: it was a fallen soldier. Maybe the soldiers were in
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: a hurry and the soldier's last name was Rear. That
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: was their surname. And they just abandoned them there. And
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: then so it would be like, you know, the same
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: thing as abandoned pegram. I still think that's a stretch.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know what led the mayor to believe this.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: And it's not clear whether Patton felt sorry for the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: mayor or whether he just privately thought it was hilarious.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: The Snopes article does point out a really nice sort
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: of ironic little twist to the story of abandoned rear
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: that involves the general's own. battle record, let's say. He
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: was only ever injured in battle once during the Meuse-Argonne
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Offensive of September 1918, where he and five other foot
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: soldiers were charging into machine gun fire. And he was
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: the only one that survived. No, actually, four of his
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: companions were killed. One of them was okay. He got
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: hit in the thigh and this is from his memoir. Quote,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: It came out just at the crack of my bottom,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: about two inches to the left of my rectum. Yeah,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: that's what he said. The doctor said that, quote, he
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: can't see how the bullet went where it did without
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: crippling me for life. He says he could not have
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: run a probe without getting either the hip joint, sciatic nerve,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: or the big artery, yet none of these were touched.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Fate again.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I have never had any pain and can walk perfectly.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: So it makes me think of that million-dollar injury, the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: way they would describe it in the Vietnam War or something.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Like in Forrest Gump, you win the lottery once, by
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: getting shot in a way that takes you out of
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the war zone, but doesn't ruin your life. I think
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Forrest also got shot in the keister. In the buttocks. Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: And he shows it to the, to the president in that, uh,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: really pretty well doctored CGI footage.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He showed his buttocks to, um, Lyndon Johnson, right?
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I think because Johnson says he'd like to see his
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: gunshot wound. Oh, also this goes back to our old
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: episode on, uh, what, uh, terrible person what a real
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: pill lyndon johnson was he had i think he was
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the president who had a creepy thing for scars.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah maybe so and he also like didn't he get
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: his pants uh tailored in a certain way to make
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: room for his bunghole wasn't he into butts as well
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: yeah yeah uh.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah i've gotta i've gotta figure out who that was
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: that's yeah it was lbj i just i just looked
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: at the clip on youtube there's even a reaction shot
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: where forrest kind of shows in the bullet wound and
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: uh LBJ sort of has a great reaction to it.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Damn son. Yeah, exactly. So there you have it. If
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: we were to draw a moral from this story, uh, what,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: what would it be? Is it sometimes that it's the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: thought that counts? Can we say that? Like they, it's
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: what's inside that counts. Yeah, there we go. Uh, because
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the community of the town thought they were doing the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: right thing, but what was actually inside was not the, um,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the fallen soldier they were expecting. You know what this
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: makes me think? I would love to hear more about
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: strange monuments, strange statues. There's so many. I had been
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: talking off air with some of my friends before, I
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: think with you guys as well in the past, about
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the idea of getting a statue built to yourself. Like
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: who does that? Isn't that something where someone else should
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: build the statue for you? Like they should spontaneously love
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: your work Totally. Back when our office was in Buckhead,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: which is a different neighborhood from where we are currently based,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: there was a statue for, I believe, the founder of
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the Peace Corps, which was between our office and the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Toys R Us. Did you ever walk that way, Casey?
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Do you remember what I'm talking about?
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I don't remember the Peace Corps guy statue. I remember
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: there's a Michael Stipe.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: The foxes. Yeah. A bunch of foxes. That's right. Yeah. Oh, man,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: we need more statues here. I'm a big fan of statues.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Me too.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: In my hometown, there's a true-to-life James Brown statue because
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: that's where he was born. But he appears very short,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: but apparently is his exact size.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: It's weird. At a town where a lot of my
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: family's from, my grandfather actually made tons of the statues
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: around town, like the ones in banks and in airports
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I think he made some busts
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: of U.S. presidents too, but I don't know if he
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: ever met Lyndon Johnson. I'll have to find out and
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: update if we can find any more weird presidential or
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Patton-esque trivia. In the meantime, let us all take this
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: as a lesson in your neck of the global woods.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: If you have a mysterious local monument, do some digging.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe not literal. That might be illegal. But do some
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: research and see if it is, in fact, what it
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: purports to be. Agreed.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: If you want to tell us some stories about some
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: grave mix-ups... You can write to us at ridiculous at
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: iheartradio.com or you can hit us up on our Facebook group,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: which is The Ridiculous Historians. I think all you have
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: to do is answer a very simple question, which is
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: who are.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: The hosts of Ridiculous History?
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: It could be me. It could be Ben. It could
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: be Casey on the case.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Or just make us laugh. I mean, if you make
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: me laugh, I'm going to let you in. Yeah, you're
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: in like Flynn. You can also find us as a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: show and as individuals on Twitter, on Instagram at I
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: am on Twitter as at Ben Bolin HSW, but me
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and Noel both do Instagram. You can find my various adventures, misadventures,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: and shenaniganry, which is a word I just made up,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: on at Ben Bolin.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: You can find me at HowNowNoelBrown.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Big, big, big thanks to Ryan Barish, to Gabe Luzier,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: to Christopher Haciotis, to you, Noel, and to you, Casey.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Thanks, Ben.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Thanks to you as well. Thanks to Alex Williams who
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: composed our theme. And thanks to you, kind, gentle listeners
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: of the internet. We will see you next time.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And thanks to you, abandoned rear. Casey, can we play
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: some memorial music for him?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.