Re: The Times and the Spanish American and Philippine Wars

In a message dated 1/5/2006 12:21:50 PM Mountain Standard Time,

I suppose it's always possible that Albert the Elusive was sent on a
training course or something like that.

Or on one of his horse riding exhibitions???

Charani...

Perhaps: would they have had an exhibition whilst they had a war on??

singhals...

Sure. For one thing, there was no draft for the Span-Am, it was, except
for the career officers, an all voluntee effort. It was too soon after
The Late Unpleasantness for a lot of folks to be excited about
volunteering to get shot at, so there was a largish but not overly
successful recruitment effort made.

Charani...

So Albert could have been anywhere in the country on a recruitment
drive. Doing an exhibition ride could have been seen as a way to
entice younger men to join up more for that reason than getting shot
at. Convoluted thinking, but not impossible.

It might also be that he had an accident of some kind that precluded
him from being sent to the Philippines with the rest of his regiment
at the time.

I wonder if he could have been "detached" as part of a recruitment
drive.

mary lou