Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Come home when Taps plays
Home by Taps
That was the rule McRaven's mother set, and it left a boy a whole day outdoors to find out what was going on in the woods, the neighborhood, and the canyons. His parents belonged to the greatest generation and were not helicopter parents. They would rather have a curious boy who climbed trees and broke into ammunition storage points than a sheltered one, even when the curiosity got him into trouble.
Questions about Texas
The curiosity grew outward. The family had lived in France, and when he came back to Texas in 1963, Texas was not France: it was the Deep South, with segregation, and he didn't understand it or like it. He wanted to understand social issues.
Curiosity in uniform
The military asked for the same trait every minute of the day. An officer has to find out how the enemy thinks, how allies think, how artillery works, and how a bomb coming out of an F-18 works. Someone who lacks curiosity ends up in a situation with no answer and no idea where to go to get one, and knowing where the solution lies is as important as the answer.
How did Taps become the bugle call?
Union General Daniel Butterfield and his brigade bugler Oliver Norton are credited with the melody, which came together at Harrison's Landing, Virginia, in July 1862. It replaced an older call for putting out lights at night. The melody spread to other units and was adopted across the army. Army regulations made it part of military funerals in 1891.
Why was Texas segregated in 1963?
Segregation in Texas rested on state and local laws, many dating from the decades after the Civil War. The Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, but many Texas districts desegregated slowly. Public places such as restaurants, theaters, and hotels often stayed segregated into the early 1960s. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned segregation in public accommodations.
More from Not Dead Yet
