Broken Bridges:

We salute with our right hands because medieval knights wore their sheaths on the left side and drew their swords up to the right as a sign of respect to other warriors. Today in class, Major Catazaro asked us, "Does anyone know why we are the only country in the world to salute with our right hand?" This took me offguard because I already knew of the old tale going back to the knights and certainly did not realize we are the only country that does so. Because of this I hesitated to answer. It turned out I was not the only person with some level of confusion. Nobody replied and she supplied the answer, "because we are the only country in the world that has never lost a war." I did not quite understand the concept, but because it was stated as such an obvious and direct fact, I did not feel like raising the issue or asking for further explanation. Am I to assume that every other country that has lost some battle in the distant past salutes with their left arm to reflect their shame. That is the only way I understood how to take it since our books explain the salute as a position of honor. I was also curious as to how this relates to the concept of Vietnam. Through our studies thus far, that is a war we lost as far as I understand, so should we not lose this right-handed saluting privelage as well? Or is this overlooked due to some pulling out clause or treaty? This is certainly a topic that I plan to research further though. Also of interest, my science teacher explained that when marching across bridges, military personal do not step on cadence because they would match the bridges natural frequency or vibrations (I forget exactly how he phrased it), and this would cause the bridge to collapse. Now I will be one step ahead of the game when we cover marching across bridges in drill!!! :)