Battlefield

The proud lieutenant commander of the Smithfield Light Infantry of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is John M. Booker, a burly retired veterinarian with a trove of Civil War books and an abiding fascination with all things Confederate. Since 2006, Booker has devoted himself to erecting a statue of Joseph E. Johnston, the last Confederate general to mount an effective fight against Union forces. Johnston ultimately surrendered to Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman after the pivotal Battle of Bentonville, fought in March 1865 on a site a few miles from Booker's white-columned Greek Revival home.

Most writers can only daydream about meeting - in the flesh - the characters they've imagined. But for Ernest Hemingway, one afternoon in Key West, Fla., it came close to actually happening. One day when the writer was in his mid-30s, hanging out at a local fisherman's bar, he spotted a woman uncannily similar to the strong-willed, sexually liberated heartbreaker from his first novel. "It's as if, borne on the sea foam, she emerged - out of his own mind," says director Phil Kaufman.

With a light breeze rustling a Confederate flag, the remains of a soldier known only as "Rebel Butler" were buried Saturday, 132 years after he died in one of the Civil War's fiercest battles. Men in gray wool uniforms and women in black veils dropped clods of red clay onto a tiny coffin containing a skull that was found on the battlefield at Spotsylvania Courthouse and carried home as a memento by a Union soldier.

It took just a few months of combat for Tuareg rebels in Mali, battle-hardened by their time fighting for Libya's late leader Moammar Kadafi, to achieve a century-old dream: conquering a huge swath of northern Mali that they see as their homeland. Even if the rebels never win international recognition, their battlefield successes have in effect partitioned the West African nation. Neither the country's new military junta nor leaders of neighboring nations appear capable of overturning the recent gains by the rebels, analysts say. After a military coup in March that toppled the government a month before elections, the main Tuareg rebels took several key cities, including Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, a stunning advance that saw the collapse of Mali's army in the north.

Last month, when University of Southern California wide receiver Garrett Green bobbled the football on a key play against Washington State, red flags went up among the Trojans' athletic trainers on the sidelines. Only minutes before, Green had tackled an opponent -- hard -- on a kickoff return. His sudden lack of coordination struck team trainer Russ Romano as a pretty likely sign of concussion. Romano called Green to the sidelines, asked him a few quick questions and got back answers confused enough to take the senior from Chatsworth out of the game.

It is war unlike any other that has been fought. True, combatants meet on a "battlefield" where, for all appearances, they blast away at one another from tanks, airplanes and helicopters. But fighting alongside the troops are robots. Invisible, ghostly observers can move back and forth in time, soar over the battlefield in "flying carpets" and infiltrate tanks, unnoticed by the vehicles' occupants. No one dies or even gets hurt. Welcome to the virtual war, now being fought in high-tech simulators in the United States and Germany.

I thoroughly enjoyed James T. Yenckel's article on Gettysburg, Pa. ("The Civil War Revisited," Oct. 1). Not only did he remind me of my memorable trip to the battlefield in 1983, but he also spurred me on to plan a return visit for next year. STEVE CAREY Burbank

Harry G. Summers Jr.'s Column Right (June 6) parrots prevailing ideology with pretensions to insight. "Judge the War by Things That Didn't Happen," the headline instructs. Pure Orwellian sophistry. The subhead, "Was Hussein a nascent Hitler? Fortunately we'll never know," begs another question. "Would any of the countless peace proposals put forward have worked?" Unfortunately, we'll never know. He says the ratio of U.S. to Iraq battlefield casualties seems "just about right."

I just read Charles Perry's well-written article on Livingston, Mont. ["When Big Sky Country Turns Luminescent," Western Travel, Aug. 13]. I taught school in nearby Big Timber many years ago, and I remember the area being exactly as he described. In September, my husband, son and I are planning a trip to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument southeast of Billings. Thanks to Perry's article, I think we'll make a side trip to Livingston. CAROL CLARK Los Feliz

It is almost impossible to imagine a more poorly thought out and more illogical and more disrespectful article regarding the sanctity of every national park and historical park than that written by McCarthy regarding the attempt to preserve the integrity of the Manassas-Bull Run battlefield in Virginia. Does McCarthy really feel that "Manassas is not worth protecting?" Does he really feel that every memorial to those who fought and died for this country is "not worth protecting?"

Eisenhower in War and Peace Jean Edward Smith Random House: 944 pp., $40 Jean Edward Smith's massive work, the first comprehensive biography of Dwight D. Eisenhowersince Stephen Ambrose's two-volume work in the 1980s, joins a flurry of recent books - grandson David Eisenhower's affectionate memoir ("Going Home to Glory"), L.A. Times editor at large Jim Newton's presidential portrait ("Eisenhower: The White House Years"), and scholar David A. Nichols' study of the Suez crisis ("Eisenhower 1956")

  A shrunken field of GOP presidential hopefuls descended on New Hampshire on Wednesday, the next test in the party's nominating fight, as Mitt Romney sought to bolster his status as front-runner and establishment favorite. A day after winning the Iowa caucuses by the slimmest margin in history - eight votes - Romney signaled that party ranks were closing and used a morning TV interview to contrast the breadth and strength of his campaign with the hand-to-mouth candidacy of Rick Santorum, Iowa's runner-up.

Battlefield technology is coming to the streets of Los Angeles County. Starting this month, one of the nation's major military contractors is outfitting the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department's patrol cars with sophisticated computer systems and high-tech gadgetry that has been perfected for the battlefield. At a total cost to taxpayers of $20 million, Raytheon Co. promises to deliver technology that will enable deputies on the road to sort through key intelligence information in mere seconds, where it once took hours or days.

Over the centuries, at the same time military might has been building borders, shaping national identities and protecting ways of life, it's also been building our wardrobes, shaping our silhouettes and taking fledgling brands to the front lines of fashion — for men and women. Indeed, war's contributions to the world's closets are too numerous for a definitive list — bomber jackets, combat boots, epaulets, raglan sleeves and pea coats, anyone? But here are a few highlights. Khaki trousers: The beige twill trousers known as "khakis" (derived from the Hindi word for dust)

A wall-mounted computer screen in the call center at L.A. County/USC Medical Center showed the emergency room was full. Ambulances were supposed to take patients elsewhere on this Friday night. But they kept coming — some because it was the closest ER, others because the injuries were so severe only a trauma center could handle them. "We get them from outside hospitals, from clinics, from the field, from the jail, from police, from everywhere — everywhere," said Alma Aviles, a nurse supervisor.

Military mobile apps may one day help soldiers on the battlefield. Engineers and researchers at Boeing Co. and MIT have developed an iPhone application to fly a miniature drone rotorcraft from some 3,000 miles away. It just takes a few taps and swipes of the operator's finger in Seattle to make a drone at a baseball field on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Mass., start to hover, rotate and zip around. "These applications could allow [drones] to be used more effectively for tasks that are dirty or dangerous, as well as for missions that may be too long and tedious to have a human be continuously at the controls," the company said on its website.

I must take issue with Charles William Maynes (Opinion, Dec. 29). He wrote, "A small nation, Vietnam, defeated the United States on the battlefield." This is nonsense, and his attempt to rewrite history is transparent and despicable. Vietnam did not defeat the United States on the battlefield. Not once in 10 years of fire and maneuver, atrocity and sabotage, did North Vietnam's forces achieve a decisive military victory against those of the United States. Not even during Tet in 1968.

Charles Rutherford, 97, a Canadian who was the last surviving holder of the Victoria Cross in World War I. An obituary, published in London's Daily Telegraph, said Rutherford won the medal Aug. 26, 1918, when the Canadian platoon he was commanding captured a French village giving observers a view of the defenses of the German Hindenberg Line. Only 18 days earlier, Rutherford had won the coveted Military Cross for bravery by capturing another village on Aug. 8, when the Allied offensive that would end the war began that day in front of Amiens.

Twenty-six combat veterans launched academic careers Saturday with a weekend excursion to the San Jacinto Mountains. They were members of the Veterans' Learning Collaborative at Pasadena City College, a new program designed to help veterans adjust to the challenges of higher education and overcome the physical injuries and lingering anxieties of battlefield service. "The move from military to college is a natural transition, but a difficult one," said Harold Martin, an associate professor of psychology at the college and a member of the program.

As the Libyan war grinds on across three fronts and rebel forces find themselves pinned down on their own territory outside two strategic eastern oil cities, the rebels' most resolute European ally, France, is insisting that they negotiate with Moammar Kadafi to peacefully end their 5-month-old uprising. Yet the rebels are sticking to their guns — literally. They're convinced that victory is inevitable and adamantly refuse to negotiate directly with Kadafi even as the French government contends that the Libyan leader is seeking ways to relinquish power.