He resigned to end what was called the ‘Great Western Schism,’ when Christendom was divided by rival Popes.

“This was a way of restoring unity to a divided church,” says James Bretzke.

Father Bretzke is a professor of moral theology at Boston College.

“He was considered to be a noble person in stepping down,” Bretzke adds. “The Pope that had stepped down much earlier was cast by Dante into Inferno for stepping down. But Pope Gregory they considered that to be a noble move.”

The trains are no exception, and the Swiss are justly proud of their rail service.

But that love affair is turning sour, because of a seemingly minor change in ticketing policy.

A year ago the rail company prohibited the purchase of tickets on trains.

You can buy a ticket from a machine on the platform or by using your smartphone.

But this has led to problems.

For example, the BBC’s Imogen Foulkes was fined $210 after she bought a ticket with her phone.

Her credit card transaction did not clear until after the train had left the station, so the ticket was deemed “invalid.”

This kind of apparent injustice is affecting about 1,000 people per day, and the rail company is making an additional $2 million in revenue per month.

But Foulkes – who’s lived and worked in Switzerland for years – says the revenue is coming at the cost of customer goodwill.

Foulkes says she’s disputing the charge.

They claimed it was retaliation for the French intervention in Mali.

They seized a large gas facility and took hundreds of local and foreign workers hostage.

Algerian government forces immediately launched an offensive against the militants.

In the ensuing violence, some 37 hostages died.

The BBC’s Richard Galpin was among the first western journalists to visit the facility since the hostage crisis.

“It’s pretty heavily damaged,” says Galpin, especially in the accommodation area, which was the first place attacked.”

“There is growing evidence that this was some kind of inside job,” Galpin adds. “They knew exactly where they were going … and appear to have known about a meeting of executives that was taking place.”

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Marco Werman: It’s been about two weeks since Islamic militants launched an attack in neighboring Algeria. They claimed it was retaliation for the French intervention in Mali. They seized a large gas facility as you recall and took hundreds of local and foreign workers hostage. Algerian government forces immediately launched an offensive against the militants in the ensuing violence some 37 hostages died. The BBC’s Richard Galpin went to the site yesterday. He’s back in Algiers and he was among the first western journalists to visit the facility since the hostage crisis. Richard, tell us, first of all, what does it look like right now?

Richard Galpin: Well there’s still… you can see the evidence of the fighting which took place there. In the accommodation block, the chunks of concrete missing… it’s been hit by shrapnel and by heavy caliber weapons. And then, we also went to the main gas compressing facility. And there you could, again, see damage; there’s fire damage, which apparently was caused by an explosion, in which a lot of hostages were killed, a bomb deliberately detonated by the militants to kill a group of hostages who’d been chained or strapped to the metal structure there.

Werman: So Richard, some people have been pointing to the possibility of this attack by these militants on the gas plant as being an inside job, a lot of speculation around that. What is the evidence?

Galpin: Well, I mean, I think there’s quite a bit of evidence. We spoke to the man who’s a general manager actually from the Algerian oil company who was one of the first people to be caught by the militants when they attacked the accommodation block. And he said that they knew there was a VIP area and they got just slightly confused about exactly where it was, and obviously under pressure he had to reveal the location. Another employee from BP, who was also briefly taken hostage but managed to talk his way out because he was Algerian, he also said the same thing to us, saying that they knew exactly where they were going. They clearly had very, very good information. The other thing that people point to, but we’re less sure about this, is that there was a meeting of senior executives, some of whom had flown in from abroad for a meeting about extending the plant. So, some people point to this, that perhaps the timing was no coincidence. And there are also reports that the local employees had not been particularly carefully vetted and one person who was employed at the plant was the brother of a leading radical Jihadist, Islamist, who could have had links with the people who carried out the attack.

Werman: Right, all very suspicious but none of it fully confirmed yet, as you pointed out. Now, one thing I think many people who follow the hostage crisis might not realize is just the utter remoteness of this plant. How long did it take you to get there, because I’m looking at a map of Algeria, it looks like from Algiers to Southern Algeria is about New York City to Miami Beach practically.

Galpin: It’s a very, very long way. And I think if I remember correctly, the local journalist we’d been working…. with here was saying that it is nearer to fly from Algiers to London than it is to go from Algiers to the far south of the country.

Werman: Wow.

Galpin: So it gives you a size. It is a huge country. It’s right in the heart of the Sahara. Very, very remote area. It is sand dunes, it is sand and rock, and that is basically it.

Werman: The BBC’s Richard Galpin back in Algiers after having visited the gas facility attacked in south east Algeria last month. Thank you very much for your time.

Galpin: Thank you.

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And it’s frightening when you realize just how vulnerable we all are.

The story about alleged Chinese cyberattacks on the New York Times is a case in point.

The Times published a front-page story on Thursday that Chinese hackers repeatedly infiltrated its systems over four months this past fall.

It coincided with a Times investigation into the billions of dollars amassed by the family of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for the cyber security company F-Secure, says it fits the profile of other Chinese attacks.

“This was a targeted attack,” says Hypponen. “They were after information, specifically journalists’ contacts (in China).”

No-one can be sure what they got, adds Hypponen. “Even the Times may not know.”

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is “The World”, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. Cyber security is something of an oxymoron and it’s frightening when you realize just how vulnerable we all are. The story about alleged Chinese cyber attacks on The New York Times is a case in point. The Times published a front page story today that Chinese hackers repeatedly infiltrated its systems over four months this past fall. It coincided with a Times investigation into the billions of dollars amassed by the family of China’s premier, Wen Jiabao. Mikko Hypponen is chief research officer for the cyber security company, F-Secure in Helsinki. So in a nutshell, Mikko, what happened at The New York Times?

Mikko Hypponen: We call these targeted attacks. Sometimes labeled as APT attacks which means Advanced Persistent Threat. And this means, these are attacks which are not trying to hit just anybody. The attack from the very beginning and the motives and the backdoors used in the attack, were created just to target one single target. In this case, The New York Times.

Werman: And it could have been a lot worse, according to The Times Chief information Officer. They could have wreaked havoc, apparently they didn’t. What were they after?

Hypponen: They were after information. We believe they were trying to figure out where the information was leaking from China to these journalists. Basically, they were trying to find their contacts. If the attackers would have been interested in money, they could have gone after the credit card information of New York Times subscribers or information like that. Or if they wanted to cause chaos, they could have tried to prevent The New York Times from getting published. But that’s what they wanted to do. They wanted to get information.

Werman: Right, and what did they get?

Hypponen: Well, we don’t know all the details. It’s possible The New York Times doesn’t know either. They were in for several months. We know that gained access to every single password of The New York Times’ journalists as well as access to home computers of over 50 New York Times’ journalists. They had really wide ranging access to critical information.

Werman: Now, China has denied involvement. Why is The New York Times sure it was the Chinese military? Is that going to fit with your research?

Hypponen: Well, they say it’s the Chinese and they implicate the Chinese intelligence or Chinese military but they can’t really, apparently, prove that. Really, who else would have been interested in a similar way and when the timing fits so well with the news that they published and because we know China has been doing similar attacks in the past. For example, they attacked Google a little over two years ago. So when you add them together it’s the most likely attacker.

Werman: So The New York Times and its cyber security company, Mandiant, played it pretty cool and didn’t shut down everything immediately. Is that what you would have done?

Hypponen: Yes, that’s what we hope to gain. In many cases, where there is a breech, and the target learns that they have been breached, especially the top management typically just wants everybody to be kicked out and get rid of the hackers, and save us. That’s not the most beneficial thing to do. If you can isolate them, and if you can monitor what they are trying to do, you can learn a lot. And in many cases if you just blindly try to throw them away, they might have left some back door somewhere that you can’t find and then they’ll get back in.

Werman: What do you mean by a back door?

Hypponen: Backdoor as in a service riding on some of the servers of the organization which was hit, so that the outsiders can get back in. So basically you believe you know how they got in and you close that hole, but as soon as they got in originally, they created a new hole somewhere else which you might not be aware of.

Werman: How unusual is this kind of attack on a news organization?

Hypponen: News organizations are not the prime target. When we look at similar attacks, which we have been analyzing since almost 2005, so as a phenomenon, targeted attacks are not a new thing. But most of the targets that we see getting hit by attacks like this are typically defense contractors or government entities, politicians, parliaments, embassies. And then also human rights organizations and freedom of speech organizations, especially groups which support different kinds of minorities inside China. And that’s once again one of the reasons why China gets blamed for attacks like this.

Werman: Cyber security expert, Mikko Hypponen, thank you very much.

Hypponen: Thank you.

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Rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad lack heavy weapons.

So they’re trying to compensate with home-made bombs, what American forces in Iraq would have called improvised explosive devices or IEDs.

The BBC’s James Reynolds has just been to a rebel bomb factory in Turkey, just across the border from Syria.

Reynolds says these are small home-made devices, intended for use against the Syrian army.

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Marco Werman: Whatever the true nature of the reported Israeli strikes, Syria remains locked in a full-on civil war. Rebels opposed to President Assad lack heavy weapons, so they are trying to compensate with homemade bombs, what American forces in Iraq would have called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. The BBC’s James Reynolds has just been to a rebel bomb factory in Turkey, just across the border from Syria. So James, paint a picture for us. What does this place look like?

James Reynolds: Imagine a beaten up old farmhouse, and inside on the stone floors you have wooden tables, and on those wooden tables you’ve got piles and piles of ingredients. We didn’t look too closely at them, but the bomb makers assured us that they were pretty safe. They contained the ingredients they needed to make the explosives. They spent some time on the ground with a mallet trying to shatter a bottle of ice, because they needed that ice in order to help cool some of the ingredients. When we were there we watched them mix the early stages of nitro glycerin.

Werman: So are these military grade explosives they’re using or are they kind of starting from scratch and improvising with do-it-yourself chemistry experiments?

Reynolds: To me, as a non-expert observer, it looked more like homemade style explosives They said that they were able to get some of the ingredients they needed from informal networks that they built up over the last year or so.

Werman: So in order to build bombs, you need someone who knows how to do it. Where is the training coming from for bomb making?

Reynolds: It comes from what they learned having been soldiers in President Assad’s army, in the many years before 2011 when the uprising began. One of the people I was speaking to said that that’s where he learned what he was doing and he was trying to pass on his knowledge to others. There was another man in the three-strong team that I met called Abu Achmed, who was actually a business graduate. He’d studied business at university in Syria, and the expert bomb maker was going to spend a month with Abu Achmed, the business graduate, to teach him the skill of bomb making.

Werman: How do the Syrian rebels hope to use these bombs they are making? Against people, or buildings, or against the Syrian army?

Reynolds: Against the army, and that was a question I asked several times. I even said how do you know that you’re not going to be killing innocent men, women and children with these bombs. One of the bomb makers, Abu Achmed, he showed me a sign he had. Essentially it said in Arabic, attention, warning. He said they would put that sign, they would stick that sign up to warn civilians not to approach the area. Now that can only work if you have total control of the area. It’s not much good in a fluid situation, and I think there will be much greater scrutiny of the rebels as the conflict continues, as perhaps their weaponry increases and people begin to ask questions about where they’re placing the explosives and who is killed when those explosives go off. I think those questions are only just beginning as the rebels get stronger.

Werman: There have been some targeted and indiscriminate bombings in pro-Assad neighborhoods. Did you discuss this at the bomb factory with any of the volunteers there?

Reynolds: No, this was on a much more rudimentary level, the kind of bombs we were looking at, and certainly they, they actually said, interestingly, that they didn’t make any suicide vests and that they were certainly not after carrying out the kind of attacks that we’ve seen carried out by the Nusra fronts. That’s a front which certainly Western intelligence agencies believe is inspired by al-Qaeda, which has carried out a number of indiscriminate, people would say, suicide attacks against government targets in the last year or so. These people said that they were trying to carry out targeted attacks against military targets, so there is a differentiation there.

Werman: The BBC’s James Reynolds in southern Turkey, just across the border from Syria. Thank you very much.

Reynolds: My pleasure.

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French and Malian government forces entered the ancient city on Monday.

Islamist rebels are reported to be dispersing and avoiding direct conflict.

Reports say Timbuktu’s ancient library was set on fire by rebels, but as of 2 p.m. ET Monday, there’s no independent confirmation of this.

What is known for sure is that some women in liberated areas are throwing off the hijab.

Peter Tinti is a freelance reporter In Mali.

He’s been in touch with people in the newly liberated city of Gao.

“People there are ecstatic,” says Tinti. “I could hear drums playing in the background. People out in the streets. People using rhetoric like ‘we’re finally free’, and ‘finally I can breathe.’”

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. The legendary city of Timbuktu is now at the center of the conflict in Mali. Today, French and Malian government forces entered the ancient city. The Islamist rebels who had controlled Timbuktu have apparently fled, but before leaving the rebels reportedly set fire to an ancient library in the city. There’s no independent confirmation though. Peter Tinti is a freelance reporter in Mali. He’s currently in the center of the country and has been in touch with people in Gao, another city that’s just been rested from rebel control.

Peter Tinti: People there were ecstatic. I could hear the drum playing in the background. People were out in the streets. People were using you know, the type of rhetoric that “Finally we’re free, finally I can breathe.” So it seems like there was quite a party going on in that city as thousands of people cheered the arrival of French and Malian troops.

Werman: Right, so people screaming “Finally we’re free.” So is there any evidence of a political offensive to bring the non Islamist Tuaregs back into the fold of Mali?

Tinti: Well, at present, no. It’s not clear what role the MNLA, which is the separatist Tuareg group that more or less started this rebellion and was then later hijacked by the Islamist groups, political reconciliation is going to take time. Many people in southern Mali and many people in northern Mali also consider the MNLA to be a group not worth negotiating with and are quick to lump them in with the Islamist groups and blame them for more or less kicking this whole thing off.

Werman: Peter, let’s talk briefly about the ancient library in Timbuktu. You have spoken with the mayor of Timbuktu, who’s in Bamako, I gather. What does he say?

Tinti: Well, the mayor told me, as he’s told many outlets, that the library has been burned down. This is a very important part of Timbuktu’s culture and really a world treasure. That said, he is in Bamako and we haven’t been able to get any second confirmation on that. And while I think it’s safe to say that we should all be concerned about the possible damage to these manuscripts, I think it might be a bit premature to go ahead and assume that this library has been burned down.

Werman: It is a pretty extraordinary font of information and history there.

Tinti: We’re talking about manuscripts from as far back as the 12th and 13th centuries that are texts of astronomy, science, philosophy. Back when Timbuktu was really the center of world learning. And you know, we don’t know if this particular library has actually been burnt, but we do know that parts of Timbuktu in the last however many months has been destroyed and some of this rich history has been lost. So it’s certainly not unthinkable that this might have happened and it really would be a tragedy.

Werman: Peter, I’ve gotta say so far this conflict in Mali has been a hard war to visualize. Has there been much fighting or has it been mostly French planes bombing and Islamist rebels retreating?

Tinti: You’re absolutely right. Access has been very hard here and you know, reporters who are veterans of other conflicts have you know, confirmed that this is actually the hardest it’s ever been to get near any of the fronts. From the towns I’ve been able to visit that were liberated, all the citizens are saying that the Islamists fled after the bombing. So it appears that most of this has been an aerial assault. French special forces have certainly been operating. French troops are on the ground, but by and large this has been an air campaign that has caused a retreat by the Islamists.

Werman: Freelance reporter Peter Tinti in Sevareid in central Mali, thank you for your time and please be safe.

Tinti: Thank you.

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Mathieu Aikins wrote the piece about what he says is a bubble in Kabul.

The title is “Kabubble.”

Scenes of crass conspicuous consumption, alongside highly inflated prices for land and goods and services are unsustainable, he argues.

And, he says, a crash is inevitable, probably as soon as the majority of foreign forces leave Afghanistan in 2014.

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Marco Werman: A new article in Harper’s Magazine highlights some huge distortions in the economy of Kabul, Afghanistan. Scenes of crass conspicuous consumption, highly inflated prices for land and goods and unsustainable public services. A crash is inevitable, the article argues, probably as soon as the majority of foreign forces leave Afghanistan in 2014. Matthieu Aikins wrote the piece about Kabul’s economic bubble or as the title puts it, Kabubble.

Matthieu Aikins: There was a World Bank report last year called Afghanistan one of the most aid-dependent countries in the world, in history, really. So this is both military and development spending. Some of it is direct aid and some of it is just the inevitable billions that surge into an economy when you have hundreds of thousands of foreign troops and contractors deployed there.

Werman: So what happens when the international forces pull out as scheduled in 2014.

Aikins: Well, what the article tries to layout is that it’s almost like a law of gravity–what goes up, must go down. And the sort of structural impact of this amount of money withdrawing from the country is guaranteed to have somewhat drastic effects.

Werman: What I find really interesting in your Harper’s article is kind of where the money has gone to, and according to your report, there’s a clear hierarchy of wealth these days in Kabul. Who’s at the top and what are the levels below it?

Aikins: Well, let’s talk about the Afghans. You have the Afghan contractors, and politicians, and big businessmen who’ve had access to these million dollar contracts, right? They’re driving around in armored land cruisers with armed guards and they’re living in palatial so-called poppy palaces and tower

Werman: Poppy palaces because of allegedly those palaces have been built with opium proceeds?

Aikins: Right, the second largest source of the Afghan economy after international spending is the fact that it produces 90% of the world’s opium.

Werman: Who’s below that level?

Aikins: So below that level you have what is I guess in terms of the country as a whole, a very tiny group, but in a relative sense within Kabul, at least a sizable contingent of professionals, you know, who are making international salaries working for foreign NGOs or embassies. And they’re actually gonna be the ones who are gonna be the most drastically affected by this pullout because it’s just not a reality that a country like Afghanistan, which has a per capita GP of $103 a year, you’re gonna be able to find tons of jobs that pay $10,000 or $5,000 a month.

Werman: Now, you report that a lot of money is leaving the country. Tell us what you actually saw and were these legal or illegal transfers of money?

Aikins: Well, one of the figures that’s mentioned in the article that I’m not mistaken, four and a half billion dollars in cash left the country in one year. And this was

Werman: Recently or a while ago?

Aikins: Yeah, I believe it was, I believe it was 2010. And that’s legal money that was declared at the Kabul airport.

Werman: Is the Afghan airport doing anything to placate foreign donors who might be upset by this reality?

Aikins: Yeah, they’re, it’s always a balancing act. They are announcing various corruption bodies and always sort of talking about how they’re gonna change things, but the reality is that the situation is not gonna change until the money finally dries up.

Werman: Now there’s one place anyway in your report where a lot of money does stay in Kabul and that’s at glitzy wedding receptions. This is the way the Joneses in Kabul keep up with each other now?

Aikins: Yeah, Afghan culture isn’t a very public one. You know, most of their life takes place, at least the family life, takes place inside the home. They don’t go out to restaurants very often and there’s certainly no nightclubs or you know, it’s a conservative culture. But the one occasion for really letting it all hang out are these giant wedding parties, which are sort of an occasion to display your social status and wealth, right? So this is in tandem with the bubble economy really gotten out of control with people dropping tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on lavish wedding ceremonies and these glittering, neon-lit cavernous wedding halls which have sprung up all over the city like mushrooms.

Werman: Wow.

Aikins: And this is one of the images that I sort of juxtapose in the article, you know, the parable of the wedding hall and the factory, right? The factories are sitting abandoned because the you know, economic policies that have been pursued have allowed foreign countries to dump their goods in Afghanistan. There’s been no support for manufacturing. Labor prices, and land prices and costs are just so high because of the aid booms, so none of the factories can operate. But as proof of, perverse proof of Afghan industriousness, you do have these massive wedding halls that are of course, importing almost everything, even down to the cooking oil and you know, rice that they use. And will almost assuredly just vanish like mirages once the money finally dries up.

Werman: Matthieu Aikins reported the article Kabubble in the recent issue of Harper’s. Thanks very much for speaking with us, Matthieu.

Aikins: My pleasure, Marco.

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Back in 1944, he was a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division.

Being part-Choctaw Indian, McNiece had an idea how to psyche up his squad for their first combat mission: D-Day.

“When we got ready to jump into Normandy, all of us had scalplocks, we also had our faces painted. It started a fad that is carried on today throughout most airborne units,” he said.

Bob Cone (right), with Jack Agnew, another survivor he met again in old age. (Photo: Stars and Stripes)

They jumped into Normandy just hours later.

“I jumped in with 20 men and came out with two.”

But in fact, another of Jake’s band of brothers survived the battle.

Robert Cone.

As a producer for The World, I tracked both men down and arranged that reunion, on the anniversary of D-Day in 2002.

“I didn’t know. I thought Robert was dead, all this time till yesterday when his son called,” said Jake in the 2002 interview.

Jake McNiece was not what you call a conventional soldier.

He and his men didn’t believe in doing anything that didn’t involve killing the enemy, or preparing to kill the enemy.

“We had no respect or discipline to show to officers or really any of the regulations. We were really just a damn good bunch of soldiers.”

His squad of misfits was nicknamed the Filthy Thirteen; the inspiration for the movie the Dirty Dozen.

But Jake says they weren’t felons like those in the movie.

“Well we often went AWOL, We were called the Filthy Thirteen. We never took care of our barracks or any other thing, or sanitation, and we were always restricted to camp. But we went AWOL every weekend that we wanted to and we stayed as long as we wanted till we returned back, because we knew they needed us badly for combat. And it would just be a few days in the brig. We stole jeeps. We stole trains. We blew up barracks. We blew down trees. we stole the colonel’s whiskey and things like that.”

McNiece’s ability to lead, and inspire, led him to get promoted frequently.

But just as frequently he was busted down to buck private.

He and his men were demolition saboteurs, attached to the 3rd battalion of the 5-0-6th Parachute infantry for D-Day.

“It was truly a suicide mission. I lost most of my men in the first two hours.”

His comrade, Bob Cone, got separated from the group as soon as he left the plane.

Bob was reported dead, and for almost 60 years he did not seek out his former comrades.

In some way he felt he’d let them down.

But Bob and Jake’s friendship was renewed that day in 2002.

Jake McNiece passed away Monday. His old friend Bob Cone died in June 2010.

Shortly after, I received this message from a friend of the Cone family:

“Just to let you know Bob has had a funeral with full military honors due, in part, to what you did for him. That interview started the ball rolling. His son said it was the best thing that happened to his Dad in his last years. He had a whale of a time with his old army buddies. Thought you might like to know.”

I did. It was the best day’s work I’ve ever done.

This was how I found them.

In 2002, my ex-wife was a dating a guy who’s father, she thought I might like to know, was part of the Filthy Thirteen, the inspiration for the movie, The Dirty Dozen; a bunch of convicts sent on a suicide mission on D-Day.

Let me tell you, I was pretty skeptical.

I’d met with plenty of veterans, and knew there were two kinds.

Those who say nothing, and those who – well – might make up all kinds of stories.

So I started digging.

I spoke with Bob and his family to get as much information as possible and tried to verify it with the airborne forces museum.

Then I stumbled across an Oklahoma newspaper article about vets commenting on the movie, “Saving Private Ryan,” including one Jake McNiece, who mentioned the whole “Filthy Thirteen” thing.

After lots of cross-checking, I found a number for Jake in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and gave it to Bob’s family.

They called, made the connection, and the next day both men spoke to The World.

It was June 6th, 2002.

The exact anniversary of D-Day.

Love it or hate it, every Englishman of a certain age remembers the first time he saw “Zulu.” I was 15 and home alone one evening when it just came on the TV. For those of you not English and not of a certain age, “Zulu” is a stirring war movie about an incident in The First Zulu War, a colonial era conflict between the British and the powerful Zulu nation, located in what’s now the Republic of South Africa. Movie buffs may also know it as Michael Caine’s debut appearance on screen, back in 1964.

But Zulu is much more than a footnote of movie trivia. It’s a metaphor for almost every manly virtue once held dear in English hearts. Pluck. Phlegm. Duty. Discipline. Loyalty. Fair play. Calm defiance in the face of insuperable danger. Respect for your opponent. Service. Sacrifice.

These are kind of embarrassing and old-fashioned sounding values in this digital age. But for me and countless others, they can still raise a fire in the heart, and Zulu throws down the ultimate challenge to a certain type of male; will you stand your ground, and fight, and do your duty, when the situation seems hopeless. It’s a challenge that draws young men toward war in any age. It’s why you either love this movie or hate it. I enlisted a couple of years after watching Zulu the first time.

It’s the story of a tiny garrison and their fight for survival against overwhelming odds. These men occupy a converted mission station at a river crossing, called Rorke’s Drift, where the invading British army has set up a rear-area supply base-cum-field hospital.

The outpost is threatened after the main British field army is destroyed at the hands of the highly-disciplined, spear-wielding, Zulu warriors. The 150-odd redcoated British soldiers are abandoned by their allies, colonial militia and African auxiliaries, and are left alone to face a force that outnumbers them some 30-to-1. There’s no hope of relief. One perplexed squaddy asks, “why are we here? Why us?” And his unflappable Sergeant replies with immortal words that ring true for soldiers in all ages, “because we’re here, lad. Nobody else. Just us.”

The actual survivors of Rorke’s Drift. (Photo: Wiki Commons)

Zulu warriors. (Photo: Wiki Commons)

That’s one of the things that strikes you about Zulu. It’s pretty progressive for a movie about a colonial war made almost 50 years ago. There’s nothing but respect for the discipline, courage and culture of the Zulu nation; there’s nothing to suggest the war was anything but an unfair attempt to add Zululand to the British empire; there’s even a sub-plot about a gay couple in the logistics corps.

Now, the movie is littered with historical inaccuracies. The British 24th Regiment is portrayed as a Welsh regiment, where in fact it was mostly English at this point in its history. The Zulu attacks were more piecemeal and less well-organized than portrayed.

But who cares? The goal is to stir up those emotions and showcase those values we talked about earlier.

The climactic scene is not even violent. The Zulus prepare for a final attack at dawn on the second day. The Brits are exhausted, low on ammo and gasping with thirst. The Zulus prepare by singing a war song. You can see morale sag in the British outpost. But then those plucky Welshmen start singing the Welsh anthem, “Men of Harlech.” Calm defiance in the face of insuperable danger.

The attack is repelled. It’s a miracle, one of the characters acknowledges. Patrols find no sign of the Zulus

Then suddenly the Zulu impis appear again. But only to sing a song of respect to their fellow warriors, before heading for home.

It’s a wonderful, mythical, stirring, chivalric portrayal of war. How war should be. Sadly it is not.

But then, I know plenty of veterans who’ll be settling down this week to watch clips or perhaps the whole movie.

Bayete!

But the nation is still at war in Afghanistan, just as it was four years ago.

Some might say not much has changed.

Early in his first term, in 2009, the President tried to turn the conflict around by ordering a troop surge into Afghanistan.

Stanley McChrystal was the general in charge then, appointed by President Obama himself.

McChrystal had to resign in 2010, after a Rolling Stone profile of him was published, in which his staff was quoted mocking senior administration officials.

McChrystal now has a memoir out, called “My Share of the Task.”

He says the surge changed everything.

They were well-trained professional soldiers, sent to fight an unpopular war on a different continent.

They were volunteers, who’d enlisted for a mix of reasons.

Don Hagist’s “British Soldiers, American War.” (Photo: Westholme Publishing)

Some were seeking economic advantage; others were just in search of adventure.

Each soldier had his own hopes and fears and aspirations.

You could be forgiven for thinking we’re talking about the veterans of America’s wars of the 21st century.

But this is actually a portrait of British soldiers in the American Revolution, as painted in a new book, “British Soldiers, American War: Voices of the American Revolution.”

“There are actually quite a lot of parallels,” says author, Don Hagist. “It was an all-volunteer force of people who joined the army as a profession.”

“There’s a tendency to look at historical wars strictly in terms of good guys and bad guys,” adds Hagist. “And so you assume that if America’s enemy were the bad guys, then the people fighting in the army must have been bad somehow. So we lose sight of the fact that the armies are made up of individual people and they all had lives, they all had reasons for joining the army.”

The common British soldier of the American Revolution has a certain image in the popular imagination, the kind of mindless automaton you can see in movies like “The Patriot.”

That doesn’t fit Hagist’s research, which collects most of the written first-hand accounts of common soldiers from the period, together with years of archival research among military and public records.

Nor does the impression of constant brutal discipline.

“There were brutal punishments, but most soldiers had pretty clean records.”

“The most surprising thing,” Hagist says,”is the simple humanity of these people, in contrast to most of the literature.”

Life there changed forever on this day back in 1788.

It’s the day the first ship of the “First Fleet” of western colonists arrived on the continent, 225 years ago.

Many of those aboard those crowded, damp wooden ships may have been pleased to see land after the nine months at sea since leaving Britain.

But these were no ordinary settlers.

They were mostly convicts, deported from Britain, together with a few soldiers to keep an eye on them.

The hope was to reduce crime in Britain, and offer criminals the opportunity at a new life.

At the same time, it was hoped the convict settlements would secure valuable ports for Britain in the Pacific Ocean, where trade was booming.

The indigenous people of Australia, the aborigines, were not consulted, and suffered severely for generations after this day.

Americans may be surprised to learn that the British practice of deporting criminals did not begin with Australia.

The reason Britain launched this new venture on the other side of the world, was because the previous outdoor prison had, well, declared its independence in 1776.

Yup, America, is where for decades thousands of British convicts had been sold into indentured servitude. It turns out, most of these villains were exported to Maryland.

Russia has an acute violence problem.

The homicide rate there is about twice that of the United States.

And yet in Russia it’s illegal to own a handgun privately, and getting a rifle for hunting “is a bureaucratic nightmare,” according to Fred Weir.

Weir, Moscow correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, says knives, axes and other weapons are used instead of guns.

Much violence is domestic, between spouses, often fueled by widespread heavy drinking.

“Russia is an extremely violent society, just below the surface.”

He says one takeaway that US legislators should grasp is that if a culture is violent, there will be violence.

“Americans, when they debate this subject, don’t recognize and won’t admit that they too live in an extremely violent society.”

“I’m Canadian,” Weir adds, “and the US homicide rate is seven times higher than what it is in Canada. Never mind what weapons people chose to do it with.”

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Marco Werman: Here in the US today, thoughts turned to the colonists who came here and their right to defend themselves, a right they enshrined in the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution. And that’s because today, President Obama unveiled his proposals to curb gun violence.

Barack Obama: This is our first task as a society–keeping our children safe. This is how we will be judged.

Werman: The president was speaking at the White House before a crowd, including parents of some of the children slain in Newtown, CT a month ago. He called on Congress to, among other things, reinstate the ban on military style assault weapons. And he signed a number of executive orders to strengthen existing gun regulations. Obama also said America is the land of the free and always will be,

Obama: But we’ve also long recognized as our founders recognized, that with rights come responsibilities. Along with our freedom to live our lives as we will comes an obligation to allow others to do the same. We don’t live in isolation. We live in a society, a government of, and by and for the people. We are responsible for each other.

Werman: American is not the only nation with a problem of violence. Russia has a problem too, with a twist. Earlier today I spoke with Fred Weir, Moscow correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor. Weir says Russia’s laws on guns are pretty tough.

Fred Weir: They are extremely tight. I mean just to obtain a hunting rifle is something of a bureaucratic nightmare. Handguns are completely illegal, I mean private ownership of them, but like a lot of things in Russia, the law is formal. The police enforce it very stringently on the law abiding, but the criminal underworld runs amuck and there’s a black market in guns…and you never see criminals without automatic weapons. And so Russia is not a very good example to compare with the United States. It is a country where law in general tends to be really tough and doesn’t work.

Werman: So you say handguns are completely illegal and yet the homicide rate in Russia is about twice that of the United States. So what proportion of those homicides in Russia are gun related?

Weir: Not very many, figures are not available for that, but Russia is a very violent society. Most of the murders here are the result of domestic disputes and so on and the weapons tend to be kitchen utensils, and axes, and things like that, not guns. The Russian’s is a really complex society, extremely violent under the surface and I don’t think most of that has to do anything to do with gun control or the lack of it.

Werman: So Russia is often touted by NRA types as an example of how a state becomes totalitarian when its population is disarmed. What would Russians say about that?

Weir: Oh, I don’t think, I don’t think they’d understand that point. This is a peculiarly American thing. You know, Russian autocracy I believe is about a thousand years old. It predates the existence of guns. It’s an interesting argument about how states become authoritarian and totalitarian, but I don’t think Russians would entertain the argument that it’s the lack of private gun ownership.

Werman: So if you have a handgun n Russia does that necessarily mean that somehow or another that was obtained through the underworld?

Weir: I think so, unless you’re a police officer, or one of these paramilitary types who have official status, or a security guard. I mean there are a lot of armed people that you encounter on the streets of Moscow who have some sort of official or semi official status, not just handguns, but Kalashnikov rifles and so. Even supermarket security guards tend to be heavily armed. So there are a lot of guns around, but not in private hands. And the average citizen wouldn’t know how to get one.

Werman: Fred, for you, what’s the one takeaway message for US lawmakers from Russia’s relationship to guns? I mean what would it be?

Weir: I think, I think Americans when they debate this subject don’t recognize or admit that they are also an extremely violent society. I’m personally Canadian and the murder rate in the United States if seven times what it is in Canada, never mind what kind of weapons people choose to do it with. The United States is an extremely violent society and their way of expressing it is with guns. Russia is an extremely violent society in its way. Other societies like Canada, and Britain and so on are way less violent, so it’s not mainly about guns.

Werman: It’s about the violence and how you deal with the violence and limit it.

Weir: It’s about the culture of violence that seems to be endemic and societies are very, very different. Yeah, hard to compare them.

Werman: Fred Weir, Moscow correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor speaking with us from Russia. Thank you so much.

Weir: My pleasure.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Socks have been standard issue in the Russian army since 2007, but it appears most Russian units prefer that their soldiers use traditional foot-cloths, known as ‘portyanki.’

Some in Russia see the foot-cloths as shamefully old-fashioned.

“This is 2013,” said Shoigu. “We are still talking about foot cloths.”

But the cloths are an ancient tradition, providing continuity to the pre-Soviet army of the old Russian empire.

Many veterans say they prefer them to socks, being more comfortable with tall boots.

Portyanki also dry faster than socks when wet, according to their aficionados.

‘Portyanki’ are a potent cultural icon to many Russians. Here a soldier dries his foot-cloths, in 1962 picture by Y.G.Gorelov. (Photo: Wiki Commons)

But many conscripts dislike them.

“If you don’t tie them properly they can bunch up and give you horrible blisters,” says Svetlana Savranskaya.

Savranskaya is director of Russian programs at the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

“I was surprised how the portyanki issue has become almost a litmus test for your political opinions in Russia,” she adds.

“Most of the liberal sites on the Russian internet are strongly in favor of the decision, saying it’s uncivilized,” says Savranskaya, “At the same time, the more conservative sites, more Russian patriot sites, all spoke in favor of portyanki, saying they’re part of Russian military traditions.”

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Jeb Sharp: Russia is a fascinating place with its own set of quirks and traditions. One of the more unusual ones in the Russian military is not wearing socks. You heard correctly – no socks! Instead, for untold generations, young Russian conscripts have had to learn to use ‘portyanki’ or foot cloths. Well, today, Russia’s Defense Minister said that must end. Svetlana Savranskaya is the director of Russian programs at the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Svetlana, first, can you describe these foot cloths?

Svetlana Savranskaya: Yes. Portyanki is a square piece of cotton which is kind of rough to touch. I had some experience because a lot of my friends were in the army. You wrap it around your foot and you are supposed to do it all in 45 seconds.

Sharp: Describe them a bit more. How does that work, that wrapping?

Savranskaya: You spread the cloth on the chair and you put your foot on the cloth and then you wrap it kind of diagonally around your foot and then up the ankle. One of the strong points of portyanki is actually that it helps hold the ankles stable but if you do not put it on in any exactly right way it could really badly bunch up and produce terrible blisters.

Sharp: That sounds horrible.

Savranskaya: Yeah. Some of my friends to whom is just talked, they said that during their service they saw some horror stories where those blisters went untreated. When very young draftees would come for their very first days in the army, they could not put portyanki on properly and they were made to run great distances. Sometimes those cases led to other diseases and the boys ended up in hospitals.

Sharp: People are passionate about whether or not they want socks or ‘portyanki’ – these foot cloths. What is it to know whether you want one or the other?

Savranskaya: You know, it’s very interesting. Just a very quick look at the first responses to this decision reveals that the portyanki issue could be used as a litmus test for your political preferences in Russia. I did not expect to find that but, very predictably, most of the liberal sites on the Russian internet were very strongly in favor of this decision, saying that the use of portyanki is uncivilized; it shows a lack of care for the draftees, for the conscripts and lack of medical attention. At the same time, the more conservative sites, more Russian patriot sites, all spoke in favor of portyanki, saying they’re part of Russian military traditions; they are actually much better than the socks; they are much better especially when used with the particular Russian high boots that are still used in the Russian army, and that portyanki also denotes continuity from the pre-revolutionary Russian army to today and that they should be kept. So, that’s a very interesting split of opinion.

Sharp: Svetlana Savranskaya, director of Russian programs at the National Security Archive at George Washington University; thank you Svetlana.

Savranskaya: You’re very welcome.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Soviet era instructions for putting in foot-cloths (Photo: WikiCommons)