SHP Forums

Over here in Melbourne (Victoria, Australia), if you travel by train, you can pick up the MX (Melbourne Express), a tabloid-rag-pretending-to-be-a-newspaper. This evening, I read something rather amusing in it that made me chuckle:

The MX wrote:IT'S TRUE! In 1843, V. W. Meadows of West Point, Georgia, was shot in the eye at the Battle of Vicksburg during the Maerican (sic) Civil War. He survived, and 58 years later was surprised to cough up the bullet.

Now, while I don't expect a tabloid to be 100% accurate, I do expect proper research, which was obviously not done here. So quite aside from the obvious misspelling of "America", there's one good reason why Mr Meadows could never have been wounded in any war in 1843, much less at the Battle of Vicksburg - and that is that there was no war in America in that year. I suspect the paper meant 1863, which is when Vicksburg actually took place.

So, join along with me in the Nelson Muntz laugh: HA-ha!

The only war that even occurred during the 1840s involving the US was the Mexican-American War and that was from 1846 to 1848. As you pointed out, whoever wrote this article didn't bother to look up any historical information; however, they did present an interesting (although highly unbelievable) story and I suppose that's what their target audience wants.

I did actually hear something similar, but it was about a WWI soldier. Apparently this soldier had been shot during the war and the surgeons decided against the removing the bullet, seeing as how it hadn't penetrated any vital organs and given the risk of infection at the time. The story goes on to say that years later, this soldier and his wife visited the battlefield on which he fought and was wounded. At that moment, the bullet shifted and he died.

Once again, it's a good story, but that's all.

And to think people buy that kind of garbage and believe it! It's sad that the tabloid company is still afloat.

Isn't that "IT'S TRUE!" supposed to point out that anything coming behind it is total sarcastic ridicule?

Well, strange things do happen in war - and there are stories of bullets that aren’t removed that move around a bit and surface somewhere else. All the same, it's hard to imagine a bullet moving into someone’s throat or respiratory tract without killing him first.

Still - I can forgive the far-fetched story much easier than the factual errors.

What is 'Maerica', anyway?