Milunka Savic: The First Lady of Warfare

"Raise your hand, for the lady of the dark

Soldier with no will to kill with a philanthropic heart

Forever break the norm, she's the girl in uniform

Fighting side by side with men, she will fight until the end!"

 

-"Lady of the Dark" performed by Sabaton, 2022

 

            Thanks to gender equality, there are more women currently serving their countries in the armed forces, some of them were war veterans. But back then during the events before and during the first world war, female soldiers were a thing unheard of, women in warfare are mostly served as field nurse, including one certain royal, that being Queen Elisabeth of Bavaria, the wife of King Albert I of Belgium (that is for another time). During that time, this seems to be the norm, until one Serbian woman broke the glass ceiling and went on to become the most decorated female soldier in history. But with all that being said, it seems that everybody outside of Serbia have never heard of this fearless girl, who apparently signed up in place of her brother to fight for her homeland.

 

            Let me introduce you to Milunka Savic (Serbian Cyrillic: Милунка Савић), born in 1888, in the village Koprivinica, Serbia. It is disputed on what date exactly did Milunka was born, some of them suggested it was 10 August, some even said that she was younger, being born on 28 June 1892. Her early live would be described as something of ordinary life, with her village being home to only about 20 people. She lived this ordinary live until 1913, where her brother, Milun Savic was called for conscription to fight at the Balkan War. Milunka saw the papers, and decided to enlist as Milun, effectively taking her brother's place in the military. In order to successfully disguise her true identity, she cut her hair short, bind her chest, and started wearing male clothes. During this time, she was deployed at the Battle of Bregalnica, as part of the Iron Squadron where she earned her first medal and a promotion to corporal. As she fought on the battlefield, she managed to evade injuries to the sensitive area, until a Bulgarian shrapnel buried itself to her chest, leading to the revelation of her true sex while recovering at the hospital. Her commander hated the idea of getting rid of her, as she had proven herself to be the best asset in battle, and a competent soldier. He decided to transfer her to the Nursing Division but was refused. Only after she stood in attention for one full hour, the high command relented and allowed Milunka back to the army. She continued her military career up to the first world war, where she further amassed many accolades along the way, including one story in 1916 where she single-handedly captured 23 Bulgarian soldiers alive, armed with a single grenade. She earned two Karadorde Stars (With Swords) from the campaign, each from different battlefields, one from the Battle of Kolubara, while the other from the battle of the Crna Bend. Her other accolades included the French Legion d'Honneur twice, the Russian Cross of St. George, the British medal of the most Distinguished Order of St Michael, the Serbian Milos Obilic medal, as well as being the only female recipient of the French Croix de Guerre 1914-1918 with the gold palm attribute for her service in World War I. She didn't have much role to play during the second world war, other than set up an infirmary for partisans fighting against the Nazi Germany. Her presence was further solidified when she refused to attend a banquet thrown by Milan Nedic, knowing that the same banquet would also be attended by German generals and officers. She was later arrested and taken to Banjica concentration camp, where she spent ten months of incarceration.

 

            Of course, with that many accolades, one must have been offered with luxuries after the war has ended and the army was demobilized, and that was also happened with Milunka, where she was offered by the French to move to the country, as she was eligible to collect the army pension, but she decided to remain in Serbia, living in Belgrade working as a postal worker. She was married once but divorced after the birth of her first daughter. She was given a state pension, and continue living in Belgrade, in a crumbling house while adopting three more children. In her final years, she was all alone, with no money under her name, and of course, living with neglect. And on 5 October 1973, at the age of 83 Milunka Savic died of a stroke. She was buried in a quiet little ceremony in Belgrade New Cemetery. 

 

            After reading through her heroic deeds during the wars, in comparison to her later days, it has been an anticlimactic story of a female soldier, with all her accolades, ended up living with neglect with zero money. She is also quite unknown for people outside Serbia, with little known source about her life, neither a biography nor a film. But let's not forget that it was the action of Milunka Savic, after being outed as a female, but remained in the army to fight her fights that would inspire countless other girls to take up arms and fight for their own country. And only in recent years, the recognition of her story is being brought to the masses, including various documentaries and songs depicting her bravery and fearlessness in the face of war. And with that in mind, she is truly a hero. 

 

"Don't fear the reaper, don't fear the war

She spared the life of brothers

She'll fight for honor, she'll fight for life

A lady goes to war!"

 

-"Lady of the Dark" performed by Sabaton, 2022

 

The Heart-Wrenching Story of Joe Arridy: The Happiest Man on Death Row

 (Warning: graphic details ahead)

            Let me ask you this one question to open this piece: What is the first thing that came across your mind when you hear the words "true crime story"? Most of you would answer old cases, or maybe a grisly murder went unsolved, or maybe a story of few people banded together to put a stop to a violent shenanigan using deadly force. But what others might not realize, one phrase is also relevant when it comes to these types of stories: a sad story of wrongful conviction. Prepare yourselves, make sure there is a box of tissue ready, because this is probably the saddest story I've ever written. This is a story on how a cognitively impaired man was manipulated into confessing a rape-murder case, and subsequently executed in a gas chamber, without him being aware of what did he had gotten himself into.

 

            Let's turn back the clock to 29 April 1915, in the city of Pueblo, Colorado, USA, where Joe Arridy was born. he came from a non-English-speaking Syrian immigrant family seeking work in the United States, first came into the country in 1909. His father worked for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Works and lived in a small house owned by the company. Along the way, the Arridys, Henry and Mary, welcomed another son and a daughter, but the butt of the problem was seemed to be young Joe, as he was late to start speaking, even if he did manage to speak, it's just sentences in few words. He also struggled to keep up with kids his age, even in school. When push came to shove, by the time he entered second grade, the school opted to send him back to his parents, stating that he couldn't learn. By the age of 10, Joe was admitted to State home and Training School for Mental Defectives in Grand Junction, Colorado, where he spent much of his days until he turned 21. During his stay at the facility, it is revealed that the experts had tested him, and he could only score 46 on his IQ test, couldn't understand colors, spoke slowly, and couldn't understand basic sentence with more than few words. Meaning, what they had accepted to the institution was a 6-year-old child trapped inside the body of a young adult man. He was also a target for coercion, as his innocence often used against him. He was also bullied and mistreated. It is speculated that the familial relationship between his parents, being first cousins contributes to Joe's mental defection. 

 

            By 12 August 1936, he left the facility and began wandering aimlessly across Colorado. Three days later, a gruesome murder-rape took place that would ultimately seal his fate. On that fateful night of 15 August 1936, the Drain household, husband Riley and wife Peggy was shocked when they discovered their two daughters, 15-year-old Dorothy and 12-year-old Barbara covered in blood after being attacked in their sleep. They were bludgeoned using an axe, and Dorothy was raped. Unfortunately, Dorothy succumbed due to her head injury, but Barbara survived. The Colorado Police were in intense pressure to solve the case, armed with the description provided by two women who were also attacked days prior. All those leads seemed pointed to Joe Arridy. At the time of his arrest, he was caught for vagrancy in Cheyenne, Wyoming on 26 August 1936. It was reported that when being questioned, Joe actually confessed to be involved in the murder, which excites county Sheriff George Carroll. By the time he reported his findings to Colorado, he learned that another suspect had also been arrested, named Frank Aguilar, although by his own confession, he never seen or met Arridy, a statement Joe himself repeatedly utter while in custody in Wyoming. Both Arridy and Aguilar were convicted for the rape and murder of Dorothy Drain, but on Joe's case, it was based on false confession, since there was no evidence that would place him at the time of the murder. even the surviving Barbara Drain could identify Aguilar, not Arridy. 

 

            By the time the case went into the trial stages, Arridy's lawyers plead insanity in order to save his life. But the plea went bust, but also acknowledged his mental incapacitation. three state psychiatrists stated their acknowledgments to his mental state, that he was so mentally limited, he was classified as an "imbecile", since he basically had the mind of a 6-year-old. Therefore, he could not distinguish right from wrong. That alone should be clear that he has no mental capabilities to perform any action with a criminal intent. Despite these saddening facts, he was sentenced along with Aguilar to death in a gas chamber. Few appeals then launched to hopefully reduce the sentence to at least life imprisonment, but all they got was a 9-day stay off execution. 

 

            During his appeals process, Joe could be seen inside his death row cell playing a toy train given to him by prison warden Roy Best. By his accounts, Arridy was treated well by guards and inmates alike, even so far as to consider him as his own son, often bringing him gifts. Even when Arridy's execution day came, Best said "He probably didn't even know he was about to die, all he did was happily sit and play with the toy train I had given him." He also said that Joe is basically "the happiest prisoner on death row." When that fateful day came, Joe asked for ice cream as his last meal, but he didn't even finish it, stated that he wanted that ice cream to be refrigerated so he could "finish it later," blissfully unaware that it was his last day living in this world. He did not understand the concept of death, or execution in that matter. He even smiled while being taken to the gas chamber. By the time the chamber door closed, on 6 January 1939, at the young age of 23, Joe Arridy was executed for a crime he did not commit, all because of his mental incapacity, and his coercion into falsely confessing to it. More than seven decades later, in 2011, the late Joe Arridy was given a full and unconditional posthumous pardon by Colorado governor Bill Ritter, stating that although by pardoning Joe cannot undo that tragic even in Colorado history, but it is in the interests of justice and simple decency to restore his good name. I would say that the pardon came 70+ years too late. 

 

            After reading this story, I can't help but feel for Joe Arridy. He was simply a man with the mind of a child, who only wants to explore the world, one step at a time. But one grisly crime that had nothing to do with him claimed his life in a legal debacle. I know there is one or several timelines where this crime never happened, or at least one where Joe was never convicted, but that seems to be a long shot. All I have to say in return is this: Joe Arridy, rest in eternal peace, you pure soul. I hope that you are having the most fun up there, playing with all the toy trains in the world. This shouldn't have happened to you in the first place. 

The Unkillable Soldier: The Story of Adrian Carton de Wiart

 

"Into the fire through trenches and mud,

Son of Belgium and Ireland with war in his blood,

Leading the charge into hostile barrage,

By design, he was made for the frontline!"

-"The Unkillable Soldier" performed by Sabaton, 2022

 

            Imagine being totally insane and war-hungry, even Death would not lay his hands on you until the ripe age of 83. This is what happened when you are a former law student which was also a 5-war veteran, who suffer various injuries from mild like grazed ear to wild like losing his own eye and hand. The latest war time story is centered around this one British soldier, who was actually born in Belgium, carrying Belgian and Irish blood. Some even said that he was the illegitimate son of a certain Belgian king.

 

            The name was Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart. He was born in Brussels on the 5th of May 1880 into a Belgian aristocratic family who practices law, from lawyer Léon Constant Ghislain Carton de Wiart and Ernestine Wenzig, who was Irish. Despite this, some also suggests that young Adrian was the illegitimate son of King Leopold II of the Belgians. He was also had strong connections through his cousins. One was the Prime Minister of Belgium; the other was the Political Secretary to the King. Nevertheless, when his mother passed away sometime between 1886, Léon Carton de Wiart subsequently moved to Cairo, Egypt with young Adrian, so he could practice international law there. During this time, young Adrian had developed a fascination of warfare. Hell, he once stated in his Happy Odyssey autobiography that if the British didn't recruit him by the time of the Second Boer War in 1899, he would still go to South Africa to fight with the Boers instead. He did eventually enlist with the British army for that campaign, but had to do so with fake identity, as he was a foreigner and underage for that matter (he was 20 prior to enlistment, the army requires someone to be at least 25 years of age). 

 

            When he arrived in South Africa, he was immediately exposed to the chaos of warfare, and subsequently received his first wounds, being shot in the stomach and groin respectively. By his accounts, he described the Boers as a bunch who has "pretty good shots". His shenanigans in South Africa earned the wrath of his father for abandoning his law studies but allowed him to stay in the army. During his first 8 years serving in the army, he remained a Belgian citizen. In September 1907, he finally took his oath of allegiance to King Edward VII, officially making him a British citizen. When the First World War broke out, he was actually en route to British Somaliland for a campaign against Mohammad bin Abdullah, dubbed "Mad Mullah" by the British. During that battle, he was assigned to the Somaliland Camel Corps. During a battle at Shimber Berris, Carton de Wiart was shot in the face not once or twice, but three times. One bullet struck him in his left eye, one grazed his left ear, and another ricochet and buried itself in the same wounded eye. 

 

            When Carton de Wiart actually participated in the Great War itself, he had to sign an agreement to wear a glass eye to replace his destroyed left eye. But he immediately ditched that eye from his taxi, and replaced it with a black eyepatch, creating his well-known signature look. He then took part in the Western Front in 1915. During this campaign, he was wounded seven more times in different places, including losing his left hand in a freak accident when blast struck him. When doctors refuse to amputate his mangled mess of a left hand, he tore off two of his remaining fingers hanging by a skin with no pain at all, just to prove his point. During the battle of Somme, he was shot through his skull and ankle, in Passchendaele, he was shot through the hip, in Cambrai, another wound in his leg, and another shot to the ear in Arras. And during his adventures, he was promoted up to temporary brigadier general by the conclusion of the First World War. 

 

            The war might be over at this point, but not the adventures of Adrian Carton de Wiart. He was sent to Poland on a British-Poland Military Mission, and on this country as well he witnessed the start of the second world war in 1939. He was at the age of 61 when he re-enlisted to fight the conflict. He ended up on the frontline again, this time in Norway. In 1941, he boarded the aircraft bound to Yugoslavia as part of the British-Yugoslavian Military Mission, just in the nick of time as Hitler was prepared to invade the country. But the airplane crashed in Italian-controlled Libya for engine failure. He survived the crash along with many others, but ended up in a Prisoner of War camp, which he managed to escape. His final military mission was when he was appointed as a personal representative of Prime Minister Winston Churchill on his mission to China. It was on this assignment that he reportedly told Chairman Mao Zedong that he hated communism right in his face and was met with laughter by Chairman Mao. 

 

            His final injury didn't come as a result of an armed conflict, but rather a silly incident when he slipped through the stairs, broke several vertebrae, and knocked unconscious. He finally retired from the army at the ripe age of 66 in October 1947 with the honorary rank of lieutenant general. And on the 5th of June 1963, he finally greeted Death as an old friend at the age of 83. During his time in the armed forces, he fought through 5 wars, two of them were world wars, survived two plane crashes, escaped an Italian Prisoner of War Camp, sustained numerous injuries, lost an eye and a hand, and roasted a Communist Party leader right on his face. There are also stories of him being a frequent visitor to a hospital. It has been said that he was being admitted to this hospital so often, the facility actually kept a fresh pair of pajamas EXCLUSIVELY for General Carton de Wiart. Talk about dedication right there. 

 

            Many people talk about people who involved in wars as someone who only wants to serve their own country or someone with no disregard of his own life, but none of those men was like Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart. The man was described as a man too stubborn to die, and it's only fitting to immortalize this mad lad with the title of "The Unkillable Soldier". This man's entire story is that of a First-person shooter protagonist. Imagine yourself being shot multiple times, and suddenly you are back in top shape only by stepping out of harm's way for few minutes. And for that, I salute in admiration to the legend that is Adrian Carton de Wiart.

 

"Frankly, I had enjoyed the war"

-Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, Happy Odyssey: The Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart: 1950