Recently the world watched with shock, or perhaps with humor, at the recent debacle in the Ukrainian Parliament when lawmakers literally got into a brawl with each other over an election. Fists were flying and punches landed on many a member that day in December of 2012. Though many viewers within the United States have seen, heard, or read many of the verbal salvos or accusations being hurled between members of the Senate or House of Representatives in the current political climate of Congress, they have not come to physical blows.

Life often exhibits some inexplicable twists and turns not planned or expected. Perhaps none are so self-evident than the experiences of those who’ve served in the military. There are numerous accounts of individuals who survived horrendous battles while suffering through insurmountable odds, with death staring them in the face, only to have perished or died in peacetime in unexpected and often violent ways. Revolutionary War veterans are simply one example of such bizarre encounters with life and death as revealed by the following examples.

The discussion of African Americans who served in the armed forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War has become a source of controversy among historians. The records show that both free and enslaved African Americans served on behalf of the Southern states. The first "ex-slave pension movement" appears to have been suggested by a former captain in the Confederate Army, Alabama native Walter R. Vaughan. A former mayor of Council Bluffs, Iowa, he "argued that the federal government owed a debt to the former slaves."¹

Cholera! The very name in 19th-century America brought justifiable fear and the dread of certain death among many of our nation's citizens. It usually killed quickly, often within four hours of contamination. The death toll from the disease rose into the thousands, specifically in 1832, 1849, and 1866. Many members of my own family in Kentucky left the state to escape its wrath.