BEAR ARMS BEAR ARMS
First off, if you’re subscribed to this letter for pure, raw neurosis, I have bad news. Not every entry is going to be neck-deep in self-reflection, and not necessarily about me. I don’t consider my day-to-day thoughts and activities to be a particularly deep well, considering I mostly sit at home with my dog and play video games. While writing for ex-employers, I covered a lot of things I simply found interesting, and I’ll be looking to do that plenty here. I am, inescapably, a fun fact guy, to the detriment of anyone who’s gotten stuck with me at a party. Apologies, I suppose, if you wanted nothing but a steaming hot serving of self-flagellation and abyss-staring every Monday.
Second, I’d like to start newsletters from now on with a short recommendation of something I’ve been enjoying that week. Something for you to check out, or alternatively, scroll by, spinning your mouse wheel aggressively. Your call. This week, I’ve been ripping through the YouTube channel of Travis Folse, a 10+ year nuclear engineer with possibly one of the only intellectually valuable react channels on the platform. His channel, titled with blissful simplicity as T. Folse Nuclear, shows him reacting and weighing in on nuclear content from movies to god-awful Shorts slop.
In this time of scientific absence, it activates a wave of bliss to hear someone who knows what they’re doing pause a bad-faith podcast interview to simply go, “no, not exactly.” I also particularly enjoyed his breakdown of some of the weirder things done in the immediate wake of the Chernobyl disaster. I wish discussing nuclear weapons was still a purely intellectual curiosity, but hey, we’re unfortunately in the middle of some real history right now.
Which is a bit of a slimy segue into the topic of today’s newsletter, which is smack-dab in the middle of World War II. I promise you it’s cheerier than that would suggest. Anyways, Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death"–KIDDING! What I want to discuss is a specific Polish Corporal. Not because of his role in pivotal military victories, and definitely not because of any inspiring speeches he gave. His impact on any military victory at all, in fact, is debatably zero.
Corporal Wojtek was a member of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the 2nd Polish Corps. Their emblem is embedded above, which features a bear carrying an artillery shell. Many military emblems use animal symbolism, popping some sort of intimidating animal onto a patch and then dragging a firearm in front or behind. Would you want to fight a scorpion with an AR-15, after all? Yipes! What’s special about this one is that this emblem... is not a metaphor. Pictured is Corporal Wojtek himself. Who was a bear. Not “a bear of a man” or something similar. Corporal Wojtek was a literal, Syrian brown bear. Scientific name Ursus arctos syriacus.
From a pure violence point of view, a bear does seem like a valuable addition to an army. The problem, of course, rises with their allegiances. It’s hard to instill a sense of nationalism in a wild animal, so when the shit starts flying, it’s going to be fighting for Team Bear above all. You can see this in history with war elephants, which were very real, and very effective. Sometimes against everyone, regardless of side, in their immediate vicinity (If you’d like a full deep dive on war elephants, let me know, because that could very much be a future newsletter.)
If you’re concerned about the morals of weaponizing a bear, don’t worry. Wojtek wasn’t loosed on the field of battle to rip and tear like a blood-soaked Pokemon. He was in the backlines, providing emotional – and sometimes physical – support. Wojtek's military career began in Iran in 1942, with one of the weirder bits of bartering I’ve ever heard of. For the price of a Swiss army knife, canned beef, and chocolate, a young shepherd handed over to the Polish troops a single, living brown bear cub in a burlap sack. The bear, in turn, received his own blessing: the traditional Polish name of Wojtek (or Wojciech), meaning “joyful warrior.”
Wojtek took to the soldier’s life swimmingly. He started to share their interests. For example: beer, coffee, and cigarettes. Wojtek was known not only to drink but to demand beer and coffee, both of which I’m assuming he absolutely tanked. He also loved cigarettes, though due to the size difference between lighter and paw and questions of bear lips’ efficacy in pinching onto the filters, he simply ate them. Fair play, bear. Get your buzz how you can. If only Zyns had existed to be tucked into Wojtek’s mighty jaws, ten-pouch at a time.
After two blissful – well, war blissful – years, Wojtek's membership in this particular military unit came into question. In 1944, the 22nd Artillery Supply Company discovered they were being sent to Italy. (SIDEBAR: World War II has to be one of the only times anyone would be dismayed about being sent to Italy.) The problem was that, closer to central command, things like 485-pound pets could no longer fly under the radar. Members of the armed forces only. The solution was clear: make Wojtek an official member. Which they did, giving Wojtek the official title of private, complete with his own service number.
By this time, Wojtek, imitating the soldiers, had learned to salute. At which point, you’ve got to let him in, right? Wojtek’s induction passed muster, and he continued to enjoy various human intoxicants and, reportedly, cold showers (so much so he was eventually banned from the showers for wasting water, after learning to turn them on himself.) Should he have finished out his service simply in the role of mascot, this would still be a delightful little story.
At the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944, however, Wojtek and his penchant for imitation accidentally turned into legitimate heroics. Now, this particular tale is pointed to by some as possibly apocryphal, but there’s video of a WWII veteran that was actually there repeating it. So go call him a liar if you're feeling froggy.
According to the story, Wojtek, endlessly aping his soldier parents, happily joined in on their activity during the battle: carrying artillery shells. Wojtek reportedly hauled shells that required four fit men to carry along with the rest of the company, helpfully dropping them at the feet of the gunners. A feat for which he, deservedly, received a promotion to Corporal, and a permanent spot dead-center on the company’s emblem.
As you might guess by the year being 1944, Wojtek’s brave service was fast drawing to a close. Thankfully for all of us, his story has a happy ending. First of all, the Allied Forces won the war, and Adolf Hitler ended up parking a pistol under his funny little mustache and making a real mess of everything above it. (Sorry to celebrate violence, soft-hearted aunts of Facebook, but the guy was a class-A schmuck.)
Secondly, Wojtek made it through the remainder of the war unscathed, living out the rest of life in the Edinburgh Zoo until his peaceful passing in 1963. Sadly, this does mean you can no longer visit the ursine veteran, but a statue in his honor still stands in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens.
To my comedian friends: if I ever end up at Fringe, visiting it will be non-negotiable, so pencil that in.
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