The Guardian of good taste?

The Guardian is a large very, very Liberal newspaper in the UK, where at least they admit to which way they lean in regards to politics. It has always been rather hostile to the military and military actions. Now in this article on the “missing” Ninth Legion of the Roman army, the Guardian maintains it’s policy of being snobbish to military folks in general and totally ignorant of what it takes (and in this case what it took) to maintain a modern army in the field.
Now a Roman Legion is not modern by our standards, but they were without equal for a very long time and that was due to their organization and their logistics. But for Rome keeping a legion in the field and in far flung corners of the empire was expensive and they were expected to source a lot of their supplies locally, far more than an army of today. Roman legions had engineers not only to build defence works, but also roads, civil structures and the means to support themselves.
So the Guardian firmly plants it left foot into it’s mouth with their snide comments that the legion spent a great deal of time supporting itself rather than fighting. Had they bothered to crack open a history book they might have already known that the Legions did not spend 24/7 fighting.

Now for the right foot into the mouth, the whole crux of the story now seems to be that archaeological evidence shows that the Roman Legion actually wore……..wait for it……..wait….., yes the Guardian is shocked and dismayed that the legion wore SOCKS with sandals! No doubt the Guardian readers will hound the Italian Embassy with protests over this unfashionable folly, as the paper blames the odd tradition of wearing socks with sandals on the Romans, rather than perhaps the weather and mad Englishman. No doubt Galloway will lend his orator skills to the fray and claim it’s all a plot by Bush’s ancestors.

Now for more interesting news for readers that think. Seems the current drought in the UK is letting archaeologists look for clues to ancient ruins that would otherwise be hidden by growing crops. Over 60 new sites were discovered in one day, including a Roman march fort, which they built when resting during a march. Very cool stuff. As a kid I remember standing on Hadrian’s wall and imaging myself as a Roman soldier staring down the Picts.