Preface / Introduction

The American Civil War began April 12, 1861 with the firing of the rebel forces on Fort Sumter in
the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. It officially ended on April 9, 1865 when General Robert
E. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House. In between, 212,938 people from both
sides were killed in action, with total casualties exceeding 625,000 in what was the most bloody war
ever fought on this planet and the most embittered, as is always the case when brothers fight each
other to the death, enraged, grieving, broken hearted but determined to have victory, whatever the
cost This war was filled with incident, great deeds of valor, deeds, too, of squalor, treachery,
unmitigated cruelty and chivalry but of all the deeds in this great struggle, the deeds of just a
handful of men determined the outcome. These were the men who fought each other at the Battle of
Hampton Roads, Virginia March 8-9, 1862. And I am taking you there today for you will want to
know who won, who lost, and why it happened the way it did.


Then we have the story of Liam and Theo, companions in life, companions forever. This is a story of
colleagues and friendship. It is a story of love and of a bond that transcends death itself.



Table of Contents
1. Liam and Theo, companions in life, companions forever.
2. 'Look away Dixie Land!' The day that determined the outcome of the U.S. Civil War. The
Battleof Hampton Roads, March 9, 1862. And you are there....
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Liam and Theo, companions in life, companions forever.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
This is a story of colleagues... and friendship.
It is a story of love and of a bond that transcends death itself.
It is a story which, such being the way of good stories, takes you, by the powerful chords of
memory, from this story.... to your story, for you, I know, have such a story, too, though it may not
have tugged at your heart for a long while.
This is the story, then, of Liam and Theo, and you'll be glad to know it.
Lance Corporal Liam Tasker was a dog handler with the British Royal Army Veterinary Corps.
Theo was his dog.
They were well known in Afghanistan, together day and night. People in Afghanistan, who have so
little to smile about, could not help but smile when Theo, irrepressible, running ahead, playing hide
and seek was around. Theo made them happy, in the ways that dogs have long since perfected. They
liked him... after all he was risking his life every day for them... and they appreciated that.
The people appreciated Liam Tasker, too. Just 26, a Scotsman, and proud of it, from Kirkcaldy, Fife,
Liam was someone who didn't have to go to Afghanistan. However, he had two loves... soldiering
and dogs. In the army he got both; if Afghanstan was the destination, so be it.
Their partnership.
Liam and Theo had one of the most dangerous jobs of all... searching for explosives, the instruments
of disfigurement and death with which Afghanistan is littered, and from which the people will suffer
for years to come, so numerous are they and so lethal.
It was Liam and Theo's job to find these explosives and render them, instruments of sudden death
and mayhem, harmless. It was serious, demanding work, and they were did it well. Theo, in fact,
was something of a star; he had already drawn praise from Ministry of Defense officials for
detecting 14 hidden bombs and weapons caches in just five months on his first tour of duty in
Afghanistan. Theo's
success meant this 22-month-old Springer spaniel got the privilege of staying in dangerous
Afghanistan another month.
But the bond between Theo and Liam went far beyond their professional association. As was
obvious to all, they liked each other. It's the kind of thing even the least perceptive can see. They
were buddies... pals... always the best of friends. And, being young, with energy to spare, they were
not above mischief and hijinks, showing off for each other, egging the other on. Thus, they passed
their time in perilous Afghanistan, saving lives, enjoying each other's company.
March 1, 2011
This began as a day like all days in the dangerous war zone that passes for brutalized Afghanistan...
but in short order it became a day like no other , for both Liam and Theo.
L/Cpl Tasker suffered fatal injuries in a fight with the Taliban in Helmand Province while he and
Theo were searching for explosives. .
Immediately, Theo knew something was very,very wrong. Liam was lying in the dust of
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Afghanistan, dead... Theo, hysterical, was taken back to Camp Bastion, the main British military
base. There he could not be comforted.
Just three hours later, Theo, confused, agitated, alone, his friend Liam gone, died of a fatal seizure
brought on by stress.
Now it was Liam who had gone before, while Theo rushed to catch up, death together infinitely
preferable to life alone.
This story touched the heart of a great nation, for the British are a by word for loving animals of
every kind. They each had their special thought that day... for Liam and Theo, of course, but also for
the pet they had loved, who had most certainly loved them, too.
Liam and Theo come home...
On March 10, 2011, hundreds of mourners lined the main street through the Wiltshire town of
Wootton Bassett. Liam and Theo were coming home, and everyday people had come, with their
dogs and other pets, to say good-bye.
A dozen police and Prison Service dogs made their official appearance, too. The crowd was silent...
but the barking of dogs could be heard in the background as a solemn bell rang out to mark the
arrival of the cortege; perhaps they knew and understood what was happening...
Liam Tasker's family was there, too, and they, in their profound grief, took solace from the fact that
now, forever, Liam and Theo would be together; such was the loyalty of dog to man... and of that
man to his dog. L/Cpl Tasker's father Ian told ITV news: "my honest opinion on this is, when Liam
went down, that Theo didn't have the comfort from Liam to calm him down."
Liam's mother, Jane Duffy, simply said, "I would like to believe Theo died of a broken heart to be
with Liam." I believe it, too.
358 members of the British Armed Forces have now died in Afghanistan. 6 British military dogs
have also died since 2001.
Today in Afghanistan the unending war goes on. Valiant men and women and dogs in the Dog
Training Group will do their jobs and do them well. Some of these will die. Let us hope they find in
each other the support and bond now eternally epitomized by Liam Tasker and his dog Theo. Now
together, they will remain together for all the cycles to come, glad of each other and young.
May they rest in peace.
'Look away Dixie Land!' The day that determined the
outcome of the U.S. Civil War. The Battle of Hampton Roads,
March 9, 1862. And you are there....
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. The American Civil War began April 12, 1861 with the firing of the rebel
forces on Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. It officially ended on April 9,
1865 when General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House. In between,
212,938 people from both sides were killed in action, with total casualties exceeding 625,000 in
what was the most bloody war ever fought on this planet... and the most embittered, as is always the
case when brothers fight each other to the death, enraged, grieving, broken hearted but determined
to have victory, whatever the cost...
Of Battles that Determine the Outcome of War and a Story of Colleagues and Friendship
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This war was filled with incident, great deeds of valor, deeds, too, of squalor, treachery, unmitigated
cruelty... and chivalry... but of all the deeds in this great struggle, the deeds of just a handful of men
determined the outcome. These were the men who fought each other at the Battle of Hampton
Roads, Virginia March 8-9, 1862. And I am taking you there today... for you will want to know who
won, who lost, and why it happened the way it did.
For the incidental music to this article, I have selected Daniel Decatur Emmett's famous tune,
"Dixie," also known as "I Wish I Was in Dixie," a song originating in the black face minstrelsy of
the 1850s. It is a tune that makes even the least likely ready to jump up and whirl. I have selected it
today because, as Abraham Lincoln himself said on April 10, 1865, it's "one of the best tunes I ever
heard" ... but also because of its famous line, "Look away, Dixie Land." After the Battle of Hampton
Roads, Virginia and all the other Confederate states had nothing to look forward to... and everything
to look away from.
But it didn't look that way on March 8, 1862... quite the contrary.
News of the most alarming portent arrives in Washington, D.C., Sunday, March 9, 1862.
Gideon Wells, a New England journalist, found himself urgently summoned to the White House.
Come! Come at once! And this Connecticut Yankee, in his unlikely role as Secretary of the Navy,
scurried to a meeting where he found Mr. Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, in the greatest possible
dismay... and so alarmed himself that he was alarming, too, the President of the Dis-united States of
America.
It was a scene to brighten every heart in Dixie... and cause shrewd financiers to sell U.S. Treasury
bonds short before Wall Street opened Monday, to chaos and defeatism.
Mr. Stanton could not keep still, could not hide his profound anxiety and fear. He sat down, only to
jump up again and rush to the windows... What was he looking for? A savior for the Union cause...
What did he expect to see? The CSS Virginia in all her glory steaming up the Potomac, sinking the
Federal cause with effortless grace. It was a scene of destiny, and every man on both sides of the
struggle knew that history of the gravest magnitude was happening now! To them! At Hampton
Roads! And so depending on their point of view and allegiance they either gave way to unbridled
joy... or profound despair and lamentation. No one was neutral on this urgent matter.
USS Merrimac into CSS Virginia.
The largest naval installation of the Great Republic was at Norfolk in Virginia... and so after the Old
Dominion seceded (April 24, 1861) it became a matter of the greatest urgency to both sides to
arrange matters there to their greatest advantage. This to the Federal forces meant moving as much
as could be moved, destroying the rest. And, to the rebels, to do just the reverse.
Thus was the USS Merrimac, unable to be removed in time and against the rebel sentiments of her
crew, burnt and sunk... but not effectively. Her new owners quickly discovered both hull and
engines were serviceable... and so began her transformation into the CSS Virginia, the vessel which
made Secretary Stanton quail with acute fear and humiliating anxiety.
Why?
Because CSS Virginia, for all that she had just weeks ago been scuttled, was transformed into the
mightiest ship of all the navies of all the seas... a ship sheathed in iron, designed to deal death to the
picturesque, now ineffectual sailing ships of every navy, but without suffering a single nick at all.
Thus did the dead Merrimac come to be the super weapon the Confederacy needed to pulverize the
Union and secure their freedom from the meddling, inept Yankees they despised.
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Confederate triumph March 8, 1862.
The world changed this day... as the Virginia, with the merest motion, rammed the hapless USS
Cumberland, 121 seamen going down with her... then the USS Congress was put out of action,
surrendering... and everyone, from the merest cabin boy, saw the future... and knew that every
gallant wooden vessel, yesterday puissant, was now dross. And so, as cat to mouse, Virginia moved
to her next sure triumph, USS Minnesota... while every telegrapher sent on the news, the news that
so discomfited Secretary Stanton... and every other brave Union heart. Armageddon was here... and
it flew a Confederate flag.
Until...
In August, 1861 Gideon Wells authorized work on a top-secret Union ironclad... and in due course
the USS Monitor was born, the most radical naval design ever; the invention of Swedish engineer
and inventor John Ericsson. And it was this curious, much mocked vessel that steamed into
Hampton Roads March 9, just in time, to reverse what but yesterday had seemed certain, Southern
command of the seas and therefore victory.
And as Monitor and Virginia battled each other to a draw, each unable to finish its deft opponent,
the entire strategic scene changed. All wooden ships, every single one, was now obsolete; thus a
new arms race started for command of the seas. USS Monitor had, simply by maneuvering to a
draw, stopped the South's "certain" advance and commenced a war of bloody attrition, a war the
North could win, and the South had most reason to fear. For without access to the world, the South
could only rely on itself... and that would never be enough to ensure independence as every
Southern family would, in tragic due course, come to understand only too well. As for both the
historic ships of this engagement, neither sailed for long. Virginia was burnt again and sunk when
Union forces took back the Norfolk port facilities in May. As for the plucky Monitor, she sank
December 31,1862 off North Carolina. The remains of one of her stricken crew, 24-year-old James
Fenwick, were just recently brought to the surface for honorable burial. He had been married just a
few weeks before Monitor embarked on her final voyage; her history short but epochal.
"Old times they are not forgotten; Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land."
Resource
About The Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and
home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and
receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Dr. Lant is also the author of
18 best-selling business books.
Republished with author's permission by Patrice Porter http://20WaystoProfit.com.