August 13 is the most sinister of days — it’s International Lefthanders Day.
Somewhere around ten percent of the people in the world are left-handed, and for some reason, men are somewhat more likely than women to be left-handed. The word “sinister” came from Latin, where it originally meant left-handed — but even then it had its other meaning, referring to “badness” in some way. The Romans — the right-handed ones, that is — thought the left hand was weaker and “disfavored.” It seems whenever something or someone is judged “lesser” in some way, that inevitably morphs into a moral judgement of one kind or another. If we decide you’re “weaker” for whatever reason, pretty soon we’re convinced you’re harmful, evil, malicious, or to the Romans, “ill-omened.”
Nowadays left-handedness isn’t any longer connected with “sinister,” and in fact the word isn’t much used in its original capacity. But it still means bad or evil. Or at least suspicious.
In the US, we’ve had quite a run of left-handed presidents in recent years. Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama are all left-handers. The recent number is unique to the US, but historically some of the best-known leaders have been left-handed, including Napoleon, Joan of Arc, Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Queen Victoria, and several of the various King Georges (or is that “Kings George?”). Even Ramses II of Ancient Egypt, although I’m not sure how anybody knows. There are lefties in every field, from art (Leonardo da Vinci, for example) to the army — General Norman Schwarzkopf of Gulf War fame was left-handed.
Schwarzkopf was a professional soldier, and he served wherever he was needed. But that’s not the way soldiering has always worked. At most times and places in history, being a soldier wasn’t a full time occupation, and each regiment, or unit, was assigned to a particular fort or garrison.
The garrison system turned out to be a problem in the 1640s in England when the 1642 English Civil War started. It was mostly about whether England was going to be ruled by a single monarch or by Parliament. The Parliamentarians discovered that while soldiers would (usually) fight on the side they were ordered to, they tended to favor whichever side held sway around their garrison — which was where they all lived. So the Roundheads (the Parliamentarians) created the “New Model Army” to fight the Cavaliers (the Royalists). They won, but Parliament disbanded the army in 1661 after it overthrew both factions to establish the Commonwealth of England.
The New Model Army incorporated many of the ideas still basic to modern militaries; professional soldiers who were only temporarily assigned to a location, who could serve anywhere they were sent, and whose officers were prohibited from political positions (like being members of Parliament). It worked pretty well, and on August 13, 1650, “Moncks Regiment of Foot” was formed. It’s the only unit from the New Model Army (or any British force, for that matter) that still exists — nowadays they’re called the Coldstream Guards, and they’re the ones with the tall fur hats that guard Windsor Castle.
In 1650, as you might expect, women couldn’t enroll in the regiment. But it was August 13, 1918 that women could enlist in the US Marine Corps for the first time. The first one was Opha May Johnson, who was 39 when she enrolled. She became the highest-ranking woman in the Marine Corps for the time — she was a sergeant. There wasn’t anything special about her being the first female Marine; she just happened to be the first in line at the recruitment center on the day they opened it to women.
Opha May Johnson served as a clerk in the Marines, and if they even gave her training in shooting (probably not in those days), there’s no record of her earning anything like a sharpshooter’s rating. It would have been different for Annie Oakley, who celebrated her 58th birthday the day Johnson enrolled. One of the many actresses who’ve played Oakley in the musical “Annie Get Your Gun” is Debi Mazar, whose birthday is also today. And not only that — she’s left-handed, too.
