Please, most Gentle and Alert Reader, forgive us, for we sometimes really don't know what we do. It wasn't just one phone call. It wasn't just one email. Because it wasn't just any ol' mistake.
Of course, a thousand times of course, General Patton's pistols weren't pearl handled, as this column suggested the other day. They were ivory handled. Which he let a reporter know fast one day in a quote heard around the world that might not be morning reading material here.
Our favorite phone call might have come from Texarkana, where a Patton expert lives in the Pleasant Grove community. (That's on the Texas side, which means that everybody can make mistakes.) The man reportedly has 50 books on Old Blood & Guts, and enough stories to keep a body busy--and interested--for more than one phone call.
It also gives us another excuse to write a correction, which an editorial page editor once told us can be the most widely read thing on the page. Whenever a pointy-headed editorialist makes a mistake, especially a whopper, it might be the only proof he's human.
Consider this not only a correction, but another reason to break out the newest biography of the man--and go to YouTube for the first 10 minutes of the movie.
Editorial on 11/14/2017