Word: mortars
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...workers build up each others' enthusiasm with such lines as "Ivan you lay the bricks and I'll carry the mortar. We'll work twice as fast that way." Like almost all the dialogue in the film this line is admirably a direct translation from Solzhenitsyn's novel. But it is spoken by a wide eyed young man with all the fresh enthusiasm of a high school quarterback preparing for the next play. Solzhenitsyn can tone down the sense of imminent death in his novel because his Russian audience was well aware of the destitution of the prisoners' lives...
...Quiet. Equally thorough preparations were being made inside the prison by other Tupamaros, who were confined in cells on the third floor. These cells had already been clandestinely connected by chipping away the mortar so that bricks could be removed and replaced with ease. Holes had also been drilled in the end cells on each floor, allowing the Tupamaros to move from their third-floor cells to the second and first floors on makeshift ladders of blankets and wood. By the time the break took place, a tunnel had already been dug leading from a ground-floor cell and under...
...three months after arriving in Viet Nam, just after the Tet offensive, Calley's company suffered heavy losses chasing an unseen enemy through mined rice paddies. Calley developed "a mild panic" that grew into hatred of the Vietnamese as Calley's patrols took repeated sniper and mortar fire from villages. The My Lai massacre followed at the height of this confusion and frustration, a sad confluence of bad training, bad leadership, bad intelligence and worse judgment...
...Soon the rifle shots were augmented by mortar fire and grenade explosions. Panicky guests scattered from the open patio to the throne room or to the beach, but many were cut down by gunfire. A grenade landed at Hassan's feet; Bourguiba heroically picked it up and tossed it away, probably saving the King's life. Thirty truckloads of cadets in battle fatigues swarmed over the grounds and made guests lie down in the broiling sun. ∙ In the confusion, Hassan slipped into the throne room and then into another room farther inside. There he dickered with General...
...their Egyptian masters. On the traditional Seder table are the symbolic foods: the salt water and bitter herbs, reminders of the time of bondage; the roasted lamb, recalling the paschal sacrifice on the eve of the Exodus; the mixture of apples, nuts, spices and wine, symbol of the mortar with which the Hebrews made bricks for Pharaoh. And of course, the three matzoth, which, suggests the narrator, "represent the Father, Son and Holy Spirit...