Word: spearing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Greek phalanx?columns of spear-carriers drawn largely from free property owners with a substantial stake in a battle's outcome?established infantrymen as the centerpiece of European military power. At the Battle of Poitiers (A.D. 732) Frankish infantry, the phalanx's latest adaptation, routed much-feared Muslim cavalrymen. The Franks' victory confirmed, says Hanson, "that good heavy infantry, if it maintained rank and found a defensible position, usually defeated good cavalry...
...standing by off distant shores - this is what you wanted to do, this is why you joined, this is what you trained for. To be there when the day came that America needed you at your toughest and strongest, needed you to be at the 'tip of the spear,' to hunt and track the source of Sept. 11 and cut out its heart...
...monk in a previous life. It all felt very natural to me." By the age of 17, he could dangle a 23-kg weight from his testicles (a practice intended to perfect his ability to withstand a full-force blow to the groin) and deflect the tip of a spear with his neck. He could sleep standing...
Surely our hunter-gatherer ancestors played games: "Race you to that carcass," perhaps, or "I'm a better spear thrower than you." The winner ate; the loser was tiger bait. Our Darwinian need for competition, short of war, ultimately diverted to sport. The Greeks stopped battles for their Olympics; the Romans hailed their gladiators; they also played a version of soccer. Ancient sportswriters recorded...
...Kumar studies the two crouching fighters as they circle each other in the small mud arena, the oil and sweat on their taut bodies darkening the waistbands of their bunched shorts. From his corner, Kumar barks a command and one of the men leaps at the other with his spear, its tip tracing the arc of his lunge through the air. The other man, squatting low, raises a pole above his head and crack! parries the blow. Kumar calls out a second time. Again the first fighter attacks, and the second man nimbly checks him. Then suddenly it's over...