When General von Steuben first set foot at Valley Forge in 1778, a soldier described him as “the ancient fabled God of War”.
He turned a ragtag group of militiamen into a disciplined force who took down the mighty British army.
Here’s how🧵
States' rights: Slavery was on it's way out, with many states having banned it. However, it remained legal in several northern border states until 1865. The Emancipation Proclamation, signed in 1863, targeted only Confederate states.
Lincoln said if he could win the war without freeing the slaves he would.
*I have Neurofibromatosis Type 2, with two massive non-cancerous brain tumors on my auditory nerves that are significantly compressing my brain stem. I also have about a dozen tumors along my spine, of various sizes.
I had radiation treatment on the larger of the two brain tumors in January of 2000, which miraculously controlled their growth for 20 years. During the pandemic, however, I was not allowed to see my neurologist for nearly three years because the hospital would not let him speak to me without a mask (I'm hearing-impaired, and need to read lips to communicate).
When they finally lifted the mask requirement, they told me he was no longer my neurologist because I had not seen him for over 2 years. He had been my neurologist since the very beginning, and knew my entire case history, so I was loathe to make a change.
Finally, in 2024, I began to have trouble swallowing. I knew immediately what this meant: that my larger brain tumor had begun growing again.
I managed to find a neighbor who worked for the hospital, who was willing to go through back channels to communicate with my old neurologist—who immediately contacted me when he got the message. My neurologist brought me in a couple days later, immediately scheduled an MRI, confirmed the growth, and began planning my current treatment.