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I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner Asch wrote on Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:07:43 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

The Bolsheviks provided the one thing the Russian peoples wanted, which the Social Democrats and the Provisional Government could not provide: a reason to drink.

The interesting thing I heard on a pod cast a couple weeks back, the speaker had been in San Francisco on business, and heard Russian music coming from a Synagogue. He checks it out, it's a reunion of ex-pat Veterans of the Great Patriotic War, decked out in their medals, and remembering when they were soldiers once, and young. "Only in America!" He said it was quite an emotional moment in it's own right.

sigh

pyotr

-- pyotr filipivich "I had just been through hell and must have looked like death warmed over walking into the saloon, because when I asked the bartender whether they served zombies he said, ?Sure, what'll you have?'" from I Hear America Swinging by Peter DeVries

I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner Asch wrote on Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:46:34 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

There is something about those who have seen the elephant, or Elefant, or what ever ... that they get along better with each other than with those who haven't. The German term was Komraden, like comrade, but with over tones of "Hey, we all went through boot camp with a DI who could peel paint chew and had a first sergeant who could eat nails and shit tacks ... " I got great respect for those who have been there, done that, would rather have not done either ... regardless of which side they were on. Had a landlord once. Got shot on D-Day in Normandy, Bullet right through the forearm - missed the bones. Enough to get him sent home, back to the Augsburg area. Milliard mark wound.

tschus pyotr

-- pyotr filipivich "I had just been through hell and must have looked like death warmed over walking into the saloon, because when I asked the bartender whether they served zombies he said, ?Sure, what'll you have?'" from I Hear America Swinging by Peter DeVries

Indeed...emigres

Yes, she was.

Gunner

Its also the reason we are having so many people coming back from the Sandbox sans arms, legs and with brain injuries.

Being involved in explosions that in any other war would have simply killed you outright, are being survived in this one, due to good quality body armor. Arms, legs and heads of course are not covered by this torso armor.

Its far far better to kill the enemy at a distance then up close and personal. The Golden BB is a very real thing.

Gunner

I met an intersting charector many many years ago..a German fellow that owned a string of brothels, cafes and hotels..in Vietnam.

After WW2..a huge number of Wermacht and SS troops (mostly SS) wound up in the Legion de Estrange..the French Foreign Legion and were sent to French Indo China (Vietnam) to fight against the Viet Minh. After some injuries he retired and stayed in country to build up wealth. Ive always wondered what happened to Hans...hope he got out before the Communists took over..though he certainly paid them enough to leave his places alone...shrug

My grandmother owned the ancestrial home, up in Houghton Michigan..a freaking HUGE old 3 story Victorian style home. They had 9 kids, so built a house to fit them all, in the 20s.

Right across the street from Michigan Tech.

Post WW2, Tech had need of professors, German instructors and so forth, so brought in a bunch from Germany. By this time, most of the kids were grown, so Grandma converted much of the upstairs to apartments and rented them out to the Germans, that side of our family being German ourselves.

I suspect..Operation Paperclip was involved.....

Many the nights as a wee lad in the 50s and early 60s, I sat talking to these guys, some of whom had dueling scars etc etc as they sat drinking schnapps and singing old German battle songs in the huge old basement. A couple had built a sallie de Arms down there, where they tutored fencing and sabre as well...got my first blade scar down there when I didnt parry a slash fast enough. I think I was 10.

Some interesting people in the world, if you take the time to talk to them.

Gunner

Gunner

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:08:12 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, Gunner quickly quoth:

I'm not so sure I'd reeeeealy want to survive if I were missing arms, legs, and/or had brain injuries/PTSD after a nasty war. Dad caught an AK round in the steel bottom of his C-123 seat directly below The Boys. Had it been a wooden seat, he said -he- might not have wanted to survive that triple dismemberment. (I agreed.) He was over there in '65 pushing strapped-together crates of chickens or pigs out on chutes. It took half a dozen Airmen to get the cows to "voluntarily" jump with their chute harnesses.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO O O O O O O O!

-- Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials. -- Lin Yutang

Looks an awful lot like my Argentine Mauser baoynet, except my handle is all metal.

As a 9 year old, I learned about smokeless tobacco from displaced persons ( derogatory - Damned DP's) brought to my area of mid-central Ontario to clear right-of-way for the transmission line to provide this modern miracle of electricity, to our kerosene lit homes. These chaps were accommodated in canvas tent bunk houses - a plain canvas tent atop four foot, single layer, board walls through the middle of winter. They worked on the wonderful, native device - snow shoes, using state of the art axes. A couple years latter, a local entrepreneur bought the bulk lot of snow shoes from Ontario Hydro, and sold them off at $2 per pair, and being a childhood friend, my father was given an early choice. I still have the result of my $2 investment which only required replacement of the coarser mid section webbing, and, although I haven't used them in over thirty years, they are ready should the need arise. My aunt and uncle employed a young lady as housekeeper in exchange for room and board for herself and her husband who was employed elsewhere. This couple remained friends with my aunt for the rest of her life, crediting her with their success as Canadian citizens. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

EVERY war since Boog smote Ogg with a mammoth knee joint has resulted in PTSD. EVERY one. Its all part of the man killing other men thingy. Some worse than others

Someone posted that their dad went nuts as an MP on Guam during Korea..not a hell of a lot of incoming or dead to pick up on Guam as an MP

Others went the course in the middle of hard combat and only have a bad nightmare now and then.

Shrug

As for missing an arm or leg...Ill take that over the Big Dirt Nap

Gunner

I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner wrote on Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:08:12

-0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

Dad said he wasn't worried about the one with his name on it. It was all those addressed "Occupant" or "Boxholder Local".

I've seen a drawing of a guy with a machine gun, blazing away, and the caption "I know there's a bullet in here with you name on it! I'll just keep firing till I find it!"

tschus pyotr

-- pyotr filipivich "I had just been through hell and must have looked like death warmed over walking into the saloon, because when I asked the bartender whether they served zombies he said, ?Sure, what'll you have?'" from I Hear America Swinging by Peter DeVries

I've loaded blanks with people's names engraved on them for presents. They're safe as long as there aren't TWO such bullets.