yep, they don't talk, bluster or mess around. threaten them the wrong way and they'll kill you. i saw guys like that as a kid, all vets of various battles. europe or the pacific, didn't matter. i respect them a lot.
Yup. Me too. All my uncles are WWII vets, and I've been side by side working either living or working with vets all of my life.
Wish I still had grandpa's WWI uniforms and blankets - grandma was quite a seamstress and made uniforms for my G.I. Joes out of them all...which didn't seem to bother grandpa at all.
i have my dad's 30's marine corp stuff and his ww2 army. all the medals, letters, pics. eventually it will all go to the right museum.
I have my grandfather's WWI dog tag, and his Victory medal. And a .30 cal bullet that he kept for some reason. I recall him telling me as a kid that "that's the kind of bullet you shoot a man with". Ma has the picture of grandma that he carried with him in the trenches - I remember her showing it to me and telling me that.
The dog tag is kinda cool, in that it's round instead of oblong like a modern one.
very cool stuff.
I need to learn more about the history of WWI in the theater where my grandfather served - he didn't talk about it much; but we also have several copies of his service record. About the only story I can recall vividly was him telling me about the closest he came to getting killed. He was out of the trench leaning against a tree having a cig...and a mortar came in. Fortunately for him (and me...), the round landed on the opposite side of the tree and the trunk protected him from getting fragged.
It's interesting to stop and consider that during my grandfather's lifespan, there were Civil War vets still living as he was growing up, he lived through two World Wars - served in one, and sent his sons to the other, the Korean and Viet Nam wars were waged, the Great Depression occured, the Civil Rights movement took hold, when he was born there was no such thing as an aeroplane, and before he died we put men on the moon.
AND - he managed to raise a family of five successful children in spite of all of that.
there were civil war vets alive in your lifetime. the last one died in 1959! but their big die off was during the
20-30's. if you check records, it's amazing how many lived into their 90's, especially considering medical science during that war. i often mourn the fact that we, the modeling consumers, haven't demanded and bought more civil war stuff. i would gladly build every mortar and artillary piece i could find. but what's out there is low quality or too pricey. love a civil war armored train....for less than a mortgage.PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.