As always, for my Oupa Charles, who somehow survived the Somme in 1916.
Finally, to bring things a little more up to date:
11 comments
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As always, for my Oupa Charles, who somehow survived the Somme in 1916.
Finally, to bring things a little more up to date:
Comments are closed.
I grew-up on a farm, my four grandparents lived next door.
My granpa Jack Russell went on the Cuban excursion with Roosevelt in ’98.
He never spoke of it.
Come to think of it, other than the portrait of Michael Collins in the living room, none of them discussed their reasons for leaving Belfast in the 1880s.
I imagine it had something to do with a difference of opinion.
A lot of people seem to envy the riches of an inflated bank account or fancy new gadgets and gizmos.
My heritage gives me wealth beyond measure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSE7qdjy3Q0
did my bit and lived to tell about it, but i don’t. feh.
tell me about you, a cape buff, a waidblatt, swimming trunks and stuff. i’ve bought all your other books. i’d buy that for a dollar, at least.
i’d so buy your take on the boer wars.
We’ve only ever seen what the engrish write. How about from the Boer perspective? Even a ‘historical’ fiction would be illuminating. And yes, I’ve pestered you about this before…. Write! dammit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgyB6lwE8E0
Blackadder. ‘Nuff said.
Here are the details on the young troop in the Arlington photo. Rangers Lead the Way.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jjregan.htm
When I was a kid my father was in the American Legion. If I was quiet and just sat listening He and his friends would talk about things they wouldn’t to anyone that hadn’t been at the sharp end. Some of it sounded like it should have earned them a medal. I don’t know maybe it did. They wouldn’t say. If I had asked they just would had shrugged their shoulders and said they just did what needed to be done.
They were all just ordinary men that did some extraordinary things.
Ate me a real goat eyeball at a Saudi goatgrab during dustup in the desert I. Just to show US tankers got stones, or are really stewpid, take your pick. Taught them land nav and on a practical exercise road side saddle on an M60A3 in the dark, cross country. Put my interpreter in the hatch, I could be replaced, him, not so much. He appreciated it, he expected less. I have always treated interpreters as trusted staph. Even after retirement when I taught the M1A2 in Kuwait. The FMS contract insisted on word for word translation, F that. My interpreter was a retired Egyptian army brigadier who did logistics in 73. Got picked up by the Israelis and had nothing but good words to say about them. We agreed that he’d get the sense of what I was saying across because word for word engrish/Arabic doesn’t work. I only ever taught the company commander and crew and they had good words for both of us, every time. They aren’t stupid. On one rotation I taught the BdeCO’s crew, said Bde CO couldn’t be bothered to attend. The PFC gunner missed shooting high tank during that cycle by about 2 points to the company XO. Think the XO stole the crew, later, but hey, wottaya gonna do?
In SW Saudi there are rocks, hills, may as well be mountains. Absolutely not flat. Scared the ever lovin’ crap outa me. After 30kms wound up at the exact point we were aiming for…It was the only tree in SW Saudi. Nobody asked me about land nav ever again.
Oh, point of order, do not walk into a Saudi mess hall and yell out Raghib Muhammad! Every damn person in there swore they were Raghib Muhammad… He was the guy whose tank I was riding on that night…
Raghib=Sergeant
Ana Raghib Awwal Yahyah ibn Ali
I could join the Legion and VFW, but I’m just not a joiner…Okay, I ‘joined’ the Army and wanted to tank and those slimy beetches (recruiter’s revenge) put me on a Sheridan and I spent the next 15 of 20 years in various flavors of ‘Cav’… DivCav, RegtCav, TDACav…
And they don’t even have horses…