SPC

[Revere2]

My working partner and shooting buddy's Dad was a "belly gunner" in WW2. He is still with us and he has some tales to tell. He went to the range with us and of course he loves the .45's and absolutely fell in love with the .44 Magnum. He said............"now THAT'S a HANDFULL"..................their tales of having the shaZam! shot of them (the plane), going down while slamming (as much as they could) the enemy really stir the fire in one's soul. He is in his eighties now. They have a published book. I will try to get the name of it. My hat is off to him and all of you that have and continue to defend us.

[Cal Price]

Amen to that.

[yamahonkawazuki]

agreed. revere, i want the name of that as well. im toying wiht teh idea of getting recordings or stories form servicemen/women and transcribing into book format. , proceeds of book to benefit uso or somehting like that

[cafeboy]

My hat is off to him and all of you that have and continue to defend us.

+1000 

[yamahonkawazuki]

+1million

[Cal Price]

I was born at the end of WW2 and whilst i was growing up just about everybody remembered the war and had their story, even the women and men who had not gone abroad to fight. My father was in the Navy and had a very active war, my mother was in the army and was involved with anti-air defence, barrage baloons and searchlights etc,.
  The people who did all that, who eventually gave us V.E. and V.J. have a fascinating story to tell and it deserves to be told and recorded for all our sakes but especially the sake of those that did not come home to tell it.
We only have a few more years to listen to those origional voices and make sure they are heard.

This was bought home to me on 11/11 last when at the national ceremony of rememberance three of the last four man who fought in British forces inWW1 laid wreaths at the tomb of the unknown warrior. As far as i know there are actually four survivors but one now lives far away, New Zealand possibly. As fate would have these things the three were a soldier, sailor and airman.

Give it a few more years and WW2 veterans will be this rare so we need to listen to them whilst we can, maybe we will even take notice and learn some lessons.

[yamahonkawazuki]

Indeed cal , Indeed. i always love to sit and listen kinda spellbound to these "heroes" who went off and did what needed to be done. one can listen, closing their eyes and feel as though they were there,

[spc]

Sounds like you had a blast Wilson!  Wish I could have been there.  I watched the entire Band of Brothers set over my Holiday break and can't wait for the release next year of a Pacific Theatre version featuring a Marine Co.  Way back in the day  we got a speech from a guy that was in our unit in WWII, not a dry eye in the place when he got done.  The best part was he never talked about how hard it was for him he focused on how great his friends were and how much they relied on each other.

Have you read 'The Greatest Generation', Wilson?  It's a book by Tom Brokaw and a great read.

[yamahonkawazuki]

myself along with teh patriot guard did a vets day celebration recently well on vets day that is. and most there were ww2, a few were korea and 2 vols were nam. and to listen to each, well  i was there for several hours talking to all of them. it was awesome