This is really amazing. How old was your brother when he had to do this? Some of these answers are just simply insane to actually think about. Q: Were you afraid to make friends for fear of them getting killed? A: Yes; we went out one day with 43 men and only 3 of us came back Q: Did you walk behind tanks for cover? A: Yes, sometimes. Then we'd get in a hole if we could find one and if we had a bottle we'd fill it half full of gas, put a rag in it and light it. When the German tank went over our hole, we threw it in the motor and it would catch it on fire and blow it up. Jesus Christ. The nonchalant way he describes what in actuality is a terrifying event is crazy. That whole interview is just good stuff. Thank you for posting.
My brother was probably 12-13. We have the voice recording of the Q/A. I think it helped that my brother was young when he did it because it lent Gramps to being more descriptive and kind of separated the emotional aspect of it. My brother isn't much of a history buff, and after listening to the interview again and talking to my mom, she said I wrote down more than half of the questions haha. Either way it's awesome. And yes, the fact he was a Scout and survived is mind boggling.
The Battle of Wounded Knee (also called the 'Occupation of Wounded Knee', 'Siege of Wounded Knee', or 'Wounded Knee Incident' depending on who you ask) was a protest on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1973 that turned into a 73-day long siege. AIM activists occupied the town of Wounded Knee and it was subsequently cordoned off by the US government. Both the activists and the government troops manning the cordon were heavily armed and fire was exchanged frequently. Several protestors and one law enforcement officer were killed or wounded over the course of the incident, with many more dying over the course of the next three years of guerrilla clashes between AIM and the pro-government militia 'Guardians of the Oglala Nation'. The signing of the agreement ending the siege.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is the saddest, rundown, most hopeless, piece of shit, hole in the wall place I've ever been to. And I've been to the Middle East.
I mean, there's worse places, but not many. Some of the Mexican border/siege towns come to mind There's just nothing there. There's nothing but trailer homes. There's no hope. There's no joy. It's just fucking depressing to even have to drive through.
At least the ghettos of the major cities tend to get romanticized to a certain extent in media. That alone brings attention to the areas. Pine Ridge has no redeeming qualities. Most of America probably has never even heard of it, and if they have, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who could tell you what state it's in.
Never heard of it and would guess its in Oklahoma as it was the last of the native Americans soviergn land
Came home from Florida with 2 large boxes full of slides from my grandpa, including a lot from WWII. I hope to be able to go through, look at them, digitize and add to this thread at some point.
"Scrap metal becomes new iron, so bring it on!" "Germany, your colonies!" "Workers! Joining the Iron Column strengthens the Revolution!" "Warrior of the Red Army! In front of you is the lair of the fascist beast"
Living behind the Iron Curtain wasn't too brilliant, and trying to escape could get you in a bit of a pickle: So the natural solution was to build a tank and fuck stuff up: This proud specimen was built by an adventurous handyman. It used a pair of commonly available engines, sheet metal and concrete for protection and reinforced tires normally found in agricultural vehicles. The creator wanted to cross the border from Czechoslovakia to Germany, and the "cannon" was actually just a wooden pole intended to safely lift and cut barbed wire. Unfortunately it got stuck before it reached the border. Luckily for the refugee, he was able to make the rest of the trip on foot. Some more fortunate emmigrants actually got hold of proper military AFVs which they managed to get operational. For this particular vehicle, storming through the wire barrier was no problem. The family found its new home in the USA. A more desperate attempt to improvise a border-crossing apparatus is represented by this amazing diving suit. The owner drowned because pillows turned out to be less than optimal flotation devices, especially when combined with a lack of rebreathers or stored oxygen.
i fucking love old, and new, shots of giant sprawling city squares... i mean fuck how do you plan for having mile wide squares? how does that happen? fucking love that shit
In many cities they simply tore everything down and started over. Paris, for example, is 1000 years old. It wasn't until around 150 years ago or so that Haussmann oversaw the modernization of the city, which involved tearing down most of the crowded medieval style neighborhoods with winding streets and built the grand avenues that Paris is famous for.
please tell me about the great snipers of previous centuries... were there some badasses in the Civil War, Rev War, Napoleonic Wars?
Spoiler As far as I'm aware, the sniper didn't become a thing officially until the Revolutionary war, as was a symptom of guerilla warfare. The british smooth-bore guns couldn't match the range of american rifling bore and led to our use on their officiers. The name stemming from shooting some kind of bird that took forever to sneak up on, the snipe.
I was just checking out the wikipedia entry on the indigenous Sami people of northern Finland (and the rest of the Scandinavian peninsula.) They are a semi-nomadic people who live in small villages, hunt and fish, and have constantly found their culture to be suppressed by the Europeans who came in from the south. In recent times, the Sami have found their rights restored. These hardened, ice-blooded people are very resilient. Below is a picture of one of their most famous natives. As you can see, they are a hearty folk. Spoiler
Though I should say that Incan and Mayan at sling shots that kinetically mimicked the power of considerably powerful pistols for the times. They may have had longer-range type slings if for nothing else because the way it would be released would introduce a spin on the pellet
though a marine will probably probably tell you carlos hathcock come to think of it, modern snipers will probably be more effective now. The issue becomes balancing available technology with mastery of skill. But yeah people love carlos hathcock. My friend claims his dad/granddad/something was friends with him and that hathcock had a fruity personality, especially for a sniper. Like snipers were apparently mostly headcases and kinda dark, but hathcock was a headcase in the other direction
not a pic, but some good reading. And White Death, (all 5 ft. 3 of him) tpos the list. http://listverse.com/2009/11/13/top-10-snipers-in-history/