Meeting a Veteran

[Jesse]

Hi all, I hope everyone is well. I thought I'd share an experience I had today. I own a podiatry practice in Melbourne, Australia. We have a lot of Russian citizens who have immigrated here over the years and some visit my practice. 10 weeks ago an old man and his son came in, he had a scar under his heel. I asked how and when it happened, and, translating through his son he replied "I stood on something in Moscow, 1942, I can't remember what." I told him I assumed he was probably rather preoccupied in Moscow in 1942. "Yes", he said. "I was 13, they gave me a rifle and put me in the reserves to fight the Germans." I asked if he had a mosin, he looked at me with surprise as if he hadn't heard the name for the best part of 70 years. He said he did indeed. I treated him and booked him in for review for today (Feb 23). He told me that was Russian Armed Forces Day.

So today I saw him again, and after the consultation I told him I had something for him to celebrate Russian Armed Forces Day. I brought in a mosin ammo pouch, oil tin, maintenance kit, multitool and 5 rounds of 54R. His eyes lit up. His muscle memory placed the pouch on his hip, and he unbuckled it and re-buckled it with ease. "I remember these!" he said. He displayed motions of using the multitool, and mentioned he kept his in or on the butt of the stock (I couldn't quite make that bit out). He picked up the cleaning attachments and the oil/solvent tin, and talked of cleaning his rifle. He fingered the lose rounds and talked about the stripper clips. I mentioned how some people today struggle with loading the stripper clips. Through his son he told me "Don't worry, when the bombs are dropping and the bullets flying, you learn very, very quickly!".

It was a memory I'll keep with me, for it's one that our generation will be the last to savour, to know these amazing people personally.

[Brake Weight]

Amazing what these guys went through at such an early age.

[Junk Yard Dog]

I have never met any Soviet WW2 veterans, they are a little thin on the ground here, but I have met many US WW2 vets. The Old Man of our outfit fought his way across Europe, and sometimes you can get him to remember something. This time of year he mostly remembers the cold, and how badly US issue cold weather shoe packs treated his feet during the winter of 1944. I buried another WW2 veteran last Monday, he rolled across France and Germany in a tank. 13 years old, shows how bad the situation was in '42, we haven't handed children firearms and sent them to war since our States War 1861-65, and even then it wasn't common.

[BuckeyeSgt]

That's pretty cool.

My Russian instructor at DLI fought the Germans. He was on a 76mm AT crew. He said his gun was in a museum now. He was pretty old back in 1990.

[jones0430]

'42 was a dark and bitter time.

If you are of an age, as am I and some others here, you would have grown up amongst men who went through those times. As a young lieutenant stationed in Germany, I met a physician who had participated. He never spoke directly of the unit he was assigned to, other than it was one of the first elite mechanized formations which started out as a regiment and became a division, which gave me to think he had been SS. It's hard to know, the Germans were very circumspect about their participation.

On a slightly brighter note, my highschool science teacher climbed the the cliffs of Pont Du Hoc. One summer I worked for a man who was in the 10th Mountain Division.

As I said, if you are of an age, you grew up amongst these men, and mostly we never knew their experiences.

[jimpierce7]

what a great thing to have happen. When I had the opportunity to speak with a Japanese WWII vet while I was in Sasebo Japan many moons ago, I sure wish I had a better translator.

[Sgt lamb]

when i was 8 or 9 in maybe `1968 met what seemed to me an ancient, Very, old spanish american war veteran.............surprizing he didnt charge up kettle hill with Teddy Rosievelt

[SA1911a1]

I am the age that my Uncles, neighbors, school teachers, coaches were nearly all WWII vets. The common thread among them is that they never talked about their wartime experiences. (at least not outside their groups) I played poker for years with two WWII vets, one in Patton's army, one an Navy vet in the Pacific. After a few beers, I did get some stories, but they were always the comical things, never the hard stuff.

My father in law, who I was very close to, was a tad long-in-the-tooth and small of stature at the beginning of the war, so the WWII Army made him a baker and left him in the States. Most of his kitchen staff were German POWs from N. Africa and Italy. Other than being an arrogant bunch, he had a lot of respect for the German grunt. He told a story of a large German non-com that challenged his authority in the bakery. The poor kraut underestimated the amount of fight in my small Paw-in-law and ended up in a large mixing container, after toting an ass-whipping, much to the amusement of his fellow POWs. Zeke said that after that, they all accepted and respected him and they got along fine. My father was a single, 30 year old father with two children at the beginning of the war who worked as an electrician in the Navy yards, working on war ships. He was a bit of a rounder and must have been in hog-heaven in Norfolk, single, and surrounded by heaps and gobs of unattached, lonely young women, and with little competition. No telling how many brothers and sisters I may have that I never met.

Every few months, at work, I see an ex-Soviet soldier who served as an acrobat in the Soviet Army. (yea, strange) He defected in the 60's while performing in Western Europe. He had no knowledge of the Mosin-Nagant and could not ever remember seeing one. He was trained on the SKS and AK. I have tried to get him interested in coming over and shooting, to no avail. This guy is in his middle 70s and trains our students in acrobatics, high-wire and trapeze. He is a tough old bird and a lot of fun to talk to and I would not want to cross swords with him.

As close as I will ever likely be to having a conversation with a Soviet war vet is the biographies I have been hunting and reading. Go out and find these books, they are amazing.

[Junk Yard Dog]

I was privileged to know several Great War veterans, now all long departed. They didn't talk about the war much, but if you kept your mouth shut and listened to them talking to each other you would get an earful.

[Longcolt44]

I can't remember any of my friends fathers that were not vets of WWII or Korea. Those that didn't worked in some kind of classified job with Lockheed. I do remember one time some people came to the house and wanted my dad and mom to sign a petition to stop the jets from Moffett Field, (Mountain View CA), from flying over our housing tract on their way in from the fleet. I learned a whole new set of words.

[rdmadison]

In our neighborhood--lower middle-class New England--everybody's dad was in the war and, as another poster has pointed out, they never told horror stories. The closest was when one of the dads, our scoutmaster at the time, was training us in first-aid. He told a story about another guy who had been knocked down by an explosion. Asked if he was okay, he sat up and said he was fine--and a few seconds later dropped dead of an invisible head injury.

One of the reasons--a very strong one, actually--that I'm interested in Mosin Nagants is that I believe the guys who were using them on the Eastern Front saved my father's life. He was in the Signal Service and his unit tended to lag just behind the front. Had France gotten the full attention of Germany, I suspect my father would have been wading in the surf in the proverbial hail of bullets when he arrived in France. That he didn't is largely due to Mosins.

When my father left Europe (en route to the Philippines and Japan) he wanted to bring home a German Mauser--but he wasn't allowed. A guy down the street brought home an Arisaka that we played with as kids (there was probably no ammunition for it in the entire state, and anyway it was too heavy to be as much fun as a Mattel)). His next door neighbor came home with a Luger. My father came home with a military-grade extension cord (typical Signal Service, right?) and a box full of Japanese slide-rules.

Those guys really were something.

The most starling thing about war my father ever said was in the late sixties. I was a Conscientious Objector, and he said that if he'd known there was such a thing he'd have applied. I've always been dumfounded by that: I've gotta say Hitler would probably have changed my mind. But my father went to war and knew what it was, and I suspect he just felt that however noble the cause, the actual wars generally turn out to be crap for most of the players.

[Joeinthehills]

I worked for a gentleman that served in the German Army in North Africa where he was wounded, and later served on the Eastern Front, aka Stalingrad.
He returned home in 1949 from the USSR prison camps only to find his entire family deceased.
As a veteran I can respect his service to his country.
Semper Fi,
Joe

[TheSovietSamurai]

Seems to be a fair few Russian veterans here in Aus, Poles too. My Great-Grandfather fought with Armia Poznan at Kutno during the outbreak of war, according to him he was a machine-gunner. Said that he stood his ground after all of his friends had either fallen or ran off, caught a few rounds in the leg and spent the rest of the war as a POW in Germany. Never had the chance to meet him unfortunately, passed away a few years before I was born.

[steelbuttplate]

In the 1930's and maybe before, the sport of shooting was a big thing among teens in Russia, boys and girls. If it were not for this, things might have turned out differently. There are shooting classes/competition in our High Schools in N.C., and I thank God for them. It might save our asses someday. SBP

[JoeR]

Like the rest of you, I wish I could go back 40 or so years and listen more and ask questions of people I grew up around. I grew up in a little town of 400 and my Dad was Navy during WW2 and never said much I don't think he was ever in any of the naval engagments that we have all learned about later in life. A couple of examples, one fellow I worked for one Summer was a carpenter and a very good one, turns out he was a tail gunner but he wouldn't ever mention it, a mechanic lost his sight when a shell went off near him when he was in the ski troops. Never complained a bit and worked in a garage for years and even pumped gas. Nobody ever tried to screw him by giving him a 5 and saying it was a twenty. He would pay attention to how the bills felt, a twenty would feel less used and crisp compared to the small bills. I remember being there with friends hanging out and he'd ask us if a bill was what the person said now and then. Later on I'd be at the local Legion Post since it was the only place to get beer and if I was lucky I could here a little talk about where they'd been and what they saw but most of the time it was the typical oh I never did anything. The blind fellow always knew who was speaking to him, hell I can't recall who people are looking at them. I wish I could have met my father in law, he was all over Europe and in the Battle of the Bulge and like the rest would never talk about it. After he was gone they found various documents, maps, and things showing where he had been. He ever got a Purple Heart but didn't want it because they'd send it back home and he didn't want to worry his mom and new wife. Best I can recall. My wife recalls when he once told her little brother to clean his plate because he saw kids in Europe that were eating any scraps that they could find in the streets or anywhere else. To be a fly on the wall and be able to listen to them talk again.

[A J]

I was stationed in West Germany from 87-90. Twice I ran into old German WWII vets who were both captured and sent to various prison camps in the U.S. Both vets said the Americans treated them very well and they actually didn't want to go back to Germany.

A few years ago, when I managed a big box store, one of my customers was an old American WWII vet who fought in the Pacific Theater against the Japanese. Knowing I was an Iraq vet, he'd seek me out and tell me the SAME STORY every time. Here it is: He was manning an anti aircraft gun on a ship that was being attacked by kamakazi planes. A fighter was heading DIRECTLY toward him but be kept firing non-stop. The plane got so close that he could actually see the pilot's eyes staring directly into his! Suddenly, the plane swung upward, just barely missing him and hitting close by. He was injured, but lived. (At this time, he'd show me his scars.) The vet was amazed that the Japanese pilot was staring at him directly in the eyes a split second before he turned and crashed into someone else. The dude was still freaked out. Kept mentioning "the pilot's eyes".

[Darryl]

About 25 years (or more) ago, my neighbor at that time was Dick Laton. He was 92 and hunched over and always wore a tank top type t shirt and shorts when gardening outside in the summer. Was an avid Raders fan with his hat on. We used to talk hours about the war, when suddenly, I realized, he was a very young man in WWI....not WWII. A doughboy.

I spent a lot of time with my Father-in Law when we went to visit. He was in the Pacific during WWII and had two bronze stars and a crud load of ribbons. I was about the only person he would talk to about the war. Not even his Sons.

Lots of "lost stories"....D

[jones0430]

I was very lucky, lost stories aren't in my history. My father was a fighter pilot, and they tend to be more open about the war experience. He wrote his memoirs and they were published. You can still get copies today.

[entropy]

I used to hang out at the VFW (only place in town underagers could get away with drinking at a bar) and play pool with and listen to the stories of the WWII and Korea vets. As others have said, mostly the comical stuff, but every once in a while, one would start talking about combat, and usually trail off after a few minutes and get real quiet. Most of the Vietnam vets I served with (there were still quite a few in in '86-'89) wouldn't talk about it at all.

[awalker1829]

My grandfather was a pilot in the United State Naval Reserve during WWII and talked some of what he did once the mission was declassified in the 1980s. He kept some of his stuff-specifically his Aviator's wings, log books and service pistol. Knowing his service history also explained why he never really enjoyed taking cruises as a retiree.

One of our family friends back east introduced us to her father, who served in Korea during that war's active years. He was in the army Quartermaster's Corps and did tell me a lot about the conditions that they encountered in country and the suffering they saw on the part of the civilian population. He never forgot that, or what the Corps did to allieviate the conditions to the extent that they could. Conditions on the ground changed quickly and as often as not, food supplies ended up being in the wrong place. Inbound troops that were expected in one place might be redeployed elsewhere as conditions dictated or the troopships might be delayed due to weather at sea. In those cases, the Corps units would load up the trucks with the surplus food supplies and distribute it to orphanages that were set up by the Koreans. Each orphanage consisted of ten to twelve children and a couple of adults. Every unit of the Quartermaster's Corps did this and there was a bit of competition amongst the units to see who could provide for the most orphanages. The old man's unit provided for as many as seventy orphanages.