Pretty cool find when looking through my grandpas things...
I recently went to visit my grandmother in Louisiana. My grandpa passed away back in the mid-nineties and was a WW2 veteran. He had been a paratrooper and fought in Normandy and marched through Europe. During their first jump, he had a close encounter with anti-aircraft shelling and was deaf in his Left ear for the rest of his life. He went on to become a minister and I was only about 12 when he passed, and didn't know much about the war then...so I didn't really know what the specifics of his involvement were.
Anyway, My grandma brought out a box of some of his old things and we were going through them and I found some really cool (and creepy) relics from his 'travels' through Nazi Europe. Here's a pic of some cap insignia that he brought back with him: http://i.imgur.com/zlOVQ.jpg Needless to say these are in mint condition for their age. I've done a little research and have found only a few pieces like this that are in this great of shape. I'm proud of his service and thought this was a cool find...thought I'd share. 'MERICA! |
Pretty ****ing neat
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Badass.
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Killer find, i'd be asking grandma if there was any more of it.
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We have stuff that my Grandpa kept from WWII which includes intelligence, photos, and maps before invading Iwo Jima.
Those guys were Real Men. |
How long until you are on Pawn Stars selling this?
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would like to purchase these.
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Any artwork?
FAX |
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That's awesome!
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WW2 was the most interesting topic in history class.
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If I were you, I would try to find if there are any surviving members of your grandfather's platoon, who would have served right next to him. It would be worth contacting them and trying to get some stories about their particular experience. Perhaps one of them has/had written something - whether it be a journal at the time, or a memoir of some kind afterward. They would almost certainly remember your grandpa.
These platoons often met up for reunions, though most have stopped simply because there aren't many living or able bodied WWII veterans anymore. |
Oh, my neighbor fought in the Pacific during WWII. I asked him some questions, but you could tell he didn't want to talk about some things.
He carried a BAR. He passed away a few months ago. RIP Nate. You were a hell of a guy! |
Very cool find!
My grandfather would not speak of his service in the war. He adamantly refused to take his wife to Europe for a vacation because of the experience. "Mud and Blood" may have been muttered once, but other than that I have nothing but a couple of his service pictures. A generation all to their own.:clap: |
Very awesome!
I'm a WWII nut, so that kind of stuff really peaks my interest let alone it was your Grandad's. I hope the family can hold onto it and never has to sell it. :clap: |
This was indeed the greatest generation. My grandpa fought in WW1 and my dad in Korea and one brother in Nam. That generation did the most bad ass things ever and then spawned one of the worst generations. Its understandable, they were told at the time that this was the war to end all wars. When they came home they wanted to provide for their children a better life growing up and have them want for nothing.
What was lost is a kick ass work ethic and a long standing history of tough as nails self reliance. |
Very cool. Hang on to those.
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I love stuff like this... Awesome....
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Although he didn't talk about the war much, his oldest brother, my great uncle Dewey, lived until 2004 and I got a good bit of information from him. He was also an airborne infantryman and I believe he said he was in the 82nd Airborne division. He fought during D-day and then did a major drop during operation Market Garden. The second day of the operation, he was shot 7 times in the left leg, abdomen and chest. He remembers blacking out and waking up in a hospital. When I was a little kid, my cousins and I would ask to see his 'bellybuttons', since his wounds on his chest all looked like bellybuttons...that's what he told us they were. He always talked about how nice the weather was the day he got shot. I remember his saying something along the lines of 'I was just admirin' how good the warm September sun felt and listening to the wind blow through the trees when all of a sudden it sounded like every gun in Europe was goin' up. Then I just woke up in the damn hospital." haha. |
Oh man I love WWII stuff. My grandpa was young and got in late so he was a prison guard of captured German soldiers. His brother was one of the first to land on Omaha Beach and was immediately greeted with a bullet 1/8th of an inch from his spine and got a trip back home. But my uncle's (married to my moms sister) dad spent two years fighting in Europe and ended up a POW in a Nazi prison camp and survived...now that's where some real stories are!
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My father in law was a bombadeer that was with one of the planes that bombed either Hiroshima or Nagasawki , don't know which one , he died well before I met my wife. But we have before and after pictures of the devastation from the bomb that he took from his plane.
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My great uncle was a tail gunner in a Liberator. The aircraft was shot down and he perished.
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This sounds strange, but he died fighting for something very important. We should all be as lucky. |
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Wow. Amazing stuff.
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Thanks for posting
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The Greatest Generation, no doubt. Pre-Pussification.
And no "embedded media" and 24/7 bullshit coverage. |
I'm not at home to take a picture but my great uncle was the seargant that ordered the original raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. I have his missouri medal of honor certificate and write up hanging on the wall. He also played himself in the movie "sands of Iwo Jima" with John Wayne. I remember talking to him as a kid but he passed away when I was around 10.
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Awesome. I would be proud to.
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I have some of my grandfathers things I want to take pictures of and throw up in this thread, but I'm immobile right now and can't.
Those are awesome pieces of history you have there man. |
Here is one thing I could reach (other stuff is up in my closet and I cant climb up right now).
This was earned in WWII in Okinawa. http://i.imgur.com/2yjiP.jpg?1 |
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Totally agree with Bob Dole about the Greatest Generation. But, to be fair, Eisenhower had hollywood film crews with many of the soldiers because he wanted things documented. |
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These guys were no doubt, tough... but they were a product of the great depression... and having to work hard. When you realize that that first "Great Depression" was created by the Federal Reserve Bank's pulling in lots of US currency, it created a severe lack of dollars in circulation. The Roaring 20's were like the tech 90's in a since.
Today, the Fed prints about 80 billion currency notes monthly, and the US is still broke? LOL. Very cool artifacts, indeed. He'd have to taken them directly from dead Nazi soldiers... |
I just got this old school 16 gauge my dad handed down to me thats been handed down a few generations.
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Found this picture online. My grandpa has an original of this one in a photo album. |
My grandpa saw Pearl Harbor bombing and was a radar operator on a submarine off of the coast of Japan when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
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my grandfather(left) meeting up w/his brother in wwII europe.
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Congressional Medal of Honor. No higher award possible, most are awarded posthumously. |
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http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-archive.php |
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My uncle was a marine and fought in Korea, saw some VERY nasty stuff. Although he would talk a little about it, I think only recently has he ever really mentioned much detail. My dad was about 10 years younger and got his discharge just prior to Vietnam, fortunately. His job description did not offer much long term success (paratrooper, hand to hand, etc..). He was drafted and didn't want to be there, but he did what he had to do regardless. A couple of his close buddies growing up where in the second waive of the draft from his area, and they didn't come home...thats how close to the deadline his discharge was. Both guys are extremely admirable and are certainly different from my generation and any generations coming. Its sad to think people have changed so much from then to what it is now, especially in such a short time frame. |
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Pretty ****ing awesome, if it is him. Hell, still awesome if it wasn't. Quote:
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Those are the stories that don't get told enough. :usa: |
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Well they don't get a hell of a lot more impressive than that set of ribbons right there. If that's Buck's grandpa, that's a stone-cold kicker of asses (retired as a Major General). |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_L._Day |
Holy **** Buck. That's incredible. You should be very proud.
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Oops I should have kept reading. Yes, that's him.
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It's funny to think (weird funny, not ha ha) that if he hadn't survived that, you wouldn't be here today. |
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You should read 11/22/63 by Stephen King. |
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Christ man.....your Grandpa has 6 purple hearts?
He's a ****ing hero. |
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haha. |
One of the best threads this board has seen. Oorah!
(of course I'm assuming...) |
My favorite thing I have of his is his fighter pilot or helicopter helmet. I don't really know what it was used for, but it looks badass. I'll bust it out when I can climb up there.
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Had my dad shoot me a picture of the belt buckle that I mentioned. He now has it. Pretty cool. Apparently it's an SS NCO buckle.
http://i.imgur.com/4uQc9.png |
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When I was in high school there was a vet that came and talked to our high school class. He had two whole tables of Nazi artifacts that he had pillaged when the Allies took back Denmark, if I remember correctly. He said when they would come up on a group of German soldiers they would all surrender and get on their knees with their hands behind their heads and he would just walk through their ranks, look at their medals, and any ones he thought were cool he would just take his knife and cut right off of their uniforms. He said they were never too happy about that but he was like "What are you gonna do about it?" He said he would send the medals home periodically, but he only got the chance to mail things every couple of weeks, so he would carry the stuff around in his coat until he got the chance. Also, when they marched into I believe Copenhagen and took back the capital, he was the one who climbed up on the capitol building and cut down the Nazi flag...Which he also carried around in his coat for weeks. He had that on display when he visited. It was huge. And badass.
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I've always thought that was a really cool story. |
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