Someone recently asked me why I glorify war.

The answer is simple, I don't.

I probably put it best in the intro to Finding Your Father's War. "War is a nasty, gruesome business. It has far less glory than popularly supposed, and is, as a rule, a waste of good lives. It is one of the most brutal, repulsive, and undeniable fascinating activities known to man. We all know it is awful, yet we still fight."

In editor removed a few adjectives from the first line such as horrible and brutal. He figured I had made my point. I'm not sure I did. However, I have a theory as to why we seem to go to war every generation or so. That's because as a society we forget just how fucking bad it really is. Over time bad memories of it are replaced by the ones recalling humor, friendship, and heroism. And the last generation sends the next out to wade in the mud, sand, blood and shit.

A vet once turned to me and said, "you want to know what the smell of death is like? It smells like shit. When someone dies they crap their pants. There's nothing special about it."

I've spent a long time trying to understand what my father went through that made him what he was. I will never fully know, but I've come close. I recall the fellow just off Omaha Beach telling my how he prayed to God that if he made it through alive that day he would go to mass every day for the rest of his life. He did, and he did. When his wife became ill he felt it was a duty placed on him by God in addition to going to mass, to take care of her. He had had a number of good years with her; what's a few more having a burden when he could have had none.

Or the guy who blew off a leg from a mine saying he was never as happy as when they hauled him back as he knew he was not going back into combat. Screw the leg; he was still alive. Or son that told me when his dad came home he crawled into a bottle and never came out.

In my work I have tried to understand these things, with any luck make others understand as well. There's enough pro-military material out there. Eventually the seduction of heroism and medals and bringing back bloody helmets as a souvenir overwhelms the cries of the actual combat vets who want to make sure people know that it truly sucked. Big time. Never forget: it's not just for the Holocaust.

 

Where did all the painted helmets go?

Some people just can't deal with the fact that there are not that many genuine painted helmets left from the war.

Well, this is what happened to a lot of them:

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675076669_reclamation-activities_helmets-piled-up_man-cleaning_helmets-of-soldiers-and-medics

 

The Golden BB

Most people are familiar with the idea of the "Golden BB." In modern terms it means that even a nearsighted, syphilitic, old villager can fire up into the air and shoot down a stealth fighter, IF he just happens to point it in the right direction and pull the trigger at the right time.

In other words, while the odds of some improbable things happening are pretty low, there's always that one chance.

With fewer and fewer really well documented items coming onto the market, I keep seeing collectors look for the "Golden BB" in items they buy. They will find something and go to any length trying to justify how it is rare, or cool, even when some common sense should tell you to be very, very suspicious.

You can always tell these tales as they generally start with "well, he COULD have … (done such and so)." If you have to bend over backwards and come up with improbable scenarios to try and justify something, maybe you should take a big step back, take a deep breath, and think.

A lot of these tall tales revolve around so called secret or operations. Well, he COULD have been sent on a secret mission into occupied Germany, but his records say he was at cook and baker's school as a cover. Well, he COULD have been issued old obsolete material and taken care of it so he came home from WW2 with all WW1 webbing. Well, he COULD have been transferred from the Marines to this Army unit due to his training in amphibious landings.

Yes, it is possible someone COULD have served in the Army in WW1, the Marines in WW2, The Air Force in Korea, and maybe the Naval reserves during Viet Nam, but it's not bloody likely. Yes, it's possible that the Smokey the Bear patch found in a Nam Vets lot COULD have been adopted by his unit as they kept starting up forest fires by their artillery strikes. Yes, a guy COULD have been issued with a gizmo that was made in the last week of the war and flown over especially to see if it could get tested out in combat. Yes, it's possible that Marine ended up with a rare prototype Army helmet cover on Iwo Jima (and was able to hang onto it after he was wounded and evacuated).

By the way- one of the above is a real example claimed by a fairly well known museum. The rest are variations I have heard over the years.

You know the people who do this. No matter what evidence you point out, they always have a work around for how it COULD have happened. They always claim no records were kept for some obscure reason. They will never listen to reason. They will always deep in their heart believe that maybe this German badge was made by a small Czech company that used a different technique that every other manufacture which just happens to look like a modern copy, and thus no one has ever documented it.

And yes, there are always the Golden BB's that seem highly improbable, but might actually turn out to be true. I've learned my lesson though. After pointing out one major problem with something, if the person immediately comes back with a "he COULD have…" in that tone of voice where you know they just have to believe.. it's not worth my time trying to set them straight.

film props

With the recent show of film/TV props now on the air, I am sure a lot of people will think of cashing in on their "iconic" (insert name of any film item) that "will bring $100,000."

I have a box of props from Saving Private Ryan. I was given some by the crew, and picked up a few others when they first came on sale. The only reason I got them was as examples of reproductions - not so much a film souvenier.

So many items were stolen during the filming of SPR that when they made Band of Brothers they had to install video security on the storage rooms. That still did not stop people from taking a plain old (insert some generic webbing item) and claiming it had been used in the film. Some of the crew themselves that knew where reproductions were being sourved privatly bought extra for themselves and then flogged it off as an actual prop.

So for the Pacific they were careful and made lost of extra stuff for sale after the film. Just look at how much is now out there, and the relative low prices. My bet is they will never really climb too high as there's so much, it is too easily faked, and the show did not touch the same nerves that SPR and BOB did.

Anyway, back to this new auction show. I have a number of friends that are involved with film props, and from what they tell me this show is one of the greatest "non-reality" reality shows ever. Its almost all staged.To the point where they sometimes move a collectors props to a storage area so they can claim they "discovered them."

It also seems that anyone considering buying from this guy should do some reading on his background in terms of complaints about authenticity. I'm not saying anything, but there appear to have been some problems. Lots of them.

However, on the bright side. I don't drink, but if I did I'd have anew drinking game. Take a sip every time he uses the word ICONIC, and toss it all back when he says something will bring $100,000 grand.

Are authors all idiots?

Why do so many people assume authors are idiots?

Case in point. As happens all to often to me, I got a call from a "freelance writer" the other day who was doing an article for a well known military magazine on a subject I had spent years working on a book about. Now clearly this person had no clue what they were doing (as in thinking the work "ETO" was pronouned "E-Toe" and meant an actual location).

But what they wanted was for me to give them them some photos for their work. Of which they would be paid additonal for. (I checked that mags writerss guideline: between $20 and $80 per photo).

So here I am. Having spent a very long time digging up rare photos that they cannot find, and them wanting me to give them to the writer so they can get paid for them.

I told this freelancer to have the editor call me direct. And actually, the editor did not call me, but their creative director did, who pretty much bitched me out for not just given them what they wanted, and for having the gaul to think that maybe, just maybe, they might want someone that atually knows the subject to go over what they were going to print so as to get it right.

She did not exactly say "we really don't care if we get it wrong, as no one will know and we just want to fill space." but it was pretty damn close.

There was a lot more to it, including her using the age old myth that anyone that who has ever had any connection to the military instantly knows everythign there is to know about militarry patterns past, present and future (even doctors specialize you know).

So I did say, sure, you want to pay me for the photos and I will get them to you. But no, as they had money to pay the staff, and anyone they assigned for the article no matter how incompetant, but not for someone who had wrtten the book they were basing the article on! Can I have one of those jobs?

But I have decided there is a new ring in hell. For writers who do not do their own photo/illo research work. If you wonder why photos in most books are horrendously lame, it is because most authors just write text, and then leave it up to some one else to find "X" photos to put in the book. Seriously, many have no connection at all to the photos work or selection. And if they did it probably would not matter as they would not know if the photo was mis-captioned or anything.

Photo research is a skill and a developed talent. If you find photos no one has ever seen, people take notice. If then everyone else starts using those photos their value decreases.

This is why, (truie story) when one guy sent me a manuscript to look at which had all the photos be copied out of my books with my original captions included... I got a bit upset.
His excuse was "you did such a wonderful job finding the perfect photos that I figured why bother redoing that!" Seriously. And I mean they were photocpied form my book with including the original captions!

And he still doesn't understand why I got pissed.

Sad thing is, this kind of crap happens to me about every 2-3 months.

Ebay

I've noticed a trend on ebay recently. Average stuff is just not selling. High end stuff goes for stupid prices. In trying to make some room in my house I have been putting some really decent stuff on ebay. I often do not even get a minimum bid. This has made me start selling the items at fixed price in the collector's world.

At this tells me is that the field is not growing. Probably due to lack of money. If people are not buying, they are not collecting, and if not collecting they may fall out of that habit and into another that is cheaper.

Yes, blame the economy. Only a wealthy society can afford to collect. We know the Romans (well, the rich ones) collected coins. However collecting pretty much stopped for a while, until the very rich started it up again. Small wonder that the USA pretty much led the world in collecting stuff.

So what I wonder is: if someone is not collecting now due to money problems, will they start collecting when money returns? Or will they have developed a "depression" outlook and stock away that money for a rainy day (as those who lived through the depression did).

Actually, in some respects ebay is a little bit more like it was in the early days when you could find real bargains. I've seen some very good buys tucked in around the items from E/5906th. Of course, now that everything costs $10 to ship, those inexpensive items need to be worth a lot more to make it worthwhile.

Victory over the moths

Well, enough time has passed without anything new getting in the traps, so I will declare victory!

I did invent a kind of neat device though. I have a number of footlockers and boxes that contain wool items. I was worried that a moth might get in their and lay eggs.

So what I did was tale one of the no pest strips, and cut it into little 1" chunks. You can't just toss these in as if they touch cloth they can discolor it. So I took two plastic cups from some desert, poked a bunch of holes in the bottom of one, put the chunk in the solid one and slid the holed one into it.

This gives me a device which the gas will slowly bleed off, but nothing can come in touch with it due to the shape of the cups. The small chunk is enough to fill the footlocker with gas, and nuke ANY insect in it. Should work for 3-4 months.