Thanks for sharing that story. Going to class with such a teacher must have been a great experience.
—”Going to class with such a teacher must have been a great experience.”
IT WAS!
Being a senior septuagenarian, most of my male teachers most of the time were veterans.
An interesting group, with some incredible life lessons outside of the classroom; if only I had paid close attention.
All of my father’s friends were military with various letters attached to their names so not unusual to me.
No grisly war stories.
BUT.
A physics teacher who had been with the OSS during WWII!
Having a bean pole physique he was selected for a special operation near the end of the war.
They wanted to show a massive armor column for all to see.
Deferred maintenance has a downside and the OSS had a plan.
With a long reach and a pan, the hemorrhaging oil could be collected, and handed to a second on the top, to pour back into the engine... It worked.
A glider pilot on D-Day.
A former Japanese POW, he showed us the knot used on him.
Called a constrictor knot.
I’ve had more than a few volunteers claiming they could escape. Behind the back wrists crossed snug knot it is probably impossible.
A biochemistry teacher, and former Navy corpsman, in the Philippines.
How to carefully extract 28 feet of tapeworm...DO NOT PULL TO HARD.
A sociology instructor, a WWII guy with a soft spot for vets.
Propaganda was his topic, he loaned me a book from his collection. Today we are immersed in propaganda; if only I had paid more attention.
An uncle who hired me after RVN. An Infantryman with the Rainbow Div who walked across Europe and often awoke screaming in the night the rest of his life.
He often gave me a ride to work and we would yak...
One time he said, “Dachau, I wish I never went, I wish I never looked”.
Being hearing impaired since RVN I was not certain what he said.
Many years later after he passed, his daughter asked if I would help go through his Army stuff.
When I saw it, I knew why he did not sleep.
A Rainbow Division map with Dachau; “the times that try men’s souls”
Thank you for asking.
It felt good to remember them and many more.