Posted on 10/02/2001 4:47:51 PM PDT by jslade
Heard on Nightly News with Tom Lockjaw tonight that the British are bringing in up to 20,000 Gurka troops for service in Afganistan. Now, if history serves me right, these are some of the most frightening, blood-thirsty, efficient, killers on the planet. I have read many exploits of the Gurkas from WWII and Korea. Would love the hear of more Gurka stories.
Apparently, one of his Gurkhas overheard him, for the next morning a shiny pair was beside his tent, with the legs still in them.
Assaulting or snooping around an aircraft ramp is extremely difficult due to the wide open flat areas. An old grizzly Marine from WWII told me of how the Ghurkas loved to fool with the US sentries by chalking their boots at night.
When the Sgt.of the guard would arrive to do a quick check, the ramp sentries would have no reports of seeing anyone. The Sgt. would then have them raise their boots to see how many times the boot heels had been chaulked by unseen Ghurkas.
OOOOGA BOOOOOGA
He observed an exercise where the british troops were to defend a hilltop from the Ghurkha regiment. The brits laid out a textbook perimeter, dug themselves in, and settled in for the night. Both sides were equiped with paintball rifles.
In the morning the commander mustered the british troops and asked if they had sucsessfully defended their hilltop. Yes they replied, no encounters and no casualties. Very well then, everybody look at the soles of their boots. They all had paint marks on the bottom of their boots.
During the night the Ghurkas had infiltrated and tagged every one of them without detection. The Ghurkas were in Belize to guard against Guatemalan incursion, and inspired fear in the Guat soldiery.
That should give us a pretty good idea of what that dude in #54 can do... Glad they're on our side.
AB
A lot of the anecdotes recounted here are probably more fiction than fact (the British Army was never adverse putting the fear of God in the enemy), but they are not entirely without foundation.
I once knew a retired Britsh non-com who had made the army his life. He had been and fought everywhere. Hard as nails. He had strong opinions on the merits of the world's fighting men, most of them negative. But when the Gurkha's name came up, his eyes would half close, a smile would come to his face, and he would wax rhapsodic..........
They are special people, but they do have a fault. Along the way they formed their own bagpipe band.
That alone could rout the Taliban.
Aye. These men have tremendous honor and my utmost admiration. I was just trying to shed a bit of light on their thinking. They are not simply one dimensional characters. Their history is fascinating, and their trustworthiness is undeniable because of the justness of the causes for which they fight. When they pledge their oaths of allegiance, they never break that vow.
Having said that, I must agree that they are probably quite incensed by the wanton destruction of Hindu artifacts by the Taliban. I would not want to be in their way if Afghanistan is where their path leads them.
A Gurkha and his Kukri
The Kukri is the weapon of the Gurkha. Gurkha's are best known for their work with the British government. Over the past century, the Gurkha's have fought for the Queen's Guard in England, and have developed an amazing reputation for themselves as some of the fiercest warriors in modern times. With each battle fought, the kukri was used proudly. They believe that the kukri is a special weapon, which contained within itself, and has a spirit of its own. Once a Gurkha unsheathes his kukri, he must draw blood with it. When a Gurkha unsheathes his weapon in a non-combative situation, he must then nick himself to satisfy the "blood thirst" of the blade.
This unique and special weapon, the kukri, is one of the most misunderstood weapons of our time. At first glance, one would think that this knife would be used as a boomerang. That is the last thing for which this weapon would ever be used. The unique "L" shape of the kukri is a structural marvel. Because of this bend in the blade, the cleaving power of the kukri is magnified at least ten times.
This has been shown time and again in combat, as recently as in the Sino-Burmese-Indian theater of WW2 wherein the Gurkha units regularly engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese in the extraordinarily difficult conditions of the jungles in that part of the world. Numerous episodes of complete decapitation were achieved under the split-second conditions of combat. Often, the Gurkhas would crawl in one end of an enemy trench and commence running, hacking heads and limbs as they went. In the close quarters of the trench, the enemy found it hard to turn and bring their rifles to bear. The ability of the kukri to achieve its results with one swing made this kind of tactic possible.
Fortunately, you don't have to do this to prove the power of the kukri. Just taking a substantial piece of wood and striking it with different knife types will allow you to compare results. The devastating power of the kukri will be readily apparent. The reason for this is in its forward shaped blade. The apex of your swing with a normal straight-blade knife ends at about the surface of the target it is striking. In the case of the kukri, because of its bent blade, it is already through the target before it hits its apex! Envision a second hand on a clock sweeping around past the 12 o'clock position. Now envision the same second hand bent like an “L” sweeping past that 12 o'clock position. Before the "base" of the second hand reaches the top of that position, the top half of that second hand is already far past and through the target. Each time you swing a weapon, you have an apex point and the deceleration of that swing. You must decelerate the weapon in order to keep it from striking you, or in some cases, changing direction. The same is true with the kukri. With this unique bend, however, it allows you to crash through your target with amazing force before having to begin your deceleration. Combined with the substantial weight of the weapon and the pulling power that can be applied to the motion, the results are extraordinary. This sets the kukri apart from other weapons out there. It makes the "kukri" a cut above the rest.
Put this in writing along with a PICTURE of a Gurkha badass showing off his knife. Air-drop the leaflets over Afghanistan.
And MAKE SURE to show the Gurkha's the video footage of the destruction of the Hindu monument several times a day, heheh.
Wishful thinking.
I heard the same thing about the Turks. A fellow who trained with them in our American army in the 1950s, to introduce our boys to desert warfare, said they could also jump over their horses. Why I don't know. Just the kind of crazy to make enemies wet their pants I guess. They did practically take over all of Europe at one time. Maybe I'm part Turk or Gurkha. When I was a kid, every time I bought a new knife, before I could get it back into its sheath I had usually cut myself.
Here is the link: Gurkhas
How, at night, the Gurkas would slip through the Allied lines, making virtually no sound, almost undetectable. They would return just as silently later in the night, with large collections of German ears.
The Taliban is in deep do-do if the present day Gurkas live up to their grandfathers' prowess.
prambo
This "trick" was probably first done by the Huns, then the Cossacks picked it up, then the Turks.....
BTW, my father-in-law who is an old-timer gymnast, said when he competed the pommel horse and vaults both looked like horses. Had the head and a little tail attached and everything. It does indeed take a huge amount of courage to run at this thing and fly over it (my kids are training as gymnasts now and they're the only kids in their schools who can do pull-ups and pushups with any amount of stamina).
Modern-day gymnastics certainly evolved out of fitness training. Now you get to make the leap :-).
That's a well-rounded gentleman for you.
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