Echoes of the big bang
Dec. 14th, 2008 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhetleyThe world has changed mightily since I was young . . .
Item in the news, this old guy brought a couple of hand grenades into the local police station, he'd found them in a friend's basement and thought that was a poor choice of storage. Bomb squad called, building evacuated, etc, etc. WWII Japanese survivors. That's the second incident in the last few weeks.
Thing is, I grew up with WWII vets all over the place. And "war trophies" all over the place. Friend up the street, his father had a line of artillery shells along the window-sill of his home office, 20mm up to 105. Nobody thought anything of it. He'd been in artillery himself, and I'm damned sure in retrospect that every one was deactivated. Old Mr. Morris was no dummy.
Hell, our elementary school principal used a grenade as a paperweight in his office. Again, not live. That one, I know was a practice grenade.
I can just imagine what a riot either case would cause today.
Item in the news, this old guy brought a couple of hand grenades into the local police station, he'd found them in a friend's basement and thought that was a poor choice of storage. Bomb squad called, building evacuated, etc, etc. WWII Japanese survivors. That's the second incident in the last few weeks.
Thing is, I grew up with WWII vets all over the place. And "war trophies" all over the place. Friend up the street, his father had a line of artillery shells along the window-sill of his home office, 20mm up to 105. Nobody thought anything of it. He'd been in artillery himself, and I'm damned sure in retrospect that every one was deactivated. Old Mr. Morris was no dummy.
Hell, our elementary school principal used a grenade as a paperweight in his office. Again, not live. That one, I know was a practice grenade.
I can just imagine what a riot either case would cause today.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-14 05:43 pm (UTC)I was Signal Corps, most assuredly Rear Echelon, yet I know how to handle and disarm a wide variety of US and foreign (mostly Soviet-type) weapons.