RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener, or pistol)?

RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener, or pistol)? (Full Version)

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Feltan -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener, or pistol)? (2/5/2014 11:59:25 PM)
Oh, well isn't this interesting. I am not offended by the guy with the SS symbol, and my feelings aren't hurt by the objections to it either. Culturally, I thing the American contingent on the forums is on a complete tangent. Our experiences are just different. - I spent a lot of time as tot with my German grandparents, and spoke German before I spoke English. At the time (early 60's) that wasn't an unusual experience. - As a kid, I heard my Dad talk of Nazi fighter pilots with a great deal of grudging respect. "But Dad," I would say, "you guys won. You shot most of them down. What do those guys have to say about you?" In the end, he decided that he really didn't care. The war was over, but growing up it was never far from thought or discussions. - As a kid, we had an old, mean and cranky teacher. Her name, like mine, has German roots. Behind her back we would goose step and give Heil Hitler salutes out of her field of vision. I ended up getting busted doing it. My Dad thought it was funny, but I still got whooped for getting in trouble. - As a teen, I remember a kid passing out at a party from too much booze. Someone drew a swastika on his forehead with a magic marker. He probably used an entire bottle of Windex and a couple of green scrubbing pads; his forehead was raw at school the next week, and we all thought that it was a hoot. The only time I ever recall people getting "serious" about Nazi symbols growing up is when a mailbox of a holocaust survivor got a swastika painted on it. That made the local news. However, it turned out it had to do with their teenage daughter having a go with a couple of the best friends of her so-called boyfriend -- the culprits thought she was acting like a "Nazi slut," and had no idea that there would be linkage to the holocaust. They had no idea the family was Jewish -- but had a Germanic surname that evoked the "Nazi slut" epithet. I suppose I can see why some people would object to the symbols and slogans. The Nazi's tried to kill my father, and did kill one of his relatives, and one of my Mom's brothers too -- perhaps there things should bother me, but they just don't. Different culture, different experiences and no lingering sense of national guilt. I haven't been educated or indoctrinated to rebel at the sight of them. And, today, those people that actually embrace this sort of thing are self-evident kooks anyway. Regards, Feltan

LargeSlowTarget -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener, or pistol)? (2/6/2014 9:25:40 AM)
LoBaron said it better than I did. usersatch, glad to learn this was not a political statement and thanks that you have removed the items. The 2. SS Panzer Division is regarded as the most "succesful" German division in terms of enemy tanks and vehicles etc. destroyed. But that unit's "prowess on the battlefield" cannot be separated from the motivation and ideology behind it, so such statements which are glorifying remain objectionable. Btw, I can see little "prowess" and glory in the cold-blooded murder of defenseless civilians by units of the 2. SS Panzer Division at Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane in France - and countless other atrocities that went mostly unrecorded on the Eastern Front... Sorry, but my parents and the German educational system have done a good job to "vaccinate" me - call it paranoia if you want. 'nuff said.

Big B -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/6/2014 4:24:18 PM)
That's a BIG +1 quote: ORIGINAL: Feltan I had a P-38 (can opener) on my dog tag chain for years. One of the invaluable tools of the old line. The MRE's of today just destroy the romance. No more C-rations, or Jeeps, or M1911 .45 side arms. The world has gone to hell! Regards, Feltan

guytipton41 -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/7/2014 11:28:27 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Big B That's a BIG +1 quote: ORIGINAL: Feltan I had a P-38 (can opener) on my dog tag chain for years. One of the invaluable tools of the old line. The MRE's of today just destroy the romance. No more C-rations, or Jeeps, or M1911 .45 side arms. The world has gone to hell! Regards, Feltan OMG, If you have eaten C-rats more than once or twice then you wouldn't mourn them. MREs (esp the light brown bags) are not bad at all. You can eat them for a month at a time no problem. Don't miss C-rats at all. Cheers Guy Ps. And you don't need a P-38 to open them, not that that stopped most folks from carrying one.

Feltan -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/7/2014 2:09:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: guytipton41 quote: ORIGINAL: Big B That's a BIG +1 quote: ORIGINAL: Feltan I had a P-38 (can opener) on my dog tag chain for years. One of the invaluable tools of the old line. The MRE's of today just destroy the romance. No more C-rations, or Jeeps, or M1911 .45 side arms. The world has gone to hell! Regards, Feltan OMG, If you have eaten C-rats more than once or twice then you wouldn't mourn them. MREs (esp the light brown bags) are not bad at all. You can eat them for a month at a time no problem. Don't miss C-rats at all. Cheers Guy Ps. And you don't need a P-38 to open them, not that that stopped most folks from carrying one. You, sir, are a heretic. You have obviously never shaved out of a steel pot on a cold German morning, and then dined on Beef Patties (a.k.a. Sliced Elephant Dick) warmed on the manifold of a running jeep for breakfast. All that new sensitivity training has lead you to believe that Dehydrated Pork Patties are what soldiers should eat. Nonsense! You can't discuss the truth of the matter because you've been immersed in a culture of don't-ask-don't-tell. Load six C-rat cans of Pound Cake behind a 105mm blank and you have a field expedient grape shot load. Try that with dehydrated fruit bars! HA! So there! Regards, Feltan

Big B -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/7/2014 3:17:28 PM)
Oh yeah! [:D] ...and - you can cook out of a steel pot too - try that with kevlar [;)] quote: ORIGINAL: Feltan quote: ORIGINAL: guytipton41 quote: ORIGINAL: Big B That's a BIG +1 quote: ORIGINAL: Feltan I had a P-38 (can opener) on my dog tag chain for years. One of the invaluable tools of the old line. The MRE's of today just destroy the romance. No more C-rations, or Jeeps, or M1911 .45 side arms. The world has gone to hell! Regards, Feltan OMG, If you have eaten C-rats more than once or twice then you wouldn't mourn them. MREs (esp the light brown bags) are not bad at all. You can eat them for a month at a time no problem. Don't miss C-rats at all. Cheers Guy Ps. And you don't need a P-38 to open them, not that that stopped most folks from carrying one. You, sir, are a heretic. You have obviously never shaved out of a steel pot on a cold German morning, and then dined on Beef Patties (a.k.a. Sliced Elephant Dick) warmed on the manifold of a running jeep for breakfast. All that new sensitivity training has lead you to believe that Dehydrated Pork Patties are what soldiers should eat. Nonsense! You can't discuss the truth of the matter because you've been immersed in a culture of don't-ask-don't-tell. Load six C-rat cans of Pound Cake behind a 105mm blank and you have a field expedient grape shot load. Try that with dehydrated fruit bars! HA! So there! Regards, Feltan

Symon -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/7/2014 5:33:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Feltan Load six C-rat cans of Pound Cake behind a 105mm blank and you have a field expedient grape shot load. Try that with dehydrated fruit bars! Regards, Feltan The pound cake wasn't all that bad. We did shoot most of the fruitcake we got, though. Sometimes, we'd spice it up with some M-3 meatloaf. You really do need to load it before the propellant. Otherwise, the poor, dumb, gunbunny who has to clean the obturator will not think kindly of you [:D] Any else of you out there who remember smoking Chesterfields, and Old Golds, while the REMFs got the Luckys, Marlboros, and Winstons? I had a period where I was smoking Kools. Had to be something to do with what was in the Rats. Oh, my goodness, memory is an incredible thing. The older you get, the sharper the memory. Transpose that. Hootz gazooties! The mind is a wonderful thing to waste. Ciao, JWE [ed] think I still got an old p-38 in the kitchen drawer. I like to pull it out at parties and hand it to my FBI buddies and watch them go ... wha .. waitaminit .. whasis .. hey John, whatda .. [;)]

rsallen64 -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/7/2014 6:01:22 PM)
Steel pots are also good for taking whore baths in if you haven't had a real shower in days and you can't stand your own funk anymore. Can't do that with Kevlar. MREs do taste better, but don't expect to be like a bear and go in the woods for days on end afterwards. [:D]

Feltan -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/8/2014 8:31:10 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Symon Any else of you out there who remember smoking Chesterfields, and Old Golds, while the REMFs got the Luckys, Marlboros, and Winstons? I had a period where I was smoking Kools. Had to be something to do with what was in the Rats. I suppose this will date me exactly, but some of the first C-rats I saw had smokes in them but that went away quick. And, then several years later I was deployed in the field OCONUS when the first MRE's were issued. I don't recall the details exactly, but we may have been the first tactical deployment of MRE's. I do know, for a grim fact, that while we had heard about MRE's they got issues sans any instructions or knowledge about them. To illuminate rsallen64's point -- none of us took a crap for almost two weeks after eating MRE's the first time since we had no concept of hydrating them and munched on the contents like they were candy bars. That might sound funny -- unless you had to endure the remedy. Regards, Feltan

guytipton41 -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/8/2014 10:39:10 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Feltan quote: ORIGINAL: Symon Any else of you out there who remember smoking Chesterfields, and Old Golds, while the REMFs got the Luckys, Marlboros, and Winstons? I had a period where I was smoking Kools. Had to be something to do with what was in the Rats. I suppose this will date me exactly, but some of the first C-rats I saw had smokes in them but that went away quick. And, then several years later I was deployed in the field OCONUS when the first MRE's were issued. I don't recall the details exactly, but we may have been the first tactical deployment of MRE's. I do know, for a grim fact, that while we had heard about MRE's they got issues sans any instructions or knowledge about them. To illuminate rsallen64's point -- none of us took a crap for almost two weeks after eating MRE's the first time since we had no concept of hydrating them and munched on the contents like they were candy bars. That might sound funny -- unless you had to endure the remedy. Regards, Feltan Well..... The constipation thing with MREs is a caution. After awhile you know which combination of inputs provided the right output. As a young lad in the Boy Scouts we would get C-Rats every once in a while. On a couple of memorable occasions they had smokes in the them. Us older boys (squad leaders and such) would go around and confiscate them and then after the smalls had hit the rack we sat around the campfire smoking. <cough cough> I wonder if it was nearly as good as I remember. Cheers Guy

Mac Linehan -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/9/2014 6:17:35 PM)
Lokasenna - The P-38 military issue can opener was, for decades, issued with "C" or "B" rations (cans and sealed pouches), long before Meals Ready to Eat appeared on the scene. Edit - I wrote the above before reading the rest of this thread - the old timers had already covered the subject. Although I retired from the USMC in 1992, I still keep my trusty P-38 on my key ring. Nowadays, I improvise the sharp edge as a cutter to open various candy or food packets when a child asks me for help on my school bus. Mac

Symon -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/9/2014 6:35:11 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mac Linehan Lokasenna - The P-38 military issue can opener was, for decades, issued with "C" or "B" rations (cans and sealed pouches), long before Meals Ready to Eat appeared on the scene. Although I retired from the USMC in 1992, I still keep my trusty P-38 on my key ring. Nowadays, I improvise the sharp edge as a cutter to open various candy or food packets when a child asks me for help on my school bus. Mac Me too, Mac. I came from the decade before you, but that little thing is still in my kitchen, and I still use it. The modern folks use a swiss army knife thing, but you and I know that's poop. A P-38 is a righteous tool. One wears it on their neck chain with their tags, taped up to keep them from clinking. one of the more thoughtful implements the military came up with. Ciao. John

rustysi -> RE: What good are P-38s (the airplane, not the can opener)? (2/10/2014 1:25:58 AM)
quote: You have obviously never shaved out of a steel pot on a cold German morning, and then dined on Beef Patties (a.k.a. Sliced Elephant Dick) warmed on the manifold of a running jeep for breakfast. No it was Korea and it was the exhaust stack of a duece. [quoteThe pound cake wasn't all that bad.] Don't forget the "John Wayne" bars (for those of you who may not know, chocolate bars). quote: Any else of you out there who remember smoking Chesterfields, and Old Golds, while the REMFs got the Luckys, Marlboros, and Winstons? What I remember is how stale they were, but when you ran outta your own...

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