Soldier Stories
Served in the military? Discuss your time and experiences here.
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Best souvenir?
Halfyank
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Posted: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 11:11 PM UTC
I think soldiers must be one of the biggest souvenir collectors in the world. I know my Dad, and every other Dad who was a WWII or Korea vet in my neighborhood growing up, had some kind of souvenirs they brought back from overseas. My Dad's was a SS bayonet, and a Nazi dagger. I guess things might have changed since then but if you served overseas and were able to bring back some souvenir what are some of the best things you've brought back?
BM2
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Posted: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 11:25 PM UTC
I have an artillery pin from a french soldier and a lot of coins and dinar notes- a shipmate of mine swapped a white hat for a kepi when we were in Marasaille from a legioneer!
Sabot
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Posted: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 11:30 PM UTC
Large chunk of the Berlin Wall along with my flag orders and photos of myself and friends taking whacks at it with a sledge hammer. Great fun and great memories of "winning" the Cold War.
BM2
#151
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 05:04 AM UTC
Too cool!
cfbush2000
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 05:21 AM UTC
This isn't mine, but it's very cool. A man who lives at the nursing home I work at has a national insignia from a kamazkzi aircraft. Cal was serving on an aircraft carrier in WW II when the plane attacked and burned on the flight deck. He used tin cutters to cut the insignia from the plane (as did others) before it was pushed into the sea.
18Bravo
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 05:37 AM UTC
Tough one.
A whole room decked out in brass inlaid Afghan furniture and rugs,
tank and artillery parts, and AK bayonets rank fairly high.
But these are my faves:

As for Berlin, maybe a pic ON the wall in 1986, before it was fashionable or sensible to be on it. A few chunks as well when I returned a few years later to visit.
Removed by original poster on 01/25/07 - 09:24:16 (GMT).
matt
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 07:21 AM UTC


there ya go!!!! (it's AIRBORNEDAD's)
AIRBORNEDAD
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 07:31 AM UTC
GREETINGS ALL !!

Here is my little item, it was found in Germany back during the 1980's and made it's way back here to the USA after solving a few MINOR transportation issues. Naturally it DID NOT look like this upon the initial find...

It was one of my FAVORITE items, but now it has moved on to a NEW OWNER in the Northern part of the country, as she tended to be a little STUBBORN at times...

Thanks As Usual,


ABD


PS.. Thanks to MATT for his help in posting the ABOVE PHOTO.
Hollowpoint
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 07:41 AM UTC
18Bravo -- those cannons are very cool!

I have my father-in-law's souvenirs from WWII. He was with the 16th Armored Division that went into Czechoslovakia. The collection includes a German bayonet (with frog and matching serials), a Czech bayonet and some photos and books. He passed away two days before Veterans Day last year and I've been going through his papers. Seems he made friends with a local in Pilzen and the letters are pretty cool.


I also have some stuff that belonged to my dad when he was in the 25th Infantry Division (Tropic Lightning) in Cu Chi, South Vietnam, in 1969. No war trophies -- mostly personal stuff. My favorite is a little iron and brass cannon that he picked up in a market in Saigon. It probably was part of a set once owned my a French kid back in the 40s or 50s. Looks like it might be old Britains.

As a Cold War vet, my personal souvenirs are mostly small stuff that mean nothing to anyone but me: my first dog tags, an old key found at Fort Knox when on bivuoac in Basic, an 8-point deer skull from the impact area at West Point, a 1959 (my birth year) copy of Bugle Notes also from West Point, a WWII milk bottle from the training area at Fort Huachuca, a couple small stones from the top of Spencer Glacier in Alaska, a hat from Naval Air Station Adak, glass photo slides from Fort Leavenworth, bricks from St. Ignatius Chapel and the old United States Disciplinary Barracks ... plus, being a photojournalist and later editor, several boxes of photos, newspapers and magazines. On top of all that, I have a bunch of my old uniforms and other assorted crap (patches, stripes, unit crests, coins, etc.), some of it traded from other soldiers.

I also have quite a nice collection of foreign coins and currency, started when my dad sent some Dong and other foreign money back from Vietnam.
panzerboy1944
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 09:25 AM UTC
My dad was in ww2 and Korea with the 1st marine Division I have some Japanese stuff off of Guadlcanal and Peililue
LogansDad
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 12:14 PM UTC
Hmm..well, aside from 2 canteens worth of (potentially unstable) UXO from the Six Day War-amazing how you can get contraband thru desnail... ; a french 1956 copy of the M1 pattern helmet (traded 1 MRE pouch & knockoff Zippo to Tunisian guard; and a gin-you-wine WWII Tommy helmet that I dug out of the N African sands, my favorite was a 7mm piece of .50 cal copper jacket that the corpsman dug out of my leg after it shattered against a CUCV engine block (Reminder never to trust the sighting of heavy weapons by a Citadel-trained 2ndLooey with a map & compass. . Held onto that thing thru 7 moves but I'll be thrice dammned if I can find it now- and the doc did such a good job it's hard to find the scar 20 yrs. later .
Ah, memories.
LonCray
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 10:07 PM UTC
I've got a very large (3' x 5' or so) "Eintritt Verboten" sign from Field Station Augsburg. It's German and English, got that nice shiny reflective surface, and I was astounded when I got it shipped over that no questions were asked. I of course have no idea how it made it's way into my possession late one night.
Grumpyoldman
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Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 11:31 PM UTC
The one that sticks with me the most is the tattoo on my butt. :-)
CReading
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Posted: Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 05:35 AM UTC
Dad was a WW2 vet. He was a pilot so the only German stuff he brought home was a few shoulder patches etc. But he did bring a complete set of silk evasion maps that cover all of the European continent which are pretty cool.
A white silk flyer's scarf that he used to wear.
An A-4 flight jacket with his 487th FS patch on it
Various photos of German wreckage.
I still have all the above, when I was a kid I remember him having other stuff that has since gone by the wayside, including:
A complete flight suit w/ leather helmet, goggles and oxygen mask
USAAF dress uniform and day uniform
Colt 45 w/ shoulder holster
An inflatable 1 man raft with a telescoping mast and bright orange sail.

Cheers,
Charles
LonCray
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Posted: Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 09:47 PM UTC
I just remembered - a friend of mine got three antenna kits from who knows where- basically 30' or so boom antennas with guy wires - I got one of those. I actually set it up on my front lawn one time - I had neighborhood kids holding guywires to get it balanced and set up.
erichvon
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Posted: Friday, January 26, 2007 - 06:25 AM UTC
I found a live 303 round at Bois De Monts in some old airborne positions in Normandy. Picked up a couple of spent German rounds at Lochnager crater on the Somme and the head of a bullet from the same location. My prize find was an unexploded German rifle grenade (Lochnager) when I was 15 on a school trip. Like an idiot I admitted what it was and the teachers made me get off the coach and throw it away...LOL. Some people have no sense of fun :-) :-)
erichvon
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Posted: Friday, January 26, 2007 - 06:33 AM UTC
While I think about it on the same trip I actually met the maddest souvenir collector in the world. Just down the road from the Thiepval monument there is a small farm that had piles of rusting shell cases against the wall. One of the teachers spoke fluent French and asked if we could buy them off the farmer. I got stiffed with loading them into the coach due the rifle grenade incident. It turned out it wasn't a punishment as there was only two if us were actually interested on the trip (the other kids saw it as a holiday off school) and it had been organised during their conversation to look at this guys stash. It actually worried me at that age. His cellar was full of boxes of mills bombs, 100,000's of rounds of small arms ammo, Lewis gun mags, rusty rifles etc. The main worries for me were the unexploded shells...60lbers plus Gas shells where you could quite clearly see the markings on them! Now I like souvenirs as much as the next person but this guy was not playing with a full deck! There's probably a huge crater where his house was now as this was in 1982. Mustard gas shells!!!! Maniac!
erichvon
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Posted: Friday, January 26, 2007 - 07:10 AM UTC
This is the one piece of WW2 history that really means something to me...



This was my late grandads POW camp dogtag which I only got a couple of months ago after my gran died last year. Grandad died 22 yrs ago and noone knew that he'd kept it. He was captured on Crete in 1941 (Royal Marines) after fighting in the rearguard action so spent the next four years in a POW camp. Stalag IID is close to Berlin and was then moved to Stalag IVD at Torgau. I've got a load of pics that were taken in the camp to be sent home which are all stamped on the back with the POW camp number.



My grandad is sitting in the front row in the centre wearing the football boots which his mom sent in a Red Cross Parcel. He played amateur football before the war, played for the RM in the camp and then went on to become a professional footballer after the war. Even played in the FA cup semis for Portvale! I've got all his documentation from enlistment, the MIA letters,medical records after liberation and repatriation. Really fascinating stuff.
redneck
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Posted: Friday, January 26, 2007 - 08:28 AM UTC
Never served so I don’t have any souvenirs of my own.

We do however have a letter that was written by an ancestor of mine who served in the civil war. It was after one of the major battles and he wrote it from the same desk the Lincoln had sat at earlier that day.
We also have 2 musket balls and coins he brought back home with him after being injured.
Whiskey6
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Posted: Friday, January 26, 2007 - 10:43 PM UTC
I think my favorite souvenier is a very gaudy whiskey decanter given to me by a Vietnames village after I helped them build a school in their village.....and then taught reading (Vietnamese) and math in the school until they were able to hire a Vietnamese teacher.

The decanter is shaped like a dragon-ship, is covered in some kind of "gold" gilt with several small cups that hang from its sides. It's tucked away in a cabinet now. No one really understands its significance......but when I see it from time-to-time it reminds me of those folks and what we accomplished together.

Whiskey6
568armor
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Posted: Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 06:57 AM UTC
my daughters name . when i was in the field in germany at night i saw a small child image in the dark .i ask her what her name was and got no answer. about 5 min later she said stephanie.this was in 84.my stephanie was born in 99.
seuss95b
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Posted: Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 09:55 PM UTC
I managed to collect crap the whole six years I was in. From Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Czech, Israel, Iraq/kuwait to name a few. But my favorite stuff, I got in Iraq. A hand made sling shot made from a olive tree branch and a heart bypass tube for a just dollar! and it worked great. Then I have a copy of M998 humvee made from a few mre boxes (not the carton to ship them it but the indivdual serving boxs) and the food pouchs! It's fairly realistic too. Bought that from a kid for ten bucks. And its about the size of a average shoe box.
spooky6
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Posted: Monday, January 29, 2007 - 02:37 PM UTC
The one souvenir I'll always remember is this long plait of hair I cut off a female Tiger point scout we caught in an ambush during the '90 Christmas truce at Elephant Pass. Must have been almost four feet long. Had to give it up when I was hit and went into hospital.

What I still have though is a Gurkha kukri that my PTI picked up when his patrol overran a Tiger LP. It had obviously been taken off an Indian Gurkha in the laate '80s. I won it off my PTI at chess.

But the one that beats 'em all for me, was my grandfather's. He and his brother came back from WW2 with three (count 'em, three) Zundap Russland shaft-driven motorcycles with sidecars. They operated two and cannibalized the third for spares. One survived 'til '71.
Red4
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Posted: Saturday, February 17, 2007 - 08:10 PM UTC
I don't have a lot of goodies from my years of service, but I did hold onto some things that mean somehting to me. A large piece of shrapnel that was imbedded in the turret of my Sheridan after a "short round" incident at Ft. Bragg. A 105mm arty round landed about 15' off the right rear corner of my Sheri. Completely shreddd our ruck sacks and lodged this piece just under my commander's cupola. Rung our bell pretty good, but that's about it. Another is the commanders elbow extension control handle from my Sheridan. Basically a big pistol grip with a trigger on it.
A few others are pieces of shrapnel and bullets that didn't quite find their mark on me. One was deflected by my rifle stock as I had it carried across the front of my chest. Another was a piece of shrapnel stuck in my helmet that I didn't find until I was back in the states and turning my gear in to retire. That one made me think a bit...

My brother has some excellent goodies in his stash. A post card written to Joachim Peiper while in military prison. The complete list of war criminal's that were in the same prison, to include their sentences, even had their pictures and prisoner numbers etc. I can't recall the name of the prison, Landsberg maybe? And some water color paintings from the same time frame done by one of the prisoners. The paintings are very good too.
Most of what I have though are memories. Can't take those away.. "Q"