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The "What Are You Thinking About Right Now?" PIP


Francesca

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3 minutes ago, jj3 said:

 

 

Natasha ... 

 

... is hot like fire and gentle like a rose! :angel:

 

I like the moles on her belly. These distinctive marks give a lot of charm. Like Tessa's mark (Red dutch fire :angel: A lot of class. A lot of charm):

Tessa Coenen Superior mag 10.jpg

 

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1 minute ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

... is hot like fire and gentle like a rose! :angel:

 

I like the moles on her belly. These distinctive marks give a lot of charm.

 

 

100% ! I love the fact she moved in Australia now ! 

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On 10/20/2017 at 2:59 AM, SympathysSilhouette said:

 

Eugene Sledge!

 

Also a great role by Rami Malek in that series ("The Pacific").

 

Rami was great.  I waited for that series with baited breath, and they captured many of the events in the book.  I highly recommend "With the Old Breed" (the book) if you haven't read it.  What made the book a home run is its circumstances.  Sledge wrote the book, postwar, IIRC after his Ph.D due to his PTSD nightmares.  He would replay events from the war, over and over again but in vivid detail.   This detail is unusual in its rich quality of emotional description and it made it into the book.

 

Sledge was a crewman of a 60mm mortar team.  These were attached to Marine Corps rifle platoons, and the Platoon commander's pocket artillery.  So even though "The Old Breed" took 200% losses in its combat elements, the mortar teams (being in the rear) were at the same time able to watch the men in the front fighting but at the same time, avoid a lot of death and injury.  It was very difficult combat, similar to East Front style with men on both sides fighting to the death.  The Japanese were very heroic.

 

But under all of this immense suffering and trauma, was strength, self-sacrifice and devotion to a cause greater than just preserving the physical body.

 

“I am the harvest of man's stupidity. I am the fruit of the holocaust. I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now. It is over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry the memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can't forget.” 
 Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

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On 10/19/2017 at 6:44 PM, Enrico_sw said:

 

Winters is of course the best. He has a lot of charisma, he's level-headed, calm and smart. But Guarnere is fire and energy.

 

In short, here are the best ones for me:

- Winters (charismatic, calm and smart)

- Speirs (f*** bold!)

- Guarnere (fire, boiling blood and determination)

 

I'm glad that you brought up BoB- this series means a lot to me and brings back a lot of memories.   My next door neighbor growing up was a Jewish retiree and veteran of the 101. Airborne.  I have childhood memories of going to his house and playing with his weapons (he owned a lot of WW2 weapons, including the M1 Thompson submachinegun, M1 Garand, M1 carbine, Japanese Arisaka, Lee-Enfield rifle, etc.  The weapons were too heavy and long for my small hands but the M1 Carbine fit just alright :D  He's passed away now but I'll always remember him.About 14 years ago, one of the Rifle company commanders (Captain), with the help of his daughter, started to post his memories on one of the biggest WW2 forums.  That forum is now defunct but I saved his letters and photographs.  It's on file somewhere.  He got up to November 1944 and stopped writing.  But his experiences were solid gold. 

 

The men of the 101, 82nd, and 17th Airborne divisions were volunteers that passed a rather strict selection criteria for the 1940s.  Officers: Bacheler's degree and IQ minimum 130 points, NCOs and men: 115 points.  Most were age around 30 and tall & athletic men.  Their training emphasized initiative and creativity in fieldcraft.   The division was formed around elements of the combat experienced 82nd Airborne.  

 

Winters was an archetypical all-American dude from small town America (good grades, college, athletic, football, etc.)- a natural leader that rose to become a Battalion commander.   Speirs and Guarnere to me, fit the archetype of the men with the 'right stuff' in combat.  The majority of men in battle are mediocre but there are a select few with iron nerves and elan.  These are the men that eventually  rise to senior NCO positions.  Basaloni from "The Pacific" is another one of these men. I feel like something is lost with the passing of the WW2 generation.

 

This book profiles (though from the German POV) men of this nature.  These men accumulated over 50 days of close combat.  Many of them were shot and hit with fragments a dozen times. The message is universal:

 

A1Cus6KI5nL.jpg51Fvr3vpUHL._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

 

And Brotherhood, that communion among men.  Combat brings out this hidden trait more strongly than any other human endeavor.   In a way the thin veneer of so-called "civilization" falls and the true selves emerge.  Ernst Junger's Storm of Steel describes this communion and this mental transformation during battle- the sudden realization that one is more alive than ever before, although one is surrounded by death and dealing death.  Band of Brothers is the best existing presentation of this phenomenon, and it's more than just a TV series; it's a public service to something that is so easy forgotten and must be revisited & explored until the end of our days.

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