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I had the distinct pleasure of delivering plumbing material to PA prison SCI-Waymart, locally known as Farview. Its an old prison, and BITT (early 90's) you delivered the material into the prison ( no warehouse outside the barbed wire). Ditto the other supply deliveries (electrical, lumber,etc.. plus food and dairy deliveries). The truck and yourself were searched. And then you went in. Yay. Great. Surrounded by convicts. When you got to the delivery dock, a guard and the cons were there. I was told not to touch a thing, the cons would unload the truck. OK, fine with me. A con went over the material with me, to check it in. He knew all the fittings. I asked if he was a plumber, he said he used to work in a mill in Philly, so he knew all he pipe fittings. I did NOT ask what crime he was doing time for. I could not wait to get out of there. After the truck was unloaded, same deal, truck and person searched, back out you went.I was always thinking if the siren went off as the cons rioted, I was at best a hostage, at worst dead. But it was interesing, in a morbid sort of way.I always said if I went "wrong",and got caught ,I would go down in a blaze of glory before living the life of a prisoner.Sidenote...next door the SCI-Waymart the Feds built FBP-Caanan in the early 2000's. It looks like the Death Star's surface.I missed the public tour before it was "opened", and I wanted to see it. My job now is a desk and office job, but once in a while I will voulenteer to take a delivery, just to keep my big truck driving skills sharp, and to get out of the office. So we had a delivery to go there. So I took it.Big dissapointment, the Feds have a huge warehouse outside the barbed wire, so no getting to see the inside of the Death Star. And no prisoners on the loading dock. DIY applies. Damn those Feds. 😉
I had heard the same thing about Hitler. A few years ago a friend pointed out to me why China wouldn't invade - in a state like Michigan alone you have 400,000 hunters. Imagine going up against massive groups of rag tag, armed citizens as a second line of defense.Â
Good point..try PA..almost 900,000 hunters....and a "few" seriously well armed and motivated individuals who shall remain nameless 😉Â
I read somewhere that one of the reasons the Germans did not mount any kind of invasion on U.S. soil was because Hitler knew how well armed American citizens were. I will see if I can find out where that came from...maybe someone here has heard of that?
IIRC it was Admiral Yammamoto, who said of invading the West Coast that his troops would find "an armed American behind every blade of grass"
So if it weren't for Prohibition, I could have ordered an Uzi and received it at my door in under 30 minutes? ;D
Hey, be reasonable.....30 days back in the not-so-rushed '20's"Express" was a relative term 😉Â
Ski, Ian doesn't sing all those lyrics in the final cut. I wasn't even aware that there was more to the song. Interesting though.
+1is the the original 70's album version...i never heard that before
not too far from where I live is Tobyhanna State Park, which is adjacent to Tobyhanna Army Depot.Back in WWI, parts of what are now the park was used an artillery pratice range. Every now and then, some camper or hiker comes across an artillery shell, and that part of the park is closed off until the Army comes and takes care of it.Strange to think that stuff from 90 years ago would still be around....and liveI read about the fatality with the Civil War cannonball before this thread...talk about unluckyÂ
Dad's side was from County Antrim…Mom's side from County Cork…IIRC the ancestors arrived here in the early 1880'sThe old-timers on both sides never had much use for the British from what I was told
It was October, 2006 and the fall colors were awsome. I agree Donald. I think I mentioned this in another thread but the bus loads of kids they brought out were so disrespecful, yelling at each other running around climbing on the cannons and memorials, it drove me nuts. Has anyone else here been to Gettysburg? If not, it is one of the must visit places in this country as far as I'm concerned. I would love to go back, kids or no kids.
I have been to Gettysburg 3 times...it's in my home state, about a 3 or so hour drive. I know what you mean about the kids...they need shock collars like dogs >:(My sis is moving to Gettysburg this summer, so I plan to spend more time with her and to visit the Battlefield.Great time of year to be in PA stumpfoot...Fall is the best season here.Town's best kept secret for lunch (not a tourist trap) - Ernie's Texas Lunch on RT30/Cashtown Road. Little Round Top to me is like going to the Vatican for others.
We lost at Pearl Harbor, Bataan, and the Phillipines (round 1). These were early battles before we were completely ramped up to full steam. After that, we pretty much rolled the Japanese all the back to their mainland (of course heavy losses were incurred throughout). I don't think we ever lost a battle in the European theater unless you count Kasserine Pass in the Italian campaign. The Brits and Russians suffered many defeats before we really turned the tide.
Midway was a fluke in a way...weapons production was just beginning to ramp up...but we had cracked the Jap code, yet still fought the battle with only 3 carriers, whose torpedo bombers (Devastators) were obsolete, whose fighters were marginal (Wildcat)...only the dive bombers (Dauntless) were still considered "modern". True, the torpedo squadrons were decimated (Torpedo 8 off the Hornet was eliminated IIRC), but becuase of luck and sheer guts of steel the dive bombers laid waste to the Imperial fleet.By all rights we should have gotten our butts kicked at Midway, but good intelligence, and some legendary pilots, turned the tide of the Pacific War on those days in June 1942.By Early 1944, the full force of American industrial/military might was being felt in the Pacific, and by mid-late 1944 most of the vaunted Imperial Japanese Navy was forming coral reefs in the bottom of the ocean. Not to be a nit-picker Don but the Kasserine Pass was the North African Campaign.The only other campaign that was questionable for a while as the strategic bombing campaign.The Fall of 1943 was very deadly to the 8th AF bombers (B-17's and B-24's) striking at Nazi Germany proper. Losses against the Third Reich by the bombers were unsustainable. If the widespread introduction of the P-51D in early 1944, and the corresponding drop in bomber losses, did not occour, good chance (I think) the bombing campaign might have been suspended. And that would have been a huge loss
we were pretty much fuel self suficient during WWII, almost all fuel domestically produced, they only way the Axis could have had an impact is if the prevented they delivery of the fuel the troops. Which was not done in any large scale way IIRC…the best shot the Nazis had with Britain was with the U-boats….which ultimatley failed, as the U-boats went from hunter to prey
besides the Autobahn and the Volkswagen, there can be little good said about Nazi Germany and it's socio-economic policies.That said, their weapons reseach and development was awsome. If they did not embrace anti-Semitism as an official govermental policy, I think Germany would have developed an atomic bomb before the US.And in airplanes, armor, and small arms, Germany would field designs whose influence would be felt well into the 70's.And, like it or not, Nazi Germany helped put a man on the moon.Sounds silly, but just think if all that talent was put to peaceful purposes....  Â
Germany may have been advanced in weapons research but they could not gwet these advanced designs into production in high enough numbers to make a difference on the battlefield. It doesnt matter how cool your gadgets are if you cant make enough to use them.As to the free specch aspect, when I got married I shocked my wife. She is German and was amazed that I not only had a copy of Mein Kampf, but had read it as well. The book is way illegal in Germany, I think you can actually go to jail for posessing it, and to her it is amazing that we have the freedom to buy some of the seditious stuff you can find on the shelves over here. Needless to say, she has since read it and does not get why he was so popular. She trots out some very simplistic answers and cannot get beyond them. I tried to explain the historical time in which it was written but her attitudes towards the Nazis are an abject lesson in the power of the modern educational system to indoctrinate people. She is incapable of having a rational discussion of Nazism and its attraction for the Germans of the 1920's and 30's.
True dat. They didn't call the USA "The Arsenal of Democracy" for nothing.Our tanks may have been outclassed by the Nazis, but for every 1 of theirs there were 20 of ours.Ditto fighters...the Me-262 was a world beater...but there were too many P-51's....and the Mustang pilots figured out if you can't shoot 'em down at altitude, they sure are vunerable when landing.And, again, nothing, no matter how advanced, works without fuel.IIRC back in the 20's and 30's there were 2 versions of "Mein Kampf"...the one meant for domestic reading in Germany, and the translated versions for the rest of the world....and the translated ones were edited and toned down to scale back some of Hitler's more "radical" ideas...can anyone elaborate on that?
