Picture of the day

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Helmet Sale

Groups of ladies sold miniature military helmets around the city to put on lapels, funding the League of Veteran Combatants of the Great War.

Praça do Comércio, better known as Terreiro do Paço, is a square in downtown Lisbon located next to the Tagus River, in the area that was the site of the palace of the kings of Portugal (Paço da Ribeira) for about two centuries and which today it is occupied by ministries and other government departments.

Date(s): 1932-04-08
Unidentified photographer, in Old Lisbon

 

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The "Glory" of war.

 

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Loss of innocence?

 

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"Furriel Fernando Madruga in 1974 on an operation in Toto [northern Angola], with the AR10 with telescopic aim."
Photo and description by Vitor Fernandes.

 

[grelmar]

Loss of innocence?

The pictures of child soldiers always gut punch me. I've got a kid in grade 9, the thought of her with the "Thousand Yard Stare" that these two kids, who are probably about that age, are showing, brings about a special kind of hatred of the madmen who'd march children off to war.

 

[green]

The pictures of child soldiers always gut punch me. I've got a kid in grade 9, the thought of her with the "Thousand Yard Stare" that these two kids, who are probably about that age, are showing, brings about a special kind of hatred of the madmen who'd march children off to war.

Note the rope used as belt.

 

[HuskyDude]

Look it's a 1955 McDonnell F-109...

or is it ???

 

[Painkillers]

The pictures of child soldiers always gut punch me. I've got a kid in grade 9, the thought of her with the "Thousand Yard Stare" that these two kids, who are probably about that age, are showing, brings about a special kind of hatred of the madmen who'd march children off to war.

Those aren't children. At least not anything like the children you or I have ever met. Those are SS Infantry men and are brain poisoned idiologs. They'd march your grade 9 kid into a slave camp or up against a brick execution wall and wouldn't bat an eye. Stone cold killers.

How would I know you might ask? When I was a kid, my neighbour was a decorated (Distinguished Service Medal) WW2 veteran whose actions at the battle of Otterlo against these very troops left him forever changed.

(He burned them out of their entrenchments with his WASP. An armoured Bren Gun carrier that was outfitted with a static flame thrower. He was in charge of 3 WASPS, and they collectively turned the battle)

 

[points]

Those aren't children. At least not anything like the children you or I have ever met. Those are SS Infantry men and are brain poisoned idiologs. They'd march your grade 9 kid into a slave camp or up against a brick execution wall and wouldn't bat an eye. Stone cold killers.

How would I know you might ask? When I was a kid, my neighbour was a decorated (Distinguished Service Medal) WW2 veteran whose actions at the battle of Otterlo against these very troops left him forever changed.

(He burned them out of their entrenchments with his WASP. An armoured Bren Gun carrier that was outfitted with a static flame thrower. He was in charge of 3 WASPS, and they collectively tuned the battle)

I think you missed the point.
They were children. It is the madmen that turn them into killers that are the true evil.

 

[Painkillers]

I think you missed the point.
They were children. It is the madmen that turn them into killers that are the true evil.

I didn't miss the point, I fully understand what grelmar said.

I believe you are missing my point, and that is that there is a point of no return. The point whereby the evil, true evil, readily and completely spills from one individual into another. "Men don't have ideas, Ideas have men." [Carl Jung]

 

[bearhunter]

The pictures of child soldiers always gut punch me. I've got a kid in grade 9, the thought of her with the "Thousand Yard Stare" that these two kids, who are probably about that age, are showing, brings about a special kind of hatred of the madmen who'd march children off to war.

They're likely younger than your daughter.

They're starved down to skin and bone, seen things no one should ever see, maybe even done those things.

I have a friend in Austria that was taken directly from the Hitler Jugend to the SS when he turned the ripe old age of 12, because he was tall for his age and very fit.

He managed to run away and get home in Vienna before the Russians caught him.

Getting caught by any Soviet soldiers was an immediate death sentence for those in SS uniforms or found with an SS tatoo.

 

[R005t3r]

They're likely younger than your daughter.

They're starved down to skin and bone, seen things no one should ever see, maybe even done those things.

I have a friend in Austria that was taken directly from the Hitler Jugend to the SS when he turned the ripe old age of 12, because he was tall for his age and very fit.

He managed to run away and get home in Vienna before the Russians caught him.

Getting caught by any Soviet soldiers was an immediate death sentence for those in SS uniforms or found with an SS tatoo.

Yeah, like now, in Ukraine.

 

[bearhunter]

You like now, in Ukraine.

Hard to tell what's really going on in Ukraine, with all of the misinformation from all sides.

From personal experience, I can say that most Communist nations have little or no regard for the lives of their troops and it's blatantly obvious.

As far as killing surrendering prisoners goes???? Sometimes accepting surrender just isn't possible, depending on all sorts of things, including vicious and retributional mindsets, then the atrocities escalate on both sides.

With today's filming techniques it quite possible to make anything happen and make it look real.

Then again there are no bottoms when it comes to man's inhumanity to man.

Certain regimes look upon their citizens as collateral assets, to be used up and discarded on a whim.

 

[R005t3r]

Hard to tell what's really going on in Ukraine, with all of the misinformation from all sides.

From personal experience, I can say that most Communist nations have little or no regard for the lives of their troops and it's blatantly obvious.

As far as killing surrendering prisoners goes???? Sometimes accepting surrender just isn't possible, depending on all sorts of things, including vicious and retributional mindsets, then the atrocities escalate on both sides.

With today's filming techniques it quite possible to make anything happen and make it look real.

Then again there are no bottoms when it comes to man's inhumanity to man.

Certain regimes look upon their citizens as collateral assets, to be used up and discarded on a whim.

Had to correct my comment; brain fart: Yeah, like now, in Ukraine.

The depravity of the human being is only bounded by its imagination. Gender is no boundary. Can't imagine things went well for captured members of the Azov Battalion. As you said, we are just meat for the grinder.

 

[grelmar]

Ok, that went places I wasn't expecting.

Basically I was just saying "Sending kids off to war is bad, mmm-kay?"

Anyway. On to other things. "Ukrainian Technical":

That old Soviet era Izh-2715 in your yard still running? Well, sonny, rattle-can that thing a thick coat of green, and pull your M1910 Maxim out from the floorboards and head to the front because The Russians are coming.

 

[Painkillers]

mmm-kay.

 

[TheWhole9Yards]

Its not stupid if it works!

 

[Grizzly Adams]

Ok, that went places I wasn't expecting.

Basically I was just saying "Sending kids off to war is bad, mmm-kay?"

Anyway. On to other things. "Ukrainian Technical":

That old Soviet era Izh-2715 in your yard still running? Well, sonny, rattle-can that thing a thick coat of green, and pull your M1910 Maxim out from the floorboards and head to the front because The Russians are coming.

About as good as those armored cars we sent.

Grizz

 

[points]

Its not stupid if it works!

Absolutely right. It would be nice if everybody had state of the art equipment but if all you have is something from WW1 that still works, why not. I can consistently hit a 24" gong @400 yards with my Mosin sniper. I can do the same with my VZ24 @ 300 yards, so if it works and that is all you have, why not.