If I saw this happen in a movie I'd think it was impossibly contrived hollywood hackery, but this guy... Amazing.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
Member # 1203
posted
fucking nuts... in a good way. watch, some producer in china will probably make a move about that shit...
posted
^Get killed in the process I think...well, not always, but they very rarely give those out these days. Only a handful have been awarded since WWII if I recall correctly and I think the last one was a posthumous award. Actually, looking a wikipedia, it claims there's only three living VC recipients still around and two of them are Gurkhas. You really don't want to mess with those guys.
Still, it's a bit of a mystery to me how exactly they can quantify different degrees of 'valour in the face of the enemy' and decide who deserves which award.
posted
I'm sure it can be political sometimes. If command sees an angle, wants to score points with the nation the soldier is from (alive or dead), or if they think the division needs the morale boost. I'm sure they like having reasons to give out these things, I would. Not that I think this case is bogus, though.
My father trained maneuvers with the Gurkhas in Congo-Kinshasa while he was in the UN Peacekeeping forces in the 60's, during the scrap with Tshombe. They were very good knife throwers, he said. They used to stick a short, thick plank into the ground and then throw their bayonets (not the khukris) at it for hours. During downtime. He once chauffeured one of their colonels to an airstrip at night, and halfway there the short and thin little man told my dad to stop the jeep. So he did, the man got out, walked slowly to the front side of the vehicle, came back with a cobra. He kept it in his lap part of the way, then chucked it over his head into the jungle as they approached the airstrip.
Another night my dad drove him to some base. The guard at the entrance was a tall, young and burly Dane, who'd given my dad grief before. He started to pester and chew out my dad about his papers or something. The colonel gets out of the jeep, walks up there and demands to know what's going on, and the Dane leans down and gets into the colonel's face too. So he grabs the Dane by the throat and sweeps him down on the ground, choking him out. Then back in to the truck, "Ok, let's go". My dad learned later the little man was a prince of the Thai royal family at the time. He told me these stories when we cleaned the attic and I found the box with the black Khukri and the Gurkha bayonet in it. My dad had some african tribal weaponry and stuff too, some spears, but I always liked the khukri and bayonet the most as a kid.
Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Are you sure he was talking about a Gurkha? For one thing I don't think Gurkha ranks go as high as Colonel (they're usually commanded by British Army officers) and secondly, Gurkhas are from Nepal, not Thailand. Indeed, I don't think we've ever had a very good relationship with the Thai since back when the country was still called Siam.
posted
^ I honestly can't think of any situation in which a Thai prince would command Ghurkas. At least I'm not aware of any Ghurka regiments in any army besides ours, the Indians' and of course the Nepalese Army.
Even so, *he* wouldn't be any more of a Gurkha than a British commander.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
Sure- that was the idea behind the Glock, as I recall- untill the company decided it could make a ton of money selling to everyone.
Whatever, it's a glove- it's not stopping bullets.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
I could see it being used by private security types, though I'm not sure if it'd be legal over here as it is. I'm pretty sure tazers are classed as offensive weapons and only especially trained police are allowed to use them. Could be wrong though.
posted
Over here you can own whatever crazy non-military ordinance or weapons you want. We're fucking insane. Tasers? Try Dragon Breath fireball rounds for shotguns- yes, it turns a shotgun into a flamethrower. So legal, it's scary.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
Printer-friendly view of this topic
