I met an interesting character today...

Nunogilberto

During the course of my work today, I spent a couple of hours talking to an elderly couple, one of whom was a Vietnam veteran.

What a fascinating guy. He'd been exposed to a nerve agent in the conflict and is now riddled with all sorts of health issues, one of which is PTSD. As we sat talking, the house next door started letting off fireworks, which sent him straight into a panic attack. I've suffered from these in the past, but here's a guy who has flashbacks and associates fireworks with mortars etc.

Just thought I'd share that. I'm not into this media/social media love in with the military, but here's a man who served his country decades ago and is still paying the price now, well into old age. I could have sat and talked to him all day.

Makes a change from being ranted at by some idiot who won't listen to what I'm saying, which often happens...

breakstuff

It always amazes me how the older generations dealt with the things they must have seen during past wars.Most with such dignified silence.

I feel for that guy @Nunogilberto
He's obviously been through some horrific times.

Alnico

A few years ago outside my house (where we used to live by a very beautiful park) i was stopped by an old gentleman and asked where "such-and-such" a road is ? I replied that it's just on the other side of the park and asked him why?

He told me he lived there and he looked a little confused so i offered to walk back over there with him while he piloted the electric wheelchair / scooter he was driving.

On the 5 minute walk he proceeded to tell me in his american accent about how he was playing baseball back in the US when the attack on Pearl harbour was announced on the radio. Him and every one of his young friends were so shocked by what had happened they went and signed up for the army there and then and went off to war. During the course of WW2 he ended up stationed over here where after the war, he settled with his English wife who he had met whilst serving here. Now in his old age and recently lost his wife, he was left here to live out his remaining years.

I was stood outside his house, just on the other side of the park for 4 hours, totally amazed by this lovely old man who had lived such an amazing and colourful life and he wanted no more than someone's time to listen to him tell it's story.

You never quite know who you are walking past and who is who.

I am from a military serving Family and it meant a great deal to me to spend that time with him. It's something i will never forget and in that i will never forget him.

Drew_TNBD

I find it difficult to admire any such "dignified silence" ... all that is an indicator of is lack of support for mental health, for instance.

As for the men who went to those two wars... I feel for them, and the situations that meant they ended up going to war. But I absolutely detest how society was back in those days, and still an extent these days... shaming boys into enlisting so that they can spend their days getting shot at is not a sign of civilized society.

The White Feather campaigns that went on during WW1 absolutely and thoroughly disgust me. Utterly barbaric.

I wish people (specifically men) didn't feel the need to join the army. I wish society didn't make them feel that way.

holnrew

Was he American? Vietnam was such a waste of young men's lives, and the chemical warfare just terrible.

Nunogilberto

@holnrew - Yes he was. Been all over with the air force after Vietnam, by all accounts.

VimFuego

when I went travelling round Aus (1990-1991) I let a fair few Vietnam vets, young men who'd been conscripted and sent off to fight somewhere. The fact that the ones I all met were in their 40's and were itinerate workers with no fixed abode tells quite a lot (to me at least). Fat white men in suits are quite good at sending young men off to fight their wars for them, not quite so good at patching the poor bastards up afterwards.

Sambostar

The op's post kind of suggests that you see people as old, sterile, banal and redundant in the first place to even think like that.  Can't say I ever felt that way over the age of 12 and have always met everyone with an open heart and plenty of time to natter.  Not particularly interested in people, but people are very interesting.  What gets me is that the middle ages were only 5 or 6 lifetimes ago.  Seriously, as you get older it amazes me where we are now, or rather where we were and how misrepresented the past really is and how everything that isn't of the moment is basically cast as redundant.

Oz army in Vietnam was a more professional outfit though.  My uncle was out there.  I know they drafted everyone who had just arrived in the USA on a work visa as first choice, with the poor out of college kids as second choice though as my dad only just avoided the draft.  Imagine if we did that today, drafted all the Poles, Latvians, Romanians and Somalis, Nigerians and Pakistani's and Banglesdeshis and Sri Lankans, there would be PC outrage eh.   I think it's a fair enough policy myself after drafting politcians and the Royals.

Sambostar

Anyway Praise for Vietnam and the Black Panthers.  It's all we have to separate a certain number of self made members of the banal generation of war babies who walked into job of choice in an age where deals were done on a handshake and lunchtime refreshments consisted of 7 or 8 pints before driving back to work and the population demographic was mostly young, before AIDS who think people who can't afford a flat simply just don't work hard enough.  Pity the draft didn't happen here.  Might still have decent radio stations and a respect for skilled workers. 

Nunogilberto

Sambostar;410837" said:

The op's post kind of suggests that you see people as old, sterile, banal and redundant in the first place to even think like that.  Can't say I ever felt that way over the age of 12 and have always met everyone with an open heart and plenty of time to natter.  Not particularly interested in people, but people are very interesting.  What gets me is that the middle ages were only 5 or 6 lifetimes ago.  Seriously, as you get older it amazes me where we are now, or rather where we were and how misrepresented the past really is and how everything that isn't of the moment is basically cast as redundant.

Lol, fair enough

I don't generally think of people as banal and redundant, but I found this person particularly interesting because I'd not met a Vietnam veteran before.

Plus, being in my line of work where you tend to see lots of people with only complaints and negative stuff to say, you tend to get a bit cynical now and again about the way people are...

carlos

I agree with @Drew_fx

Phil_aka_Pip

georgenadaintl said:

I agree with @Drew_fx

for once, I do too

Phil_aka_Pip

I also met an interesting character today, SUB (value #1a). Normally I would use ESC (#1b) to escape characters that could be misinterpreted as control codes when they are just part of literal data. However, this printer I'm dealing with expects you to use SUB (instead of ESC) AND to complement the byte you're generating the escape sequence for. Not seen it done that way before. Maybe I've had a sheltered existence.

GuitarMonkey

breakstuff said:

It always amazes me how the older generations dealt with the things they must have seen during past wars.

Problem is that the wars keep coming and kids keep getting killed, maimed and traumatised whilst the politicians and armament manufacturers responsible live in luxury.

ESBlonde

I don't like Alpen.

;-)

I've met some interesting characters in my time and most of them were much older than me at the time.

EricTheWeary

I think my most surprising old lady ( this was 20+ years ago and she's most probably long since dead now) turned out to have been the daughter of the governess of the children of the Russian royal family. She had fled Russia with them in the revolution. From time to time she would have their descendants around for tea in her council flat.

mike_l

With Dad being Ex-RAF, I've met quite a few Ex-military men and women. Including quite a few Ex-RAF WW2 aircrew. Every single one was a proper decent man, with proper morals and a very interesting life story.