You May Be A WWII Junkie

Ben,

––Just like there’s no “I” in team,…there’s no “IF” in my being a “WW2 junkie”, haha.  :-D

“Tall Paul”

There was a time when I was growing up (50s-60s-70s) that we were surrounded by survivors of WWII,civilian and military. Books,movies and television were all there reminding us of the past sacrifices made to bring us to where we are today. I had a great interest in history,I loved to read. Then in 1969 I discovered AH/SPI which just expanded my horizons. WWII was a pivotal moment on this planet towards a better world to live in peace and someday maybe make war obsolete. Many sacrifices were made for the good of many. WWII is important to remember for all the lessons learned. Political-talk and appeasement just create more suffering in the end.The U.S. is the leader of the free world for the free world needs one. We took on that responsibility during WWII and to my knowledge have not resigned from that obligation. WWII taught that war is sometimes a necessary evil that one sometimes must decide to go to earlier rather than later if one wants less suffering. Global peace needs a leader that will not shirk from war. Pre-WWII had no leader.WWII taught that the free world needs a good leader. A leader must be able to climb out of the trenches and advance forward without looking back for he knows that the others are following and if not he will go on alone because the free world needs him to for future generations. Everyone should be a WWII Junkie so that we can understand how why we might have to decide to go to war now while the enemy is at weakest. The U.S. is the worlds leader for peace and WWII taught that the free world needs one that will be willing to take up arms sooner rather than later.

Well said Commander Haig!

“You may be a WWII Junkie if … You can identify random silhouette’s of WWII vehicles, and know exactly what they are, when they were produced,  what country(ies) they were manufactured by, what theater’s they fought in, and how many may still be running today.”

You may be a WWII Junkie if… you can watch Das Boot over and over, and enjoy it everytime.

“Lili Marlene” I loved that scene.        You might be a WWII Junkie if your favorite game of all is AHs “Anzio” the full campaign or get all goose-bumpy at the thought of playing the full “Europa” series.

Are you a WW2 junkie (at the early age of 20) when of all places in France to go to University for your year out, you choose Caen?
I think I was one at the younger age of 7 when all I wanted  for a treat was a model of a Battle of Britain plane or a German tank.

You may be a WWII junkie if……

…you automatically assume that any mention you hear about “the war”, regardless of context, is a reference to the Second World War.

Something along these lines once happened to a military history professor at an American university, who later described the anecdote in a discussion group.  His father had fought in the Second World War, and in his classroom lectures over the years he would sometimes mention his dad.  Sometime around the late 1990s, however, he realized with a shock just how much of a generation gap there was between him and his students when he phrased his reference to his father a bit too vaguely (saying that he had served “in the war”) and one of his twenty-or-so-year-old students raised his hand and commented that “my Daddy fought in Vietnam too.”

You may be a WWII junkie if……

You own EVERY WW2 movie on DVD and you have watched the entire collection in “chronological order” (Of Historical Events they depict- not release dates)…  at least twice.

With the exception of Inglorious Bastards as that would only ruin the experience, and has no place in a collection of Historical based film

Yeah…

WW2 GEEK 100%

Jeremy

…you save Team Trivia at the pub and floor everyone on your WW2 knowledge when they thought you were a pacifist hippie.  :mrgreen:

You may be a WWII junkie if……

…you can get into a lengthy, passionate and technically detailed debate with someone else about the relative merits of the Ausf. H and Ausf. J versions of the Panzer IV tank without either of you thinking for a moment that you’re doing anything out of the ordinary.

You own “The Eagle has landed” movie and know who Oberst Kurt Steiner is.

Know by heart and can pronounce the ranks of the SS. Herr Hauptscharfuehrer will have the  schnitzel.  :-o

Know more about the war than the guys who fought in it.  :wink:

@ABWorsham:

If riding your lawnmower causes you to think of WWII tanks, you may be a WWII junkie.

Its o ly bad when you start humming ride of the valkryies.

@legion3:

You own “The Eagle has landed” movie

Fans of The Eagle has Landed should also check out the 1942 British film Went the Day Well? whose plot has some similarites.

@ABWorsham:

You be a GERMAN WWII Junkie if……

-You call your cat Barbarossa
-you drinking your beer out of a canteen
-you calling your neighbor “Hey Tommy” ,even he is from Austria
-wearing your jeans with suspenders
-you have mounted a Me 262 on your roof
-you calling pancakes “personell mines”
-you marked the first of September in your calendar
and you are still sleeping in a tent on your camp bed !!

@ABWorsham:

You be a AMERICAN WWII Junkie if……

-you called your dogs Pearl and Harbor
-calling the actual President still Truman
-you got a M4 in your Frontyard, a Browning on the porch and M1 in the backyard
-you have marked the 7th of Dec. in your calendar
-you eat every friday your iron ration
-you allways play AAA to the terms of unconditional surrender

@aequitas:

-You call your cat Barbarossa

That’s good  :-D

@General:

There was a time when I was growing up (50s-60s-70s) that we were surrounded by survivors of WWII,civilian and military. Books,movies and television were all there reminding us of the past sacrifices made to bring us to where we are today. I had a great interest in history,I loved to read. Then in 1969 I discovered AH/SPI which just expanded my horizons. WWII was a pivotal moment on this planet towards a better world to live in peace and someday maybe make war obsolete. Many sacrifices were made for the good of many. WWII is important to remember for all the lessons learned. Political-talk and appeasement just create more suffering in the end.The U.S. is the leader of the free world for the free world needs one. We took on that responsibility during WWII and to my knowledge have not resigned from that obligation. WWII taught that war is sometimes a necessary evil that one sometimes must decide to go to earlier rather than later if one wants less suffering. Global peace needs a leader that will not shirk from war. Pre-WWII had no leader.WWII taught that the free world needs a good leader. A leader must be able to climb out of the trenches and advance forward without looking back for he knows that the others are following and if not he will go on alone because the free world needs him to for future generations. Everyone should be a WWII Junkie so that we can understand how why we might have to decide to go to war now while the enemy is at weakest. The U.S. is the worlds leader for peace and WWII taught that the free world needs one that will be willing to take up arms sooner rather than later.

You’ve raised several interesting issues. It’s possible your perspective and mine are somewhat different WRT those issues. And that’s okay.

American participation in WWI was a mistake. We thought we were going to war to prevent or avenge German atrocities in Belgium. After the war, we learned that British and French atrocity propaganda had been a pack of lies. The idea that Germany did horrible things in Belgium during WWI was an Allied fantasy. We were told we were making the world safe for democracy. It turned out we’d made the world safe for France to resume its centuries-old policy of brutally exploiting Germany. We’d promised the Germans an honorable peace if they laid down their arms. Unfortunately for them, the cruelty of the Versailles Treaty bore no relation at all to the fair peace described in the Fourteen Points.

The lesson to be learned from WWI is to look before we leap. The United States is very strong. Just as a strong man should think twice before swinging a hammer at someone’s skull, a nation as powerful as the United States should be cautious about how it uses its power.

The worst, largest-scale mass murders have been perpetrated by communist nations. Prior to the start of WWII, the Soviet government had killed tens of millions of innocent people. The victims were often chosen because of their accomplishments: independent farmers were targeted, as were intellectuals, the educated, the clergy, anti-communists, successful business people, etc. Class warfare meant exactly that: the literal extermination of all economic classes seen as undesirable. The true harm of Soviet mass murder cannot be measured with numbers only. One also needs to remember that the best, the brightest, the most accomplished or the most idealistic were often the very ones selected as victims for the NVKD.

As of August of 1939, the Soviet Union had exterminated tens of millions of innocent people; whereas Nazi Germany had executed a few hundred. Why did the major Western democracies choose to adopt pro-Soviet, anti-German foreign policies? Was it because Western democracies had elected idealistic politicians, pure of motive, selflessly determined to make the world a better place?

The direct, foreseeable result of WWII was to create a power vacuum in the heart of Europe; into which the Red Army expanded. There is this notion that the Western democracies somehow “won” WWII, even though Britain and France purportedly went to war in the first place to save Poland; and even though Poland was not, in fact, saved from hostile foreign domination or postwar mass murder. The Western democracies gained nothing useful in Europe they could not have achieved by accepting the peace Hitler had offered to Britain and France after the fall of Poland.

Today, the world’s population is expanding; with no clear plan about how to feed all these extra people. The environment is deteriorating. Cultural differences are diminishing, in part because of immigration, and in part because corporation-created cultures are partially replacing pre existing cultures. Put another way: the world has more people than ever before, but with a declining level of cultural and racial diversity. If these trends continue, then someday everyone will be like everyone else, with no one able to step outside that rather narrow perspective. Further large-scale increases in global population will cause additional environmental damage; plus massive disease and famine. I am not suggesting that all of this should be blamed on the Allied victory in WWII. But neither would I agree with the perspective that Allied victory set us on the road to an increasingly better world.

If your wife knows don’t buy a remote control car buy a remote control tank.
If you get your first remote control car and it’s a Panzer III. and you’re in your 30s
If the first time you play with your new Panzer III you think to yourself how cool it would be if it were a Goliath remote control tank.
If you record TV shows on WW2 because you haven’t seen them in a while.
If you own a copy of Mein Kampf
If you’ve ever thought about making a 6 year long calendar Sept. 1st through Sept. 2nd (I know looks stupid but remember it’s 6 years long) and mark everyday something that happened in WW2
If you read stuff in this part of the Forums.