Archeologists sometimes make me chuckle

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is that now all of these archeologist types are digging through the artifacts of WW2. It amazes me because I was born 6 years after the shooting stopped and during my childhood a large portion of my childhood toys and tools came from the resulting surplus sales.

Over the past few years I have seen the price of WW2 gear go through the roof. A German helmet that I almost bought for six bucks as a kid is now going for hundreds. Makes me wish I had bought a ton of them.

Packs, tents and camping gear from surplus stores kept me in gear for short money and the services used to give tons of the stuff to scouts as donations. The scout camp I went to had a pretty good field phone switchboard compliments of Uncle Sam. I'd bet that the system has long been disassembled and scrapped. Wonder how much it would be worth today?

A lot of the younger archeolgist types that run across this stuff marvel at it, but to me a lot of it is nothing more than some of the stuff I played with as a kid.

Hell, one of my mess kits was dated 1917. It was a WW1 holdover. It didn't have the sectioned upper half, it was more of a plate and wasn't even called a mess kit. It was called a meat can.

There are an awful lot of sunken ships in Davy Jones's locker and there seems to be a lot of interest there and I have to admit that watching a Discovery or History channel special on finding and exploring some wreck at the bottom of the sea is interesting. Maybe this is because I never got to play with sunken ships as a kid. Who knows?

Then again, I work on the water and I suppose that there is a carryover. Even though I have been in this business for decades I still love the sea and find things like that fascinating. Over the years a few people have told me that I should have gone to work for Robert Ballard hunting for wrecks. Ballard is the guy that found both Titanic and Bismark. Working for him would have been interesting.

I have mixed feelings on working for Ballard, though.

He is often called on to settle petty little spats. Was Bismark sunk by the Brits or scuttled?

It really does not matter because even if it was scuttled, the Brits tore her up so bad they Germans HAD to scuttle her, so for what it's worth, we have to give the Brits credit for causing her to be sunk. I daresay if she hadn't been sunk or scuttled she very well may have been outright captured. The Brits are superb at good old fashioned 'Stand by to board, and at 'em, Boys' stuff.

Yet the argument rages to this day and I would not want to be in Ballard's shoes when he got into the middle of that one. Uggh! I'd say that one runs along there with the time I was pulling targets at Camp Perry and the guy on my right was arguing with the guy on my left over which brand of vitamin was the best for you. I was stuck in the middle and but of my ears are probably still cauliflowered from the ear beating.

Still, it could be worse. I think one of the biggest fights still raging since the end of WW2 is the one between the guys that served with Patton and the 101st Airborne types that held Bastogne. The guys with Patton say they rescued the 101st and the guys of the 101st will insist they didn't need to be rescued. About a decade ago I saw two old men damned near come to blows in a barber shop over that one. My money was on the old paratrooper, but I digress.

With WW2 not even 100 years old, it is amazing how archeologists have chased it recently. Many of the veterans are still alive and they can be questioned. It is not like, say going to a Civil War site to dig.

In fact, one of the neatest things I recall is that they too a couple of former PWs to the site of the Great escape and unearthed one of the tunnels. They found something or another and one of the vets said, "Hey! That's mine!"

Still, I guess maybe digging while the remaining vets are still here to talk to may be a pretty good idea as they are still here to answer questions.

Still it makes me laugh thinking that some young archeologist that pictures himself as a young Indiana Jones is going all gaga over what used to be the contents of my tool box.

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