tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1142282242776435936.post1632319670271482386..comments2024-03-26T03:34:10.098-07:00Comments on Rabbits In My Basement: Two Armies; Some Summer ReadingJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14996350912869829140noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1142282242776435936.post-77368226270916075252014-08-11T09:14:48.733-07:002014-08-11T09:14:48.733-07:00Thanks for filling in the details about your dad, ...Thanks for filling in the details about your dad, Mike.<br />Pro Patria!Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14996350912869829140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1142282242776435936.post-69376159218951682622014-08-11T08:39:05.045-07:002014-08-11T08:39:05.045-07:00Dad would have been pleased that you are enjoying ...Dad would have been pleased that you are enjoying his book. If you read the citation for his patrol, it did go badly pear shaped, when what was essentially a recon in force and prisoner snatch got badly ambushed. He got his men out with only a few wounded, and had to shoot a prisoner when he tried to run for it, so no prisoner to show for it all. His CO, Col, Bingham, told the press that "Peterson must have ice water in his veins", which was a nice soundbite. Dad was extraordinarily modest about his wartime service, saying of WW2 only that he had "a very good (meaning easy) war". He was very complimentary of his opponents. He admired the Germans for their concealment skills and fire discipline, and he praised the Chinese for their industry, saying that they would dig in deeper in better in a night than his men did in a month. Of his patrol on 113 he only said that it came at a slow news time and the government wanted some good press, meaning (not in so many words) that his Military Cross was awarded more for Public Relations than for gallantry. He never signed his name with "MC", shunned the Legion and lived a quite life after he left the army. I think his post military career as a high school teacher was a long and unwelcome ordeal for him, as much as he loved literature and reading. I still remember him late in his life, wearing his RCR tie and decorations at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day, standing erect no matter how cold it was. Had he been alive today he would never have got one of those veterans license plates that are so popular with ex military, but you always knew to look at him that he had been a soldier. He wasn't an easy man to know, and a somewhat distant father, who struggled with alcohol later in life, but we got closer in his last years. He was a good man, and a big reason why I went into the military myself.Mad Padrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00410143683610813671noreply@blogger.com