Quoted:
10,000

For post 10,000, I’m going to tell y’all about my granddad and my M1 carbine.  Kinda long but whatever.  I briefly told y’all about it when I first came to this thread but I don’t think I put up any pics.  

My granddaddy left home in his mid teens, I can’t accurately describe his relationship with his dad without painting one of them as a “bad”, which neither of them were, but they both were hard people, which led to head butting.  His dad came through the depression, as well as other hard times, so he was not very forgiving or patient.  My granddad put the mules up one night and they stated fighting, so to keep one of them from getting hurt (mules were their livelihood) granddaddy departed them by putting one out to pasture.  When his dad came home and saw one of the mules out, he got mad (at a fault) and wouldn’t let my grandad explain, so instead of arguing, my grandad left, went up the road to his uncles and lived for a short while.  His dad told him that he would come home when he got hungry.  A few months later, his brother was sent up the road to tell my grandad to come back home.  Granddaddy said, “tell him I’m not hungry yet”.  Both were too stubborn to reconcile at the time, which they did a little later fortunately.

During this, Pearl Harbor happened and granddaddy joined the Navy at 17 and was assigned to the USS Downes, which was sunk at PH and rebuilt and recommissioned in California.  He always said he felt lucky bc most of his ship were veterans, he was one of a few new guys.  He was also one of the only southerners, so his Navy nickname was “Reb”.  I don’t know much about his Navy time but he was a “torpedo man”. ??  I believe he was in the ship from 43-45, fighting in Eniwetok, Truk, Iwo Jima, Guam, Anatahan, Sargihan, the Philippines, and other places.  

After the war, he went back home to S. Ga, farmed and owned a general store, then started the contracting business I own today with my brother.  As a kid in the early 90s, I would go to his house, and he would tell me about the war.  “Son, a boy your age ought not to hear these sorta things, but I’m gonna tell you anyway.”  He told me about bodies being hung up in propellers, islands going from post card beautiful one day to smoking ash pits over night, a storm that scared him more than any battle, whales, picking up crashed pilots in the ocean, and drinking beer on Jap islands after battles.

So onto my rifle.  Dad was born in 50’.  So sometime around 58-62, daddy says they were home, and my grandads mom called, asking if she could throw away a duffle bag that had been in a barn or building or whatever.  Daddy says granddaddy screamed “No” into the phone and hung up.  He and my dad went over to her house and he got the duffle bag, unpacked it, and this carbine was in there.  I don’t know if it was assembled or not, but it was packed away in the bag.  He started subtly crying and daddy, being very young and naive, asked what was wrong.  Granddaddy replied, “son, the man that had this rifle didn’t need it anymore”.  Daddy knew his dad for 46 years and says it may possibly be the only time he ever saw him emotional.  I don’t know why granddaddy forgot about the rifle at the time or how he actually obtained it.  I do know it was on a beach somewhere, and sometimes granddaddy would have to run a small boat onto these beaches after a battle, but I don’t know much about this, I just have to assume that’s how he got it.  

So daddy had the rifle all of my life and last year he came by the house and said “here, put this in your safe”.   So I guess it’s mine now.  It’s a Saginaw receiver with Saginaw S’G’ on the receiver, which is supposed to be slightly more rare than others.  Serial number puts it prior to May 43’.  It has an Inland barrel and RMC Rock-Ola stock.  It’s been shot some by my dad and by me as a kid, but it just sits in the safe now.  I don’t know if there’s any paper work on it or not, if there is, my dads lying, thieving, definition of evil brother has it, along with any and all other military records or information that I’ll never see.  And being he doesn’t have children, he’ll probably set all my grandads stuff on fire before he dies just so no one else will get it.  Whatever.

https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/439986/8F6B2BAA-2AB5-4000-AB24-F9BE44BE26CA_jpe-1390584.JPGhttps://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/439986/FB4ED4D8-BFF8-43FF-827C-991FE8EF7D36_jpe-1390586.JPGhttps://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/439986/A8B37301-6C8C-40AD-94EE-AE631532FEE6_jpe-1390587.JPGhttps://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/439986/22B622DB-DE93-4688-8012-6E2E2807F048_jpe-1390588.JPGhttps://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/439986/3612DF91-6693-4C58-9C9F-651D894E5C8D_jpe-1390589.JPG

TL;DR and all that, I still love you guys!

Quoted:
Employer gives union workers the choice to take a leave of absence. 800 choose to do so.

Employer asks salary employees to work production while they’re out.

ha_ha.puck