Some of the nicesr souvenirs to see nowdays is stuff signed by the guys who served. Whether it be a flag, a dollar bill, or whatever it may be it definitely adds historical value to that item, where as years ago it was considered a devalueing factor. I myself have one such item. While cleaning out my parents house in CT I found a box in the basement that had been flooded. I litterally went through everything in the house (glad I did too) before throwing stuff out. It was mostly papers that had gotten wet and dried basically solidifying into a block of hard paper machet. A few things miraculously survived almost prestine (no idea how either) one of which I found was a thanksgiving menu card from boot camp in 1943. I read through it which was cool and I thought well this is a keeper. I turned it over and laughed, on the back page was a part that said autographs, and sure enough almost every line was signed. Red wrote up to men I ate thanksgiving dinner with and everybody signed there name, where they were going (I think), and their home address. I know my grandpa saved this for not only the fact he was about to ship out overseas, but bootcamp was LESS then routine for him. He enlisted in May 1941, even before pearl harbor. So what was he still doing in bootcamp over 2 years later? Well 1st time through he almost died during the drill where you crawl through the mud under barbed wire as the 50 cal machine guns shoot live rounds above your head. All was good until one of the bombs they plant and blow up for added effect had been put in the wrong spot, directly under him. So he got blown up through the barbed wire, through the 50 calibur fire (luckily he didnt get hit) and landed down hard breaking his back. He had to heal up and restart boot camp about a year later. 2nd time through a drunk guy was screwing around with a single action army. He said something like "watch where you point that thing", to which the guy responded "what its not loaded", (famous last words) cocked the hammer aimed it at him and pulled the trigger. BANG, guess what it was loaded, it entered his left arm and broke it, passed by his heart barely, exited into his right arm and broke that arm to. It then did some magic bullet stuff and did a right turn, missing his heart again and broke his left arm again. It then did another u turn and stopped less then an inch from his aorta, the bullets still in him in the ground to this day! So after another year to heal he restarted bootcamp again and this time made it through unharmed! He hit omaha beach about a dey or 2 after d day, was in bastone, marched all the way from france to frankfurt and beyond front line duty and never got a scratch! No purple heart for him, friendly fire dont count!
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I'm surprised no one has posted to this request yet. I found the story in the opening post quite intriguing.
Here is one of my favorite signed items. It is certainly not terribly valuable, but as a bibliophile, I could not pass up the opportunity to acquire this volume even though it is post-war signed.
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Here is the engraved portion.Comment
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