Warbird Information Exchange

Funny, considering the swastika was an early symbol used by the Boy Scouts along with camp fire girls and Native American culture. In the Indian context, the swastika stands for universal welfare. "Swasti" means well-being of one and all, "ka" means symbol. The swastika predates Nazis by thousands of years in just about every culture on the planet.

As late as the 1930s the 45th Infantry Division of the US Army had a shoulder patch that featured a swastika. It was changed in when the Nazis gained control in Germany.

BK

[quote="b29flteng"][quote="Canso42"]Remember the Miller Time beer commercials from about 30 years ago? For you youngsters they key visual image was working stiffs finishing up work, and the money line...."It's Miller time."
An acquaintance was a SAC pilot (remember SAC?) told me of his sqn. making up Miller time T shirts with a Buff flying at you with a mushroom cloud in the background. Their CO was NOT impressed and he ordered all T shirts rounded up and destroyed.[/quote]

I had one! I purchased it at an airshow at Offet AFB...wore it out.[/quote]

Yeah! Good to hear that at least one survived the efforts of Col. Correct. Obviously you enjoyed it.

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"I love the smell of 100LL in the morning."

Did anyone else catch the name Doug Corrigan there ?
That is Doug "Wrong Way" Corrigan, and yes, he was real.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Corrigan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Irishman

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Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
Jack, You have Debauched my sloth !!!!!!
We tried voting with the Ballot box, When do we start voting from the Ammo box, and am I allowed only one vote ?
Check out the Ercoupe Discussion Group on facebook

In Nov. '07 I was crewing the Lone Star B-17 at the Airshow at Randolph AFB in San Antonio, selling tickets to people touring the aircraft. One person, a young adult woman asked the price and then snapped in a condescending manner ,
" Hmmph! I'm not paying money to see an airplane."
Harry Lawrence, our ground crew leader , who was in period correct USAAF officer's uniform, and usually polite and articulate retorted,
"The people who flew them the first time paid a lot more than that!"
I wont repeat what a visitor added since Scott would edit it.

Some people just don't get it. And nazism and swatikas can't be swept under the rug and hidden like they don't exist. IMHO we need to keep a remembrance of garbage like that to try to prevent it from happening again.
There, I've offically ranted.
Doug

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"I love the smell of 100LL in the morning."

One of the original partners in starting up the Me 262 project was Jewish, someone asked him about possible swastikas on the airplanes his reply was "H3LL, IT WAS PART AND PARCEL OF THE REAL ONES, PUT 'EM ON IT DON'T BOTHER ME AT ALL" One of the guys on the project has a photo he took of WHITE 1 showing the tail markings framed by a 'remove before flight' flag in Hebrew on the pitot tube head.

The next time some individual of questionable judgement with no inkling of history pops off about the swastika, politely ask them why they aren't outraged that Japan Airlines markings are the exact same as the markings of the Japanese military during WW2, and before they push out a head gasket, please go home and do some in depth reading (if they can ) about terrible, dastardly things the Japanese did to Koreans and Chinese and Phillipinos in the way of 'medical experiments' during WW2-ask them to go do some real research and then come back and tell you that they now understand it's just period symbolism.
Remind them that when their mouth is open, they really can't learn anything-then ask who died and made their opinion the only one to be listened to, remind them what country they live in -

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

One of the hard things to do when suddenly confronted with stupid people with big mouths is to have the sensablities to come back with a suitable reply. I am still struck with a former boss years ago at a record store I worked at.....

He owned the store and decided to have a sale. Instead of things for $5.99, or $6.99 or the like...he lowered all records to a triple number of: $3.33, $4.44, $5.55, you get the picture. One day as I went to ring a woman up she got all bent out of shape the album was $6.66 and loudly made a stink about it. The owner stepped in and right away told me to lower the price and sell it to the woman. Amoung the other things she bought, she didn't realize the new price, with tax added, was now...$6.66.

She left, and a short while later came in all bent out of shape. His reply, "Shut up and get out of my store. Why should I care what you think about the number 666?..I'm Jewish! Not EVERYBODY believes the same things as you!".

Of course, he actually had a great sense of humor. He once came in wishing my a huge Merry Christmas. When I questioned this, he told me that Christmas was the biggest and holiest of all Jewish holidays. He said that all his Jewish friends spent their time celebrating each year by dancing around their cash registers!

I wish I was as quick as him. If somebody came off at me over an aircraft or marking, I'd probably just scowl and say something that needed to be edited.

I have one that says "Made in America by lazy and illiterate workers...tested in Japan."

In years past, when flying a large four engined bomber of historical significance across the U.S. for an organization that has since changed their name, it became a regular occurence for people to want to make an issue of that organizations name. Instead of trying to explain or argue with the individuals I found it rather entertaining to draw them close to me and look around as if to be sure no one else could hear, then I would whisper and tell them we were on a secret mission looking for runaway slaves. That would cause them to stare at me like a monkey trying to do a math problem.

b29driver,
I truly know what you mean, if I had a quarter for all the times that I heard people say to me at airshows "I never realized the (group below the Mason-Dixon line) had an Air Force" I definitaly wouldn't need to be working now. It is just unreal how many people out there truly do not understand history.

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Col Craig Duck
Life Member CAF
Life Member YAF
Life Member EAA

You mean we didn't have those planes in the civil war???? I don't feel so bad about changing our name now!

"I know you're trying to hit on me, but my friend's grandpa is single, and he doesn't have dementia."

I told her I was single. Actually I get her T33's number ... haha

Cliff should've asked them if they were nazi's because they believe in censorship of history, and told them unlike their home in the Soviet Union, free speech and expression is allowed in the U.S.



That's exactly right, it's called selective moral outrage. They do outrageous things themselves probably 10x worse, and then get outraged at something minor and actually historically correct.



You shouldn't have to apologize for it. You can put swastika's on a historic airplane, and you're allowed to do it under the constitution. The best thing to do is to think of something whitty to say to put them to shame, like the example the other wixer cited about his friend's business.



He should have said "make me do it".

Overall, put on your Axle Foley hat when you run into these kind of Folks.

Fred Rohr........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc.