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Option A or Option B What you are about to read you may find disturbing or even offensive. If you do then you need to grow up. The permanency of life is an illusion and you cannot afford to delude yourself to thinking you are immortal. Therefore, if you have elected to read on, you have been duly warned and I will make no apologies if you find your delicate feelings have been hurt. Jim [not his real name] was 6 foot 2 inches tall, a big guy but not such as you would say was overweight at all. Age had left him, as it does most of us, a little soft in the midsection. This was just about all t

INTRODUCTION : Firstly, this is a genre outside of the usual Blogs and entries to be found on Forums - it is an ongoing Novel. I have had the idea for many years to write a series of Novels on our early British Police - starting in the late 18th Century and continuing to the start of the Metropolitan Police in 1829. This is a big undertaking and one that I have put off. However, our new blog section is now doing well, Greg is writing regularly and is interesting and Brian has a brilliant little series coming out twice a month - and very thought provoking they are. My story

In December 2009, I set for myself the goal of collecting at least one item (medals, postcards, death cards, photos, shoulder straps, militarpass, etc) from each Imperial German Artillery regiment and other Artillery units, both Feld-Artillerie and Fuss-Artillerie. This clearly is a daunting task considering the number of German Artillery regiments (Prussian, Bavarian, active, reserve) and the number of separate battalions, batteries, and munitions columns. As of March 2011, I have collected 59 regiments and 15 other Artillery units, as well as several photos and postcards from unknown unit

Collecting the Periphery Part 3 When collecting medals that are not directly military in nature it would be easy to overlook the Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter or in English, Cross of Honour of the German Mother. I say this as it seems to me that anything associated with the Third Reich automatically conjures up military associations. This was a state decoration and civil order of merit awarded to mothers for exceptional merit to Germany. This decoration was awarded from 1939 until 1945 in three classes, these classes being, bronze, silver and gold. All of the classes were awarded to

CHAPTER 2 ---------------- Sir Thomas Hills was enjoying breakfast with his wife. The fire was burning well and for a day in late November 1796, the sky was clear - just a heavy frost on the ground. He was reading the Times newspaper for the day earlier - it having been brought by the morning coach as it passed through Little Wells. They were both concerned about how Britain's Royal Navy was doing in the war against France and Spain. British troops were also in action - but, mainly in the West Indian Islands. The Hills family had owned the Manor and it's enormous area of land fo

Well, as of 1338 (Eastern Standard Time) today, I became 58 years old. I was taking a nap at that moment, so I didn't notice any great change. In essence, a non-event. But, to be honest, I have been, lately, mulling over the passage of time and what I've seen during my half-century plus on the blue marble. If nothing else, it's been an interesting ride. At the risk of boring the readership, I provide the following highlights: -I've been to all 50 states in the USA and 27 countries; during all of this, I've lived awhile (more than one year) in Virginia, the D.C. area, Southern California, Mon

The TURKISH WAR MEDAL - HARP MADALYASI - GALLIPOLI MEDAL - EISERNER HALBMOND Author: M. Demir ERMAN Printed: Ankara/Turkey, February 2012 correspondence address: dmrbay@gmail.com ENGLISH and TURKISH In English (65 pages) and Turkish (61 pages). There is a 46 pages annex including color pictures, certificates and documents. The medal in the cover is relief. Total 172 pages, app. 350 gr. CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgements 6 Very Brief History of the Ottoman Empire 9 World War I 12 Gallipoli War 13 Palestine, Caucasus and Galicia Battles 16 Independence War and the Republic

+ CHAPTER 1 Not unusually for a British November it was quite cold and there was a definite hint of rain. Mathew Tiller was hurrying to get home before it was dark - at 4 p.m. in the afternoon it was already twilight. He was a young lad of 17 years - big for his age - standing nearly six feet tall and with a solid build. This was unusual, for in 1796 there were many young people who did not go to bed well fed. Matt, as his parents called him was lucky that his family ran the village grocery and supplies shop - had done so for over fifty years. They were well known and r

Being a paperwork collector one of the reasons I collect the citations is for the signatures on them and as such have to trawl through books, websites and personally compiled files to find examples to provide a comparison. From what I know there are currently 3 dedicated threads/sections to signatures on the web, those being the one on Axis History, one on Dokumentenforum and the third on World War Militaria. Unfortunately the last one is a quiet forum and as such has a very limited number of people adding their examples (but has still been viewed over 10,000 times) while the one on AHF does h

Well, as promised, I've begun my new Czechoslovakian gallery. The medal I received yesterday, "For Merit in the Peoples' Militia", began the new gallery. Will add more over the next day or two- I really don't have many Czech pieces. Thanks for the comments on my first entry. For IrishGunner (I am, by the way, also Irish; Hiberno-Norse- fair haired, family from West Cork, all of that), Beirut is kind of a sore spot with me as it led to the end of my stay in the Navy- which I still miss on many levels. In a nut shell, I was off the USS New Jersey and at the wrong place at the wrong time, boom,

I am still searching for the Ministerial Order establishing this medal of EMERCOM. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

I've only recently positively identified this medal as an official EMERCOM award when I found Ministerial Order 620 of December 6, 2010 amending its award criteria. I still haven't found the original ministerial order establishing it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!