Sold out

[Pete Wass]

I sold all my RF BR guns about a month ago. It wasn't that tough a decision, I must admit. Lots of great memories but my time had come and gone.

 

[gkgeiger]

Wish you the best. I’ll be 82 in a couple months and hoping for a couple more years. Still enjoying it, but know it won’t last forever. Take care.

 

[Timnichols]

Good luck Pete I will be going through something like that soon my last English pointer will be 10 in November and I will be 66 and knees breaking down. I am not going to replace her sad day for me I have been following behind pointers since I was 5 with my dad. Going to be a adjustment for me I have had some very good dogs but this one is by far the best pheasant dog I have ever had.

 

[scasa]

Sorry to hear that Pete but I know that time will come for all of us at some point. I hope you can find something to do in your spare time and I wish you the best. I always enjoyed your posts!

 

[ISS]

Not me. I plan to enjoy my firearms, even if it comes to just taking them out of the vault and remembering past days of shooting. Probably Rockchuck shooting last...

 

[Rick in Oregon]

Pete, best of fortune to you in your golden years. I'm also now too busted up to hunt elk and muley's like I used to for an entire lifetime. Between Vietnam, Harley's, a plane crash and a wild and too much of a carefree life, my days of humping the hills are all in the rear-view mirror.

Now getting out for a week at a time for sage rats and rockchucks fills the void, but the memories from all those glorious years are still mine.

 

[cavedweller60]

I sold all my RF BR guns about a month ago. It wasn't that tough a decision, I must admit. Lots of great memories but my time had come and gone.

If you are up north now, you should swing in and say hello to everyone at Augusta some week.

I have seen your name a lot and actually corresponded with you about getting in to RFBR about 10 years ago. Unfortunately , I got into it long after you stopped so I never got a chance to meet you. It would be a pleasure to do so.

 

[ISS]

Not to compare, but I was in a Huey that hit the ground from gunfire about twenty feet over triple canopy. Under small arms fire. I been shot and missed, s-it at and hit (most of the times) and been in two head-on motorcycle wrecks. And then three years ago the fall at the VA that resulted in a Compression Fracture of L3 that took them until the week of Easter this year to repair. And another surgery coming next month to fix a neck fracture.
But I am like a Timex watch; I take a licking and keep on ticking... I have salvation from a merciful Lord who does not keep score. I have a lovely Christian wife of 35+ years who also does not keep score, but celebrates our lives together and all the good times. And I got friends, here and earlier from being a shooter, and moderate skill competitor at the games we play for about sixty years on this planet.

There's a song: "Celebrate, Celebrate, Dance to the Music...". I am getting around pretty well these days, still using the cane outside the house, but I drove to the Bank by myself to get a Bank Check for Shiloh Rifle to cover the 11% exise tax, a good hardcase, and the shipping from Big Timber, MT, to my LGS.
I celebrate being able to sit here and visit with Y'all most days.

I choose Life! So should all of you!

Rich

 

[Timnichols]

ISS thankyou for your service!

 

[ISS]

I enlisted in the US Army, signed up for Paratrooper School (like my Father did in WWII) and Ranger School. They sent me to Germany since my year older brother was already in RVN. One Thursday we make a daylight jump. I am in the loft shaking out my chute to clear any creases (one does not want a stress point in a parachute from a crease). This pfc comes in asks for me and tells me the1st Sgt wants to see me. I report, and he hands me a 3-day pass. That does not happen. I say thank you, and he tells me Monday at 7am I start clearing, the Company, then Battalion, and then the Division. I have orders for RVN. Yippee! Airborne Rangers do not train eleven months to parade around in Germany. We train as specialized small (mostly six man Teams) Recon Units.
So, I arrive in Cam Rhan Bay. Next day, we are in formation and there are about eight busses lined up. This Staff Sgt is reading names and handing out our records and a bus number. He calls my name, hands me my Packet and says Bus Four. 1st Air Mobile Cavalry. I tell him I need to go to the 23rd Inf Div, the world famous Americal, in Chu Lai in I Corps. He asks if it is my birthday? I say no, and he says get on Bus Four, NOW!! We chat a minute and I tell him my brother is in Chu Lai attached to the 23rd. We go to the Office and he checks. Yes, he is; and now we need to see this Major, the CO. I repeat my story, and he tells the SSgt to get my orders changed to the 23rd.

Next day I am in Chu Lai at the Replacement Depot. This other Ssgt asks the formation who is his "Problem Child?". I raise my hand. He asks for the details, and I tell him. Back up a minute. When I arrive home on leave, I ask my parents not to tell my brother I am coming. I tell them I want to surprise him. My Father looks at me and says, "Oh, he'll be surprised alright..." My Older Brother was a Triage Medic. When choppers brought wounded servicemen in to 27th Surgical Hospital he had to separate them into three groups.

Group One, get them into surgery immediately we can save them.
Group Two, wounded but they can wait a little until Group One are saved.
Group Three, these brave soldiers and marines are going to die; and the only thing that can be done is to place them in a darkened room and call the Chaplain to give them the last rites.
It is the ugliest job in the world, and he had it every day for a year. He never recovered from that.

I served three Tours, two in Chu Lai (for sixteen months with the 23rd), and nine in Danang when the Army split the 106th Light Infantry Brigade off from the 23 and sent us up North to take over the 1st Marine Recon Battalion's AO. Twenty-five months and ten days altogether.

My brother and I both made Sgt, I guess the Army liked our job performance. We were both in I Corps, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail where they sprayed all the Agent Orange. I brought agent Orange with me. About twenty years afterwards I started having health issues. Five Agent Orange Endoma surgeries (the VA does not like to use the word "Cancer") later I have had two surgical procedures, to remove half my Thyroid each time, Gall Bladder, a growth on my Kidney, and finally Prostate Surgery. I am lucky there, I have not had any organs infected I cannot live without yet.

And yet, I am very upbeat about life. The day I turned seventy, my lovely wife asked me what the Bible said. When I said man's life is three-score and ten, she laughed and told me that I was now on the "Bonus Round...". I will be 76 in September, and I still have four rifle projects underway. And, yes, I am on the Bonus Round. I told my wife to start planning my 80th Birthday Party.

God's not done with me yet; so y'all are just going to have to put up with me awhile longer.

God Bless all of you,

Rich

 

[Timnichols]

What a story god bless you brother.

 

[AGSHOOTER]

I enlisted in the US Army, signed up for Paratrooper School (like my Father did in WWII) and Ranger School. They sent me to Germany since my year older brother was already in RVN. One Thursday we make a daylight jump. I am in the loft shaking out my chute to clear any creases (one does not want a stress point in a parachute from a crease). This pfc comes in asks for me and tells me the1st Sgt wants to see me. I report, and he hands me a 3-day pass. That does not happen. I say thank you, and he tells me Monday at 7am I start clearing, the Company, then Battalion, and then the Division. I have orders for RVN. Yippee! Airborne Rangers do not train eleven months to parade around in Germany. We train as specialized small (mostly six man Teams) Recon Units.
So, I arrive in Cam Rhan Bay. Next day, we are in formation and there are about eight busses lined up. This Staff Sgt is reading names and handing out our records and a bus number. He calls my name, hands me my Packet and says Bus Four. 1st Air Mobile Cavalry. I tell him I need to go to the 23rd Inf Div, the world famous Americal, in Chu Lai in I Corps. He asks if it is my birthday? I say no, and he says get on Bus Four, NOW!! We chat a minute and I tell him my brother is in Chu Lai attached to the 23rd. We go to the Office and he checks. Yes, he is; and now we need to see this Major, the CO. I repeat my story, and he tells the SSgt to get my orders changed to the 23rd.

Next day I am in Chu Lai at the Replacement Depot. This other Ssgt asks the formation who is his "Problem Child?". I raise my hand. He asks for the details, and I tell him. Back up a minute. When I arrive home on leave, I ask my parents not to tell my brother I am coming. I tell them I want to surprise him. My Father looks at me and says, "Oh, he'll be surprised alright..." My Older Brother was a Triage Medic. When choppers brought wounded servicemen in to 27th Surgical Hospital he had to separate them into three groups.

Group One, get them into surgery immediately we can save them.
Group Two, wounded but they can wait a little until Group One are saved.
Group Three, these brave soldiers and marines are going to die; and the only thing that can be done is to place them in a darkened room and call the Chaplain to give them the last rites.
It is the ugliest job in the world, and he had it every day for a year. He never recovered from that.

I served three Tours, two in Chu Lai (for sixteen months with the 23rd), and nine in Danang when the Army split the 106th Light Infantry Brigade off from the 23 and sent us up North to take over the 1st Marine Recon Battalion's AO. Twenty-five months and ten days altogether.

My brother and I both made Sgt, I guess the Army liked our job performance. We were both in I Corps, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail where they sprayed all the Agent Orange. I brought agent Orange with me. About twenty years afterwards I started having health issues. Five Agent Orange Endoma surgeries (the VA does not like to use the word "Cancer") later I have had two surgical procedures, to remove half my Thyroid each time, Gall Bladder, a growth on my Kidney, and finally Prostate Surgery. I am lucky there, I have not had any organs infected I cannot live without yet.

And yet, I am very upbeat about life. The day I turned seventy, my lovely wife asked me what the Bible said. When I said man's life is three-score and ten, she laughed and told me that I was now on the "Bonus Round...". I will be 76 in September, and I still have four rifle projects underway. And, yes, I am on the Bonus Round. I told my wife to start planning my 80th Birthday Party.

God's not done with me yet; so y'all are just going to have to put up with me awhile longer.

God Bless all of you,

Rich

Thank you Sir for the service you and your family have given us
God Bless you and your family.