O
ovs
Guest
I know this is probably a bad time to post something like this with the release of our game, but I needed a chance of pace and needless to say, my daughter has a great way of doing that. No, I'm not fishing for attention either, so knock it off. It's just eerie, that's all... really eerie. I just thought some of you might enjoy this and a little change of pace as well seeing we're all war buffs anyhow.
Around this time last year, as some of you know already, I took a trip to France and drove cross country for 2 weeks, through Germany, and back around to France again. My goal was to see the Normandy area, and as many WWI sites as I could in East France before being forced to move on under the wife's agenda.
To cut to the point....our first stop was to the Pegasus Bridge, then on to the beaches and bunkers of Normandy to the west, all the way to St. Mere-gliese.
Well, the first area we actually were able to see German bunkers was Pointe Du-Hoc, which has remained as it was since the U.S. Army Rangers took it from the Germans on D-Day.
My daughter at the time was 7, now she is 8, a lifetime by any means for a child.... remember how long it took for Christmas to come again? So her memories are clear, and the images in her mind very fresh at this young age. We toured many bunkers, and escape tunnels her and I, while my wife watched, she doesn't like this stuff. Many times, the bunker was totally dark, with no light other than me taking flash pictues and lighting it up for a brief second. So we could not see anything specific. I guess they keep it dark to keep site-seers from sticking around. So long story short.. we saw a ton of bunkers and all kinds of old, blown-up stuff. But one thing I will point out now... my daughter has NEVER seen what a German soldier looks like, or the weapons they carried. I have no pictures of them, nowhere in my house is there anything that she could relate to the look of them, and when I play any WWII PC games, she is not allowed to watch me, or be in the room with me (wife's orders). You get the point here? NIL EXPOSURE!!
Onwards to last night.... over the past year, my daughter has often spoke of 'things' or 'men' that she saw looking at her, pointing guns at her, and following her while we were in the bunkers and around the Normandy area. She often described them as crouching down, hiding behind corners, holding guns and looking as if they were very mad. Finally, I decided it was time to prod her a little more, as she is 1 year older, and might be able to describe better what she saw. So I began to ask her about what she saw... mind you, stop here if you don't want your hair to stand-up.
Now... I am the ever skeptic, the non-believer, the 'prove-it' type of guy. I'll often tell you right to your face 'you're full of s&^t!', if I really don't believe a word you are saying... which is most of the time. So this was a challenge for me to believe as well, I kept an open mind. We were driving to go to dinner, just the two of us as my wife attends college classes on Tuesday nights. So it's our 'date night' so to speak....
So my questions in the car while driving:
Q: What did they look like?
A: They were mad, and wearing either grey or very darkish green... no definately some kind of greyish color, the helmets were even darker.
Q: Were there a lot of them?
A: Yes, hiding behind trees, and in the bunkers, in all the little corners or behind the walls. Crouched down, or kinda kneeling.
Q: Did they have nice uniforms, or were they loose?
A: The uniforms were nice, with lot's of buttons in the front and things on the shoulders.
Q: OK, how about any medals? Anything on the head, or chest?
A: Yes, something like a circle with a star in it. On the chest.
Q: Were you scared?
A: Yes, but I knew they weren't trying to hurt me. So I didn't think anything of it, but there were a lot of them. Everywhere I looked. They were moving around, like army men do. Kind of crawling, but bent over. When we would walk out of a bunker, I would see one in the grass, or behind a tree. Then when I was in the car, I could see them looking at me from behind a fence in a field. Sometimes a lot of them, sometimes only one or two.
Q: Why didn't you say something to me?
A: I couldn't, I didn't know what they were. I knew they weren't real, so you wouldn't believe me anyway.
Q: Were there different types?
A: Yes, some had different colors. Like a Dark color and and a greenish color.
By this time, I gave it a rest, grabbed a pen and paper, and went in for some food (Panera Bread for those in the US... great food!). As we settled down to eat... I asked her to draw some stuff and try to see what she saw in her head. What she drew scared the hell out of me.
I asked about the gun the soldier was carrying... She proceeded to draw what resembled the MP40. She then tried to draw the helmet but she couldn't get it right. I then drew the front view of a standard German helmet. She said that was it. "it was pointy on the sides when you looked straight at it". I asked her about boots, she said she thought so, but could not tell as they were never standing up... which is true, most German combat poses are crouched down, and running.
Next was the camoflage... which was insane. I asked her first to draw what she thought the soldier was wearing. She drew a German Tunic. She said it was tight, and looked very nice. Not sagging, and had buttons. She drew the 'medal' right where is should be, on the right breast. Next she bagan to describe the colors and shapes of the Camoflage.
"He looked different than the others". He was in the bushes, and had a very dark helmet, a really big gun, bigger than the others, and his clothes were funny colors. Like something green and a dark color, with different shapes. I don't know, I can't describe it."
After this, we left. I kept the paper, and we went to the library. I found a WWII book with a lot of pictures in it. I showed her pictures of British, American and German soldiers. She pointed out the German soldiers right away... 'that's the helmet, that's the jacket... and that's the gun!' I showed her a color drawing of the MP40, amoungst a bunch of other WWII weapons on the same page, she immediately picked it out of the page. Now it gets better...
We went home, and I went on the internet... I found a picture of a 12" doll of a Fallschirmjager. What I forgot to mention was when she described, then drew the helmet of the 'other' solder, the one that looked different. She said the helmet was very dark, and had a chinstrap that was easy to see, and wrapped around under the chin very tight. When she drew the picture of it, it looked different that the other helmet. She said it was not pointy on the sides, it was flat, small and tight to his head. I showed her the picture of him. She said 'that's what he looked like', that's the helmet Daddy, and his jacket looks the same'.
I'll stop here, there is more... especially about the 'medal'... it was the unit designation badge that all German soldiers wear. She pointed out that the 'circle' was the oak leaves when I showed her pictures of the unit badges.
Again, my daughter has never seen pictures of WWII soldiers, other than her Great Uncle's 82nd Airborne Mess uniform. She has no idea what these men look like, nor do I watch anything related to war on the TV when she is home. She is a fun-loving, goofy, energetic kid that always has a smile on her face, and is very happy to simply be alive. Even when we talked about this, she was happy to tell me, and gave as much detail as possible. She was not afraid, and never once thought twice about describing what she saw.
I have nothing else to think but everything she says and saw is 100% true.
Crazy huh? I'm planning on going back again next year, for a longer period time. Maybe I should learn some German?
OvS
Around this time last year, as some of you know already, I took a trip to France and drove cross country for 2 weeks, through Germany, and back around to France again. My goal was to see the Normandy area, and as many WWI sites as I could in East France before being forced to move on under the wife's agenda.
To cut to the point....our first stop was to the Pegasus Bridge, then on to the beaches and bunkers of Normandy to the west, all the way to St. Mere-gliese.
Well, the first area we actually were able to see German bunkers was Pointe Du-Hoc, which has remained as it was since the U.S. Army Rangers took it from the Germans on D-Day.
My daughter at the time was 7, now she is 8, a lifetime by any means for a child.... remember how long it took for Christmas to come again? So her memories are clear, and the images in her mind very fresh at this young age. We toured many bunkers, and escape tunnels her and I, while my wife watched, she doesn't like this stuff. Many times, the bunker was totally dark, with no light other than me taking flash pictues and lighting it up for a brief second. So we could not see anything specific. I guess they keep it dark to keep site-seers from sticking around. So long story short.. we saw a ton of bunkers and all kinds of old, blown-up stuff. But one thing I will point out now... my daughter has NEVER seen what a German soldier looks like, or the weapons they carried. I have no pictures of them, nowhere in my house is there anything that she could relate to the look of them, and when I play any WWII PC games, she is not allowed to watch me, or be in the room with me (wife's orders). You get the point here? NIL EXPOSURE!!
Onwards to last night.... over the past year, my daughter has often spoke of 'things' or 'men' that she saw looking at her, pointing guns at her, and following her while we were in the bunkers and around the Normandy area. She often described them as crouching down, hiding behind corners, holding guns and looking as if they were very mad. Finally, I decided it was time to prod her a little more, as she is 1 year older, and might be able to describe better what she saw. So I began to ask her about what she saw... mind you, stop here if you don't want your hair to stand-up.
Now... I am the ever skeptic, the non-believer, the 'prove-it' type of guy. I'll often tell you right to your face 'you're full of s&^t!', if I really don't believe a word you are saying... which is most of the time. So this was a challenge for me to believe as well, I kept an open mind. We were driving to go to dinner, just the two of us as my wife attends college classes on Tuesday nights. So it's our 'date night' so to speak....
So my questions in the car while driving:
Q: What did they look like?
A: They were mad, and wearing either grey or very darkish green... no definately some kind of greyish color, the helmets were even darker.
Q: Were there a lot of them?
A: Yes, hiding behind trees, and in the bunkers, in all the little corners or behind the walls. Crouched down, or kinda kneeling.
Q: Did they have nice uniforms, or were they loose?
A: The uniforms were nice, with lot's of buttons in the front and things on the shoulders.
Q: OK, how about any medals? Anything on the head, or chest?
A: Yes, something like a circle with a star in it. On the chest.
Q: Were you scared?
A: Yes, but I knew they weren't trying to hurt me. So I didn't think anything of it, but there were a lot of them. Everywhere I looked. They were moving around, like army men do. Kind of crawling, but bent over. When we would walk out of a bunker, I would see one in the grass, or behind a tree. Then when I was in the car, I could see them looking at me from behind a fence in a field. Sometimes a lot of them, sometimes only one or two.
Q: Why didn't you say something to me?
A: I couldn't, I didn't know what they were. I knew they weren't real, so you wouldn't believe me anyway.
Q: Were there different types?
A: Yes, some had different colors. Like a Dark color and and a greenish color.
By this time, I gave it a rest, grabbed a pen and paper, and went in for some food (Panera Bread for those in the US... great food!). As we settled down to eat... I asked her to draw some stuff and try to see what she saw in her head. What she drew scared the hell out of me.
I asked about the gun the soldier was carrying... She proceeded to draw what resembled the MP40. She then tried to draw the helmet but she couldn't get it right. I then drew the front view of a standard German helmet. She said that was it. "it was pointy on the sides when you looked straight at it". I asked her about boots, she said she thought so, but could not tell as they were never standing up... which is true, most German combat poses are crouched down, and running.
Next was the camoflage... which was insane. I asked her first to draw what she thought the soldier was wearing. She drew a German Tunic. She said it was tight, and looked very nice. Not sagging, and had buttons. She drew the 'medal' right where is should be, on the right breast. Next she bagan to describe the colors and shapes of the Camoflage.
"He looked different than the others". He was in the bushes, and had a very dark helmet, a really big gun, bigger than the others, and his clothes were funny colors. Like something green and a dark color, with different shapes. I don't know, I can't describe it."
After this, we left. I kept the paper, and we went to the library. I found a WWII book with a lot of pictures in it. I showed her pictures of British, American and German soldiers. She pointed out the German soldiers right away... 'that's the helmet, that's the jacket... and that's the gun!' I showed her a color drawing of the MP40, amoungst a bunch of other WWII weapons on the same page, she immediately picked it out of the page. Now it gets better...
We went home, and I went on the internet... I found a picture of a 12" doll of a Fallschirmjager. What I forgot to mention was when she described, then drew the helmet of the 'other' solder, the one that looked different. She said the helmet was very dark, and had a chinstrap that was easy to see, and wrapped around under the chin very tight. When she drew the picture of it, it looked different that the other helmet. She said it was not pointy on the sides, it was flat, small and tight to his head. I showed her the picture of him. She said 'that's what he looked like', that's the helmet Daddy, and his jacket looks the same'.
I'll stop here, there is more... especially about the 'medal'... it was the unit designation badge that all German soldiers wear. She pointed out that the 'circle' was the oak leaves when I showed her pictures of the unit badges.
Again, my daughter has never seen pictures of WWII soldiers, other than her Great Uncle's 82nd Airborne Mess uniform. She has no idea what these men look like, nor do I watch anything related to war on the TV when she is home. She is a fun-loving, goofy, energetic kid that always has a smile on her face, and is very happy to simply be alive. Even when we talked about this, she was happy to tell me, and gave as much detail as possible. She was not afraid, and never once thought twice about describing what she saw.
I have nothing else to think but everything she says and saw is 100% true.
Crazy huh? I'm planning on going back again next year, for a longer period time. Maybe I should learn some German?
OvS
