Posted on 04/18/2009 12:24:16 PM PDT by Stoat
Great-grandfather Daniel Currie broke his elbow and shoulder after slipping during a walk at Fiddler's Elbow, near Abercynonon in Wales on Good Friday.
Unable to move, and without food or water, Mr Currie protected himself using survival skills learnt while serving in the Army 65 years ago.
The 87-year-old covered himself with leaves as temperatures plummeted to 3C overnight, and cleared surrounding undergrowth in order to make himself more visible to rescuers.
Speaking from his hospital bed, Mr Currie said: 'I am really lucky to be here. I thought if I could get to my feet I could get home.
Ordeal: Mr Currie fell 250ft down a ravine Fiddler's Elbow, near Abercynonon in Wales on Good Friday. The pensioner was not rescued until Easter Sunday
Flashback: Mr Currie aged 24 in a picture taken at the end of World War II
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
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Also:
Old soldier's still got the skills The Sun NewsCampaignsOur Boys
Survival instinct ... Daniel Currie with picture of his army days
“I was really isolated and beginning to wonder if I'd ever be found. I heard a dog barking and a voice.
“I was shouting 'help me' but nobody came.”
Great-grandfather Daniel curled up into a ball and covered himself with leaves when night fell and temperatures dropped to just 3C.
Second World War veteran survives for two days trapped in ravine - Telegraph
They alerted police and officers found the pensioner barely conscious at the bottom of the embankment.
He was taken to Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil where he was expected to make a full recovery.
WalesOnline - News - Wales News - 87-year-old survives two days’ agony in ditch after 80m fall
The greatest generation.
No kidding. God love him.
87? He doesn’t look a day over 70!
First there is no such thing as "the greatest generation" if he was born before 1925 then he is part of the GI generation, and it was boomers that brought a slowdown to the radical leftism of the GI and the silent generations.
SAme the uniform pic is B & W - was he a RM or Airborne?
ANy freeper military history buffs out there?
My father was a WWII combat veteran, in the worst of it. He loved his CIC, FDR, and voted Democrat because of FDR until Reagan, then slid back to FDR’s coattails after that. He had always hated a draft dodger worse than a biting dog, but somehow the Clintons charmed him and he gave Bill a pass and thought Hillary should have whatever Hillary wanted. To some degree, while he was very industrious and not lazy, there was some degree to which he thought this country owed the veterans of that war especially - and it DID! However, I’m his kid, and I’ve always voted conservative and never asked the government for anything. My parents raised me to be honest and a law-abiding, tax paying citizen. My son on the other hand was loused up by the Bill Ayers types of professors long after I had any influence left with him; so he’s a liberal until Obama louses up this country and it affects his pocket book.
ANy freeper military history buffs out there?
Unfortunately, the most information about his military service in the articles is this single line from the linked Wales Online story:
He saw action from Normandy to Hamburg, and with command force was a gun position officer’s assistant, plotting targets and giving ranges for the guns.
I'm wondering also if anybody might know if all is well with FReeper Archy? His last post at FR was in December of last year. Hopefully he's just taking a break and will be back soon :-)
No. No. My father worked all his life as a carpenter and made a decent living, paid into the system, paid his taxes, never drew a dime in welfare. He did retire and drew a pension from working for many years at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama back when rocket launching pads were made up of crude materials and packed with dry ice for cooling during launching the early rockets. I doubt that many of the WWII veterans expected to sit on their butts for the rest of their lives. Now, the later ones, I don’t know, but about the time of the Korean War, the spoiled, picky attitudes of many POW’s who served during that war died in prison camps simply because they were too picky to eat the simple foods they were given and had readily available to them in the camps. For instance, they were given soybeans, but wouldn’t eat them. Maybe they didn’t know how to cook them (they have to be cooked a long time and are a source of protein). Explained in a book entitled, “In Every War But One”.
My father was raised hunting squirrels, fishing, farming and killing snakes with his bare hands or maybe a rock if he could find one big enough. He did think that battle sustained injuries deserved treatment if possible, and died with shrapnel in his hands from wounds sustained in Italy. He was a hardened soldier of N. Africa, Sicily, Italy and Germany by the time the war ended, and even then, he was set for the duration which would have included Japan.
Kid my Uncle Mac is a WWII vet. Flew planes. Any of them. After the war was over, he was sent to Okinawa. Then he taught. He was a lifer. Ya know what they were told? Serve your country and it will take care of you. When he needed surgery a few years back, ya know what he got? Zip. Zilch. Nada. Squat. Don’t tell soldiers they’ll be taken care of if they aren’t going to do it.
So you support unlimited entitlements for veterans. Might as well pay for their mortgages, utilities, and food bills too. After all, we’re not “taking care” of them.
The English language desperately needs a sound effect for eye-rolling.
Do you know anything about how we take care of our military and their families? Most are on foodstamps and are dirt poor. You need to read more and talk less.
AND these men sacrificed so you could be free and sit at your computer and cry.
FR Veterans ping to this.. poster “terpfen.”
He believes that after a veterans service is over that they SHOULDN’T get medical benefits.
I’ll start off:
Terpfen, do you speak GERMAN as a primary language here today?
How about Russian?
No?
Thank a vet and then kindly SHUT UP.
You know absolutely NOTHING about the military and those who serve.
You know NOTHING about veterans in general.
You also know NOTHING about how many veterans are here on FR.
I guess you’re about to find out, the hard way.
“SAme the uniform pic is B & W - was he a RM or Airborne?
ANy freeper military history buffs out there?
Unfortunately, the most information about his military service in the articles is this single line from the linked Wales Online story:
He saw action from Normandy to Hamburg, and with command force was a gun position officer’s assistant, plotting targets and giving ranges for the guns.”
That would suggest he was Royal Artillery....
I miss the old days on FR when people would actually respond to points instead of using catchphrases as a substitute for reason.
“BS. I never said or implied that at all.”
Funny, your post said “So you support unlimited entitlements for veterans.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2232363/posts?page=14#14
Nothing about WWII vets.
Again, from this former 13B, SHUT UP.
I'm a disabled vet, 100% service connected, and I don't support "unlimited entitlements".
That has nothing to do with this story, or even what's going on in some of our VA hospitals today.
I'll cut you a break and assume you're not a vet, don't know all the facts, and didn't consider your post thoroughly before hitting the send button.
But before you post again, think hard about what you say. Flippant responses are not advisable.
Check out his post 20.
He claims he didn’t say what he said in post 14.
Oh, and post 11 as well.
You said in post # 14, "So you support unlimited entitlements for veterans."
No question mark, so it was a statement from you, deciding what another poster thought.
Big mistake. In "the old days, 'Harpseal' would have chewed you up and spit you out.
Think before you post.
I miss Harpseal.
Tonk would have been another good one for this thread.
BTW, check out my profile page. I posted a couple of pix from my trip to Aspen, for the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic.
First time skiing! Best adrenaline rush since jumping!
You are obviously generation ungrateful.
Everything you have you owe to a Vet one way or another.
I’ll admit that I’m not brave enough to go skiing.
I know, ironic coming from a former artilleryman.
Wish LadyX and TexasCowboy were still around, they’d be good ones to ping too.
You aren't old enough to miss the old days. And I did respond to your point. You resent veteran benefits. I challenged that.
Your Post 11: There's a difference between owing a debt and having young people--like me, I'm 24--working the rest of our lives to fund their welfare entitlements.
Veterans benefits are not welfare.
And I learned a lot from those "sessions"!
So would TexasCowboy.
Tonk and some others did a few depth charge runs on me.
But that was back when I was a mewling puking newb.
Still had that brand new smell, fresh fom the cellophane wrapper and all.
Speaking of serving and VA stuff, having served during the Clinton years, I got to see a sliver of the ‘bad old days’ when the VA went out of their way to deny veteran benefits or treatment.
“What? Chipped a tooth? You were’t on duty, so we can’t do anything about it.”
TexasCowboy, definitely.
Sheesh, how many vets have we lost in the past two or so years?
I’m almost afraid to ask.
Looking at your tagline, I get a funny feeling about you.
Do you like Viking Kitties? Moose? Ozone?
My sister bit a moose once.
It wasn’t paying attention to protocol.
My best guess as to Mr. Currie’s branch of service would be Royal Artillery. As you say not much to work on.
Thanks for the post
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
These folks are the greatest! Maybe it's because it's in PA Dutch country, but I'd trust my life (and have) to the doctors and nurses here.
But they weren't prepared for all the wounded from Iraq, and they're still playing ‘catch-up’ here. Especially all the TBI traumatic brain injury) from those damned IED’s.
The chipped tooth quote was an actual quote during the Clinton years.
Guy was off duty, got knocked in the face, and got that quote in response.
I never heard what the end result was as I lost contact with that soldier when I left the uniform.
Pennsy tends to do a better job of taking care of the troops than NY does.
Of course, NY is a funny farm state anyway.
Them is your words...
When I joined up in 1976 the deal was to serve your 20+ years, draw your retirement and get medical care at gov't expense. FWIW being at the University of Science, Music and Culture for 13 days does not make me a Veteran, dang physical issue>
So if you have a problem with those vets who put in their time and are not getting what was promised them tough!
I can see where perhaps your post was poorly written but you were pretty explicit in your condemnation of vets.
Might I suggest a rewording of the old capenter's maxim. "Think twice, type once"
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
I made a contract with my country to give my youth, my health and my life if need be for 21 years of service before I was injured so bad I couldn’t continue and had to retire. I have a few more holes in me than I was born with living for months on end in hell holes around the world so you can be a silly shithead and spew yer uneducated crap. BTW I haven’t used any of my VA benefits yet, service related injuries or not as I have a good job and my companies medical insurance provides for my medical needs which are minimal, maybe once a year visit for pain prescription renewal and checkup.
Clumping me an other veterans in with social misfits and illegals ? I have personally cost you nothing, I work and pay taxes and get part of em back in the form of retirement pay and disability per my contract with my country and contributed in part albeit small to everything you enjoy so STFU about vets and what they cost YOU !
Now go bother someone who likes ya.......skippy.
It would be easier for him to bring peace to the middle east than to find a friend on FR.
I have to head off for some shuteye since I head back for third shift drudgery tonight.
I’m still seeing red from TF dissing vets.
Life is tough if you think the world owes you a living.
BTW, not all veterans are able to fill out those few forms. Some lost their eyesight, their arms and their hands defending your right to post stuff like this.
We worked for them, so they aren't welfare entitlements.
Maybe you should spend your time writing to Obama and Congress to complain about the welfare entitlements that illegal aliens are getting.
Free medical care and preferential college tuition.
And maybe update your tagline, which is at least 4 years old.
What's the reason you quit posting your clever comments? This response to your ignorance should be a walk down memory lane...a little taste of the "old days".
Yep stupid comments and a apology are one thing , it happens but to stand yer ground and reinforce her ignorance is stupidity. Like to see her make those comments at a VFW hall........:o)
The guy in the story is a British soldier!!!
Dumb ass ‘Terpfen’ didn't pay jack squat for him!!
Ah, the joy of nights...
BLEEECH
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
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