[The WosMan]

Joe Foss was a great man, a great American, and a true defender of the Second Amendment (my dad served with him on the NRA Board prior to his passing).

My grandfather is a WW2 vet at 83 is still going but in recent years has gotten quite frail. He was in the US Army in Manila, New Guinea, Australia, and a few other places. Every once in a while he tells a story about something my dad and I never heard before. He as a whole box of pictures, money, and other items he brought home. One day I will scan the images and post them here for you to see. He was also one of the few guys smart enough not to throw the guns he took as trophies overboard the ship on the way home like some of the guys did.

He was nearly killed three times, once by malaria, second by a crazy japanese prisoner, and third by a venomous snake that decided a nice place to rest was in his bed. I think the snake scared him the most. He ran a prisoner camp for 2 months where he has some interesting stories on how they had to deal with Japanese prisoners although the Americans were far nicer to Japanese then they were to our POWs. When he was in New Guinea for some time the big problem was it was dry and they had no alcohol on down time. One of the guys with him who was also a friend had been drafted at the age of 39 and had been a bootlegger during Prohibition. This guy knew how to make booze. They were able to convert steel wash bins into stills and they got sugar and they distilled their own alcohol.

My grandfather also didn't care much for General MacArthur's wife (apparently she had been in the Phillipines or overseas at some point with her husband) because she used to buy many luxury items over there and then fill the ships with her things she was sending home to the States. Apparently they were quite wealthy and she would buy large quantities of items and furniture and it would take up space in the cargo holds of the ships that could have been used by the troops or for other supplies.