Pause for thought differences in education.

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by Flamingboat

Daddy's flown across the ocean
Leaving just a memory
Snapshot in the family album
Daddy what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what'd'ja leave behind for me?!?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.

Pink Floyd lyrics, "Another Brick in the Wall"

Thanks for quoting that! I appreciate it.

[Ping Panther]

I just made it to my big 40 this past January. So that means I was an early vintage '68 kid.

I developed a very significant interest in world/military history from my early teenage years. I have always had an immediate appreciation for attempting to comprehend the enormous scope of how history, cultures, geopraphy, technology, diplomacy (often not having the best of possitive effects), attributes to the way one interprets the past and the present times. So this may have boiled down into an odly-combined life interest of architectural/cultural matters & military tactics/technologies & historic roles.

I would agree that the European/Atlantic campaigns of this era is more self-identifiable to Americans in their world history education (or lack of it). Since most Americans tend to have a strong majority of their ancestory linked to some landmark from Europe/U.K./Africa. While I would consider based only on my post-WW2 birth comprehension allows, was that the most immediate call to arms fury was was more stronly rooted in the U.S. to the military threat presented by the Japanese forces at the time as being perceived as more immediately urgent, despite the ongoing strife that the German forces had pressed for a considerable amount of years previously, yet it was determined at that time to be blurred from the American perception or direct policies to engage such a direct action. Once this has aged a couple generations of time, my experiences of the highschool education program did lean a certain 75% to the educational matters of the Atlantic war more than the Pacific.

My Grandmother had a brother serve in the U.S. Sub Fleet in the Pacific (he was involved more directly in the '43-'44 patrols, stationed at that time at Midway Naval Base. He attended submariners training school at the U.S. Sub base in New London, CT. (I recently made a visit to this base and viewed the USS-Nautilus sub & museum.) My Grandfather was in the Army (he had preferred to serve in the Navy; however, he was sorted 1-2-1-2... at the last minute in the enlistment offices, 1's were sent to the Navy... he drew a 2... Army you go!),and was deployed into the occupational forces in Japan after the bombing of Hiroshima. He contiuned from his Army career to join the U.S. Merchant Service in the Great Lakes. My Grandfather quite often took me, my brother & my folks for sails around Lake Erie when I was a kid, and I love sailing and the sea ever since. My Dad served in the U.S. Navy, and served on board the destroyer fleets in the Atlantic/Mediterranean Sea in the early '60's. So Silent Hunter has given me some immediate link back to some of my family naval heritage. (I took all 6 years of my highschool German as a second language courses, again, as a link to my Germanic family roots, and then along comes SH3 with the awesome German audio voice option.)

My first sub-simulator experiences were with Silent Service on a Commodore-128. I missed out on SH1, I then came across SH2 for a while, then took a big pause and have steadily wrapped myself even more, into an ever-continuing fascination/appreciation/dedication to exploring the many aspects of this era brought to a technological wonder inside of SH3. I hope to get my now dusty almost 2 year old disk of SH4 off the shelf and give it a spin, maybe.

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by Ping Panther

I would agree that the European/Atlantic campaigns of this era is more self-identifiable to Americans in their world history education (or lack of it). Since most Americans tend to have a strong majority of their ancestory linked to some landmark from Europe/U.K./Africa. While I would consider based only on my post-WW2 birth comprehension allows, was that the most immediate call to arms fury was was more stronly rooted in the U.S. to the military threat presented by the Japanese forces at the time as being perceived as more immediately urgent, despite the ongoing strife that the German forces had pressed for a considerable amount of years previously, yet it was determined at that time to be blurred from the American perception or direct policies to engage such a direct action. Once this has aged a couple generations of time, my experiences of the highschool education program did lean a certain 75% to the educational matters of the Atlantic war more than the Pacific.

Have you noticed how long one of those sentences became? Please get scissors.

[Brag]

Here comes my bit. Since I just copied and pasted from my webbie, it is skeewed a bit toward writing.

One of my early childhood memories is the pre-dawn roar of lions in Chile’s Santiago Zoo. It marked me for a life of adventure. My first fear had been of the moon. It terrified me when it rose out of the darkness. My second fear was growing up and having to get a job. At least this last fear showed hints of intelligent life inside my head.
I grew up speaking Russian and Spanish. I listened to everything and stored it for future use. My parents called me the Sponge. When they didn’t want me to know what they were saying, they spoke in French. It took them some time to conclude I had learned French from them.

My first chance at writing came with a homework assignment at age eight. Write a one page free composition. I presented a four page unfinished novelette complete with ink spots, in German. It got me an F.

When I reached 18, I was no longer listening to anyone. My mother considered my epistles sent from various Far Eastern ports as masterpieces. She copied them and embarrassed me to all her relatives.

By my late twenties, I had been fairly successful in avoiding my childhood fear, work. After a hitch in the USMC, I packed a gun for a security outfit at night, went to flight school during the day. Aviation led me to Vietnam and Laos. Secretly, I wrote some explosive stuff for our pilot’s labor union. It is reported the American ambassador went livid after reading an inflammatory tract, and wanted to know who wrote this ****. Many years later, this little incident became part of the concept for a thriller.

After the Vietnam War, I wrote my first novel. It was so awful that I limited myself to writing brochures. Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, I flew, sailed, got married, survived a shipwreck. In Kenya started my own safari outfit, and learned my seventh language, Swahili. Since I was one of the few outfitters operating in poacher’s country and had excellent contacts, I got roped to work undercover for Kenya’s Anti-poaching Unit This resulted in the poachers, and their protectors (my employers) going after me. At the dinner table, my revolver sat neatly next to the fish knife.

In Kenya I wrote a series of novels, all left unfinished, and a few articles that got published. Back in Chile, I ran horseback trips into the Andes, and trained horses off-season. Trying to recoup my fortune, in the States, I sold boats and taught navigation. Sands of Maraviti, was my first attempt at thrillers and the beginning of serious writing. By the time I finished, I had lost my friends and my job that was too much like work. Free of encumbrances, I wrote Temple Drums. This novel brought patronage that allowed me to extend writing full time. Part of my writing life is coordinating online workshops, chat and critique groups for the writers' community on AOL.
I have conquered my fear of the moon, but still prefer the nights when the moon is hiding and friendly stars show me the way.

A number of Subsimers have read my novel Kingmaker.

Originally Posted by Brag

My first chance at writing came with a homework assignment at age eight. Write a one page free composition. I presented a four page unfinished novelette complete with ink spots, in German. It got me an F.

That reminds me of an uncle of mine who flunked out of art school. He has been an artist his whole life and has never had to work a day in his life for "the man". He isn't famous or rich but he did well for himself.

I was told my life was "over" because I got a bad conduct discharge. I got hired by a top military contractor for Iraq even with that. I declined the offer as I had no intention of going, I just wanted to see if I could pull it off.

[Steeltrap]

Righto.

I'm Australian, born May '67.

My parents studied medicine, graduated 1952. They were born in 1926, so were at school during WWII. We had relatives killed in WWII. My parents knew friends/relatives of their families who were killed/captured, some in North Africa, others in the Pacific (it says something about the Japanese conduct in WWII that ALL decided being captured by the Gremans was infinitely preferable...mind you, about 4% of allied POWs died in German captivity, while the figure for those captured by Japs was around 26%.....so they were right!).

My interest in military history came about through playing war games in my teen years: all sorts of things from Tractics (rules for combat using 1/72 scale tank and soldier models) to Squad Leader, Midway, Bismarck, Second Frond, Fortress Europa etc..... I also got into RPGs (role playing, not the shoulder-launched variety!). My closest friends are those I've had since as far back as year 5 at school (yikes - that's 30+ years!!!!), and we all became friends partly through gaming.

I prefer Atlantic over Pacific because there is a steady swing from the Germans holding the advantages to the Allies doing so. The Allies get better escorts (and more of them), radar, better ASDIC, better weapons etc. The Germans get very little to offset that. In a game context, this means things get harder as the war progresses. It also means things get harder but you build experience to help cope with it. In short, there is a steady build up of tension and challenge.

The Pacific, in contrast, is a situation where the Allies continue to gain superiority in technology and resources. You get better boats, better torps, better radar etc. while the Japs gain very little in comparison (consider that Dick O'Kane was making surface attacks against convoys in 1944 as, even then, the Japs didn't have radar on most convoy escorts and, even when they did, it was so poor it wasn't a great influence on results!).

There's always the challenge of learning how best to use your boat's capabilities, and learn your enemies' strengths/weaknesses, so both sims have things to offer, but the Atlantic is always the more challenging for me (as it was historically).

As for other geopolitical comments etc I'll avoid them, although I do a lot of reading on such things (as it happens, I've just finished reading Nemesis: The Battle For Japan, 1944-45 by Max Hastings....a fascinating read).

One comment I will make is this: it frustrates me somewhat that most people in the Western world tend to overlook a fundamental truth about the European theatre of WWII - it was the USSR that was mainly responsible for the defeat of Germany.

Some really interesting info from other posters here!!

Cheers

Originally Posted by Steeltrap

One comment I will make is this: it frustrates me somewhat that most people in the Western world tend to overlook a fundamental truth about the European theatre of WWII - it was the USSR that was mainly responsible for the defeat of Germany.

Some really interesting info from other posters here!!

Cheers

The USSR actually took Berlin. I do like to point this out here in the US. People get really angry because here in America we take 100% of the credit for beating Germany. America was an imporant part of a large coalition. America still talks about World War 2 like it was last week though. I can understand it because we have not won a war since. Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq. Our track record has been disastrous since. I think we are starting to look like Al Bundy from married with children who won't shut up about his touchdown pass back in highschool.

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