Lot's of different pics of this sign.

Lot's of different pics of this sign.
"I don't make hell for nobody. I'm only the instrument of a laughing providence. Sometimes I don't like it myself, but I couldn't help it if I was born smart."

1st Sgt. Milton Anthony Warden.
"From here to Eternity"

Paul Valery

"You are in love with intelligence, until it frightens you. For your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time."

The Wisdom of the Ages

"When a young man, I read somewhere the following: God the Almighty said, 'All that is too complex is unnecessary, and it is simple that is needed',"

Mikhail Kalashnikov
"Here lies the bravest soldier I've seen since my mirror got grease on it."

Zapp Brannigan

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Someone's Art Project

Someones recent antique purchase, courtesy of The Great War Forum. One of the infamous "Ration Biscuits" re purposed as a picture frame. It's wrapped in newspaper from 1916 and appears to have been made, then bundled-up and forgotten about.
The lads evidently enjoyed this activity as others have also written about the efficacy of hardtack as art material.
It could serve as stationery as well. A tale told in one of Lynn McDonald's war histories was of a young soldier, fed up with the rations.
He wrote on the surface of a biscuit; "They tell us that they need us but this is how they feed us", stamped it and mailed it home.
He received company punishment for this offense but not for complaining about the chow. It was only because he'd posted it at a civilian post office - and apparently the biscuit made the trip okay.
About the redoubtable biscuit, Private Pressey of the Royal Artillery had this to say;
"[They were]... so hard that you had to put them on a firm surface and smash them with a stone or something. I've held one in my hand and hit the sharp corner of a brick wall and only hurt my hand... Sometimes we soaked the smashed frqagments in water for several days. then we would heat and drain, pour condensed milk over a dishful of the stuff and get it down."
From Eye-Deep In Hell by John Ellis.

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