When I was a little kid, I had a friend that lived across the street. When we were both around 12 his dad started taking us to the gun range each week to practice shooting. Every Saturday we were off to the range. When we'd get home, he'd make us clean those guns until they were like new inside and out. He always said I want you guys to be able to defend yourselves, that's why I take you to the gun range. In his den he had Lugar's hanging on the wall, at least six of them he had taken away from Germans, one was nickel plated with ivory grips. He had a bank safe full of more collectible guns and more bullets stored then I ever seen one person possess, drawers and drawers of them. I never thought to ask him about shooting one of the Lugers, wish I would of. Anywhere you sat in the house there was a loaded handgun within reach, stuffed under the couch cushions, in cabinet drawers, the house was a fortress inside. His wife had one in her purse. Us kids new where all the guns were hidden in the house, knew they were loaded, and knew never to touch them. that was just normal. Today my guns are in a safe, the same bank safe Bob had kept his guns. It was always unlocked and the door open when Bob had it, It would take me forever to get the safe open and then to find the keys to the security locks on each of the guns. That makes them pretty much useless.
I knew Bob was a WWII vet, but he never talked about it until I got to be in my thirties. He was at D Day and marched through Europe on foot. I like WWII jeeps and ask him about them. He said he had never ridden in a jeep; we walked everywhere but he had one story about a jeep. He was standing next to a jeep talking to the driver when a sniper shot the jeep driver in the head. He said riding in a jeep made you more of a target than walking did.
He said the towns he stayed in had prostitutes. The orders would come in to tell the soldiers to move out, but they didn't tell the soldiers where they were going. When they'd get to where they were going the same group prostitutes had beaten them there. Somehow the prostitutes knew where the Army was sending the soldiers before the soldiers knew.
My other good friend's dad was in the Korean war, one of only three guys in his entire regiment that survived, and he got shot in the butt. Now that I think about it his house was a fortress to. The entire backyard had barbed wire strung around the perimeter and he had guns all over the house.