The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: philw on June 29, 2009, 06:03:53 AM
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The Belgian Corporal
by Neal Knox
In the summer of 1955, I was a young Texas National Guard sergeant on active duty at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. A corporal in my squad was a Belgian-American named Charles DeNaer. An old man as far as most of us were concerned, being well over thirty, Charley commanded a certain amount of our respect, for not only was he older than the rest of us, he had lived in Belgium when the Germans rolled across the low countries by-passing the Maginot Line on their way into France. He had seen war.
One soft Oklahoma afternoon, sitting on a bunk in the half-light of an old wooden barracks, he told me his story.
In Charley’s little town in Belgium, there lived an old man, a gunsmith. The old man was friendly with the kids and welcomed them to his shop. He had once been an armorer to the king of Belgium, according to Charley. He told us of the wonderful guns the old man had crafted, using only hand tools. There were double shotguns and fine rifles with beautiful hardwood stocks and gorgeous engraving and inlay work. Charley liked the old man and enjoyed looking at the guns. He often did chores around the shop.
One day the gunsmith sent for Charley. Arriving at the shop, Charley found the old man carefully oiling and wrapping guns in oilcloth and paper. Charley asked what he was doing. The old smith gestured to a piece of paper on the workbench and said that an order had come to him to register all of his guns. He was to list every gun with a description on a piece of paper and then to send the paper to the government. The old man had no intention of complying with the registration law and had summoned Charley to help him bury the guns at a railroad crossing. Charley asked why he didn’t simply comply with the order and keep the guns. The old man, with tears in his eyes, replied to the boy, “If I register them, they will be taken away. ”
A year or two later, the blitzkrieg rolled across the Low Countries. One day not long after, the war arrived in Charley’s town. A squad of German SS troops banged on the door of a house that Charley knew well. The family had twin sons about Charley’s age. The twins were his best friends. The officer displayed a paper describing a Luger pistol, a relic of the Great War, and ordered the father to produce it. That old gun had been lost, stolen, or misplaced sometime after it had been registered, the father explained. He did not know where it was.
The officer told the father that he had exactly fifteen minutes to produce the weapon. The family turned their home upside down. No pistol. They returned to the SS officer empty-handed.
The officer gave an order and soldiers herded the family outside while other troops called the entire town out into the square. There on the town square the SS machine-gunned the entire family—father, mother, Charley’s two friends, their older brother and a baby sister.
I will never forget the moment. We were sitting on the bunk on a Saturday afternoon and Charley was crying, huge tears rolling down his cheeks, making silver dollar size splotches on the dusty barracks floor. That was my conversion from a casual gun owner to one who was determined to prevent such a thing from ever happening in America.
Later that summer, when I had returned home I went to the president of the West Texas Sportsman’s Club in Abilene and told him I wanted to be on the legislative committee. He replied that we didn’t have a legislative committee, but that I was now the chairman.
I, who had never given a thought to gun laws, have been eyeball deep in the “gun control” fight ever since.
As the newly-minted Legislative Committee Chairman of the West Texas Sportsman’s club, I set myself to some research. I had never before read the Second Amendment, but now noticed that The American Rifleman published it in its masthead. I was delighted to learn that the Constitution prohibited laws like Belgium’s. There was no battle to fight, I thought. We were covered. I have since learned that the words about a militia and the right of the people to keep and bear, while important, mean as much to a determined enemy as the Maginot line did to Hitler.
Rather than depend on the Second Amendment to protect our gun rights, I’ve learned that we must protect the Second Amendment and the precious rights it recognizes.
Permission to reprint or post this article in its entirety is hereby granted provided this credit is included. Text is available at http://www.FirearmsCoalition.org. To receive The Firearms Coalition’s bi-monthly newsletter, The Knox Hard Corps Report, write to PO Box 3313, Manassas, VA 20108.
©Copyright 2009 Neal Knox Associates
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Good one, Phil.
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Tom Gresham read that on Gun Talk on Sunday, and compared it to Waco, Ruby Ridge, and some incidents where Police over reacted to unconfirmed reports by informants, a later caller had a similar story his father had witnessed during the Occupation.
The point was for the people who say. "Oh, that would NEVER happen here", it ALREADY HAS, Waco, Ruby Ridge, New Orleans after Katrina, Every state in the union has had cases of police raids killing innocents, often in the WRONG LOCATION, or based on unverified reports by paid informants.
People who say "Our Troops, and OUR Cops, would NEVER do THAT. " are living in a dream world that ignores the reality, our troops and our cops ALREADY do that, many are fine men and women caught in the middle, but when push comes to shove they will follow their orders to protect their paycheck and Constitution be damned.
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Very good story! Helped to jog my memory of a guy I worked with who told us that he new where there was a stash of weapons put away by "freedom fighters" just in case they were ever needed again. He's gone now...wondered what happened to that stash?
Richard
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Hey. I DID post that ad on gunbroker for three reasonably priced ARs. Nothing says prepared like PVC, cosmoline and a shovel. Who said that? Not me. ;D
FQ13
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Hey. I DID post that ad on gunbroker for three reasonably priced ARs. Nothing says prepared like PVC, cosmoline and a shovel. Who said that? Not me. ;D
FQ13
When you think you need to bury your guns, it's time to be digging them up.
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When you think you need to bury your guns, it's time to be digging them up.
I agree with you on that one Tom. If others start burying, I'll make extra sure to have my guns close at hand.
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I agree with you on that one Tom. If others start burying, I'll make extra sure to have my guns close at hand.
Thats why there were three. One to dutifully turn in. One to use, and one to tuck away.
FQ13
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Thats why there were three. One to dutifully turn in. One to use, and one to tuck away.
FQ13
Works for me ;D
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Thats why there were three. One to dutifully turn in. One to use, and one to tuck away.
FQ13
I can work with that. ;D
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Tom Gresham read that on Gun Talk on Sunday, and compared it to Waco, Ruby Ridge, and some incidents where Police over reacted to unconfirmed reports by informants, a later caller had a similar story his father had witnessed during the Occupation.
The point was for the people who say. "Oh, that would NEVER happen here", it ALREADY HAS, Waco, Ruby Ridge, New Orleans after Katrina, Every state in the union has had cases of police raids killing innocents, often in the WRONG LOCATION, or based on unverified reports by paid informants.
People who say "Our Troops, and OUR Cops, would NEVER do THAT. " are living in a dream world that ignores the reality, our troops and our cops ALREADY do that, many are fine men and women caught in the middle, but when push comes to shove they will follow their orders to protect their paycheck and Constitution be damned.
Tom,
I think you hit on a very important point here- NAZI Germany can come to America if the citizens allow it. When one thinks about what happened in Germany it really boggles the mind. Other than the obvious stuff, how did a society of intelligent people who contributed to science and art become ensnared in an evil and twisted philosophy?
I don't know if any saw the show on the History Channel about how the occupied countries in the east were divided but it was very interesting. For those who don't know, they were divided into three zones, A, B, and C (if I remember correctly). And guess who Hitler put in charge of these zones? A professor (economist I think), a lawyer and someone else of high stature in society. The point is he took the "best and the brightest" and had them manage his slavery empire.
This comes from the Bible: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9. This kinda says it all.....
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Tom,
I think you hit on a very important point here- NAZI Germany can come to America if the citizens allow it. When one thinks about what happened in Germany it really boggles the mind. Other than the obvious stuff, how did a society of intelligent people who contributed to science and art become ensnared in an evil and twisted philosophy?
I don't know if any saw the show on the History Channel about how the occupied countries in the east were divided but it was very interesting. For those who don't know, they were divided into three zones, A, B, and C (if I remember correctly). And guess who Hitler put in charge of these zones? A professor (economist I think), a lawyer and someone else of high stature in society. The point is he took the "best and the brightest" and had them manage his slavery empire.
This comes from the Bible: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9. This kinda says it all.....
Originally the leadership of the Nazi party was composed of good middle managers and administrators, They started with horrendous problems in the Wiemar Republic, a defeated nation, outside control of the military, a crushing debt due to the war reparations demanded by the treaty of Versailles, History making inflation and Soviet inspired and supported Revolutionaries.
At each stage the Nazi leadership implemented things that "Seemed like good ideas at the time", With exception of opressing the Jews no single decision was actually "bad" but the cumulative effect of the mass lead to horrors that STILL make people shudder.
How could "Normal" Germans support them ? EASILY !, they brought stability, ended the lawlessness of the Communists, restored National pride, and got the economy working again.
Political Prisoners ? Concentration Camps ? Wars ? Oh well, you can't make an omelet with out breaking a few eggs.
With the combination of "The Jew" to take all the blame, and the excuse that "it's for the good of the people" coupled with the adoration bestowed on Hitler, until it became obvious that the war was lost the average Germans supported every action the Nazis took.