Looking foolish does the spirit good. The need not to look foolish is one of youth's many burdens; as we get older we are exempted from it more and more, and float upward in our heedlessness, singing Gratia Dei sum quod sum. (John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs, 1989, Ch. 6)
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Вели́кая Оте́чественная война́
The Velikaya Otyechestvennaya Voyna arguably stands as the high-water mark of Soviet patriotism from the 1917 revolution until the days of Sputnik and the manned Earth orbit of Yuri Gagarin. The fellow in the photograph was one of the Soviet reenactors at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum's 2009 World War II weekend at the Reading Regional Airport on the first weekend in June. The uniform appears to be naval, but I'm curious about the death's head insignia on the left sleeve (I didn't get a chance to ask at the time I took the picture). If any reader of this feuilleton happens to know anything about Soviet uniforms of the Great Patriotic War, I'd welcome some information. Whatever the full explanation, it's quite clear this chap is well-armed, assuming he has some kind of a mechanism for aiming and firing the ammunition he wears with such obvious pride.
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3 comments:
I had to look up "feuilleton" in the dictionary. You are vocabulous! Sorry, I just made up that word.
Jim
I may be vocabulous, but YOU'RE the wordsmith. "Vocabulous"!! What a wonderful addition to the language! I intend to use it and promote its use until it finds its way into the dictionaries of the future.
Thank you Curmudgeonson
Jim
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