Ahhhhh, yes; Parkers, a finely made shotgun....As for PTSD you are obviously more qualified to discuss the condition than I. I take the lead from a post and run with it and therefore am guilty of jumping off thread. I enjoy discussing interesting things and thus my journey back to Ketchum, Idaho and its quirky writer.

It is hard to believe, but a lot of people who like to shoot don't care about having fine guns. I have two great uncles who were great shots and avid hunters "back in the day" and who had the means to acquire fine shotguns, but who preferred Model 12's, Auto 5's etc. My Dad swears by his Winchester 101 and 870.

And while we are talking about great writers and great hunting stories, let's not forget my favorite . . . The Bear by William Faulkner.

He did not. Hem was married to the Winchester model 21 and owned a few. He bought a W.C. Scott double in Spain, as I recall, and used it during his final years. He fired his last shot with that gun.

Hem shot a Browning 16 for several years and owned two, one a Sweet Sixteen. In Africa and elsewhere he shot his Model 12, a full choked gun made in 1928. He owned several O/U's, a few Merkle's a Berreta and a Superposed. He probably liked shooting an O/U best.

I have never heard or read of him shooting a Parker, but of course, he may have.

Interesting thought...I suspect that if people love the hunt and have a place to hunt, a well made and reliable shotgun is plenty. Engraving, after all, is merely cosmetic.

When I was young I considered owning "fine" shotguns as an affectation and an indication of snobbery. Now I consider it an appreciation of the fine art of gunmaking.

Most shooters cannot afford fine guns. I recall when I considered a Superposed as way, way out of reach. No one who I shot with owned one. We all shot 870's and Rem model 11's or something we bought at Sears. If Ted Williams said it was a good gun, that was good enough for us.

In addition, the owning of fine guns is generally a pursuit of the wealthy. I am not wealthy, so I don't own many fine guns and those I do own I had to save for.

One last thought, if one has one exceptionally fine shotgun, a Purdy, a high grade Parker, graded Ansley Fox, that gun becomes the Alpha Male of one's collection. It is the one you show last, the one that gets the ooohs and ahhhs. If one has two such guns doesn't it somehow take away from the Big Dog? While I understand that what I'm about to say is sacrilegious; one really fine gun just might be enough.

I have never heard of The Bear! I'll have to give it a read. In Oxford, Miss. they just celebrated Faulkner's centennial. One of my favorite short stories is a Faulkner tale and for the life of me I can't recall its title. It is the story of the torpedo boats that ran across the English Channel during WWI to attack German shipping. When the captain of those little boats spied a German ship he would shout "beaver!" and ran at the ship releasing his torpedo and passed so close to the hull that the enemy guns could not depress enough to get in a shot. Then they high tailed it for home...if they were lucky; many, as the story goes, were not.

Hemingway is easier to read than Faulkner IMV. I have tried many times to read Joyce (like his short stories) but have not been able to get very far into Ulysses. I plan to die with it lying on my chest, opened to page four.

I don't know if Faulkner shot a Parker or not, but I've been to Oxford and it looks like pretty good bird country so I suspect that Faulkner would have shot one.

The Bear is a chapter in Go Down Moses. A loooong chapter, but very readable by Faulkner standards. Apparently, someone asked Faulkner if he had advice for people who had read his novels 3 times and still could not understand them and Faulkner replied "read it a fourth time" I suspect the firearms of Faulkner's Mississippi were muzzleloaders from the frontier days or Sears/Roebuck double guns. There was not too much money around Mississippi in his time.

I had heard that William Faulkner and Shelby Foote were drinking buddies. I met Mr. Foote in Charleston, South Carolina not long before his death when he came to see Fort Sumter and Charleston for the first time. I asked him about his association with Faulkner and he cryptically responded: "I cannot clearly recall most of the times I spent with Bill and neither could he", but he was a dear friend.

Best Regards, George

One of my favorite things to do is to walk along the Battery, he raised slate sidewalk on top of the sea wall in Charleston on the way to the park of the same name. The Hunley crew is buried there. Great cemeteries in that town! Walking there in the summer gives one an excellent excuse to drink cold beer.

Didn't we all fall in love with Shelby Foote when we watched the Ken Burns Civil War series? What a wonderful chuckle the old sage had and then there was the ancient blind black women who recited the melancholy poem of the dying soldier! She was memorable too.

Foote loved the Old South and Faulkner was on the cusp of being part of it. Both men were acquainted with many CW vets. I was stationed in Meridian, Miss for three years and drove to Oxford often. I loved living in the South in the 60's. I wish today that I had bought every Parker that I ran across. Trojan's were cheap.

I'll bet those two guys could put away bourbon, copius like.

Faulkner had a highly developed love/hate relationship with Southerners which is the thrust of his novels. I've read only one, but it has been fifty years and I can't recall which one I read. I recall it not being an easy read.

Read Faulkner's story "Race at Dawn" sometime
 

--IMO, both Faulkner and Hemingway were heavy drinkers, but between the two, Hemingway had a solid work ethic and did not drink while working. His usual working routine both at Key West and later in Cuba at the Finca was to awake at 6 AM, swim, have two glasses of grapefruit juice, maybe a poached egg and toast, and to be at work by 6:45, work solidly until 12:30, and if the work went well, lunch was a glass of red wine or a small scotch with lime juice on the rocks, and his favorite sandwich- toasted wheat bread spread with peanut butter and with a big slice of raw onion on top of the spread. Then-- fishing, shooting live pigeons, or drinking at Sloppy Joe's in Key West, or at the Floridita in Havana. The later spot is where the Margarita was rumored to have been first created, suggested to the barman by Hemingway, who was divorced from Pauline and with (but not yet married to) Martha Gellhorn.

Maybe that is why you can't understand Faulkner. At the end of one of my favorite passages, when they are talking about sitting around the hunting lodge, he says "it seemed not only natural, but actually fitting, that this should have begun with whiskey." . . . That would be AFTER the hunt. This whole discussion has me wanting to read Hemingway's hunting stories. I didn't know he wrote hunting stories, until now

Another of Hemingway's hangouts was THE COMPLEAT ANGLER on the island of Bimini. It is a to this day a typical 1930' island watering hole with many pictures of Ernest decorating the walls along with some of his drinking/fishing buddies and some gigantic blue marlin.

Best Regards, George

Coupla months ago I re-read the Green Hills of Africa, written about HEM's first safari in '33/34, paid for by his wife's uncle. They scared up the old boy who PH'd TR and Kermit's safari in (I think) 1905/6.

I took my time with the work and enjoyed it. At the same time I read The Horn of the Hunter by Ruark. Of course Bobby R. doesn't have the following that HEM has, but darn it all, I enjoyed that book too.

Aren't the Nick Adams tales about hunting/fishing? I've always enjoyed the story about the Indian who committed suicide as his wife was giving birth.

When Hem wrote Green Hills he was in his prime and it shows in the work.

Ruark died at age 49 and didn't require any embalming fluid to become pickled. He also owned some nice guns. He lived in Spain. (taxes you know). Ruark lived under Hem's shadow and he knew and didn't like it. Hem was born in '99 and Ruark in '18, so they were about a generation apart in age, but similar in many ways. Ruark liked safari martinis which was straight gin poured from a bottle left in the sun on the back seat of the Landrover and served up in a plastic cup. Yummm. I've been on safari (camera) and did some drinking after hours with a few of the young PH's. Hint, if someone offers you a pink gin, consider turning it down.

African Game Trails by TR is good. I try not to read too much about hunting in Africa as it is going to be a long time before I can go, if ever. Hunting Trips of a Ranchman by TR is good too and closer to home.

In the summer of '71 I flew a TA4J Skyhawk on my last dual cross country before my wings and landed at NAS Key West. My instructor had been there many times and he ushered me to Sloppy Joe's which was still pretty sloppy and was just as Hem left it. Today it is not.

The bartender showed us Ernie's favorite bar stool, which was left of the pass through. He also described the Hemingway Daiquiri. It carried three double shots of Bacardi rum. Hem would show up around noon and stay until closing and drink over a dozen of them. At the time I was there the place had a green (or was it red?) lanoleum bar, rickety bar stools, concrete floors and floor to ceiling shutters usually left open to the elements, often wind driven rain.

I've never been back, but I understand the place has had a makeover. How sad, because when I was there it was a very pleasant place to get bombed.

Went to Medora in 2010. What a great place! Drove through the state park there and visited the old Frenchman's castle...a large gray wooden building on a hill over looking the little town of Medora. Great TR museum that included at least one of his shotguns....come to think of it, one was a double! Can't recall if it was a Parker or not. They had about three of his 76 Winchesters on display and a set of buckskins. If one is a TR fan Medora is a must see.

The president only owned finely engraved guns, knives, pistols etc...many on display. I have some pics, but not ready to attach.

Hem wrote about that place. He said he's shoot at hand thrown skeet tossed over the sea wall and into the wind. Trickly shots, those. Sounds like fun to me.

Going trap shooting tomorrow. Taking my Parker SBT. Should be a good time.

Just a few notes--The PH you mentioned was indeed Phillip Percival-- he was most likely the model for Robert Wilson in Hemingway's best short story ever-IMO anyway-- "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber"--Wilson carried a George Gibbs BA in .505 Gibbs caliber, Phillip Percival most likely had his .470 H&H double express rifle when he guided Teddy and Kermit Roosevelt, it was later damaged when run over by a lorry, and he went to a .416 Rigby with express sights and used that for the rest of his hunting/guiding career. I think Ruark was a first rate writer, he was born in 1915 and died in Spain in 1965 at age 50. He had Hemingway both used booze and women to excess, but Hemingway was not a known smoker, Ruark was a two-pack a day Lucky Strike man, and he died from cancer. His friend and PH from Africa was Harry Selby.

Darn, you are tough! I was sure I had Ruark's dates correct. Oh, well. There is an interesting video entitled In the Blood wherein several heirs of Roosevelt go ahunt'n in Africa and shoot some of TR's guns. I met R.L. Wilson once (in Cody, Wy). He explained that the fire was worse that depicted in the flick and that they lost one of TR's rifles. He also said the scene wherein they attacked some poachers was more dangerous that shown. They killed a few.

I agree that Ruark was a fine writer. I found Something of Value amazing. I recall when my parents read it, everybody was, in ca. 1955. I was not allowed to. I own two copies now, one is a "loaner". There is an issue of Life magazine that covers Ruark's experiences in Africa during the Mau Mau uprising and I have a copy. Obama's great grandfather, apparently, was a Mau Mau leader. Nice guys, those.:whistle:

I think Selby is still living and resides in Texas. There have been some nice articles of his experiences with Ruark published lately.

God, I loved smoking Luckies. Of course I've quit, hasn't everyone? They don't even make Lucky Strikes anymore, another reason to quit smoking.

Correction- on Phillip Percival's double rifle
 

It was not a .470 H&H express. England banned the std .450 Nitro express shell, for fear of the "natives" using it in the older Martini-Henry rifles. W.W. Jeffrey developed the .450 Number 2- that had all the cordite based powder capacity of the std. .450 express, but could NOT be used in those early pre-Enfield army rifles. Phillip Percival had a matched pair of those .450 Nitro Express Number 2- made to order by Joseph Lang & Son in London, in 1927. As both "Green Hills of Africa" and "The Short, Happy Life----" were written circa 1933-1934, Percival would have had those "stoppers" with him. How Hemingway put a George Gibbs Mauser square bridge custom rifle in .505 Gibbs in the hands of his fictional character, PWH Robert Wilson, is unknown to me.

One of Ruark's best known works is "Use Enough Gun" and that big bore Gibbs would certainly quality.

I think this thread proves that Parkerphiles are thoughtful,intelligent and men of discernment.As for PTSD,I can tell you that you can talk about it and then you come to the place where all the bad stuff comes back at once and you are not where you want to be.

Thank you, Mr. Delk! Please allow me to add "cultured" to that fine choice of words.

These attributes are precisely why I frequent this forum. And why Papa would have as well... had he lived to do so.

Best, Kensal

Robert, excellent way to describe PTSD .One patient once described the trauma as being like a large wave coming into shore and then it is all over you and you feel like you can't breathe and are drowning. Case in point are women in prison who have been sexually abused, usually by a family member or friend and then spend the rest of their lives trying to medicate the pain and the reliving of the event, by using alcohol or street drugs. This eventually gets them into prison where the percentage of female inmates who have been sexually abused is usually 60to80 percent.

Yes, and I read and re-read bits and pieces of Use Enough Gun often. It is a collection of Ruark's articles, the book being published after his death. I think by his heirs.

It is very possible that Hem and Ruark shared PTSD. Ruark, a sailor in the Navy Reserve in the North Sea for much of the War and we know about HEM's war experiences.

Yeah,ptsd sort of sneaks up on you. I thought it was all something that a "tough" guy would never get and then,all of a sudden,you're thinking and doing things that you would never have imagined would be a part of your life.Things that confuse and scare your friends and family.I would not wish it on anyone.I still find it hard to admit any weakness and would imagine Hemingway and Ruark would have felt the same especially in the time that they lived.It's a lot easier for people to accept "weakness" ,in all its manifestations , in their military personnel today.

I love shooting and I enjoy collecting guns. When I was young I lived in fantastic bird country and hunting with my uncles many times. Wonderful memories of great bob white quail, ducks and pheasants.

While I have usually been able to shoot, I have not been able to hunt as much as I would like, so I read stories of other hunters; Keith, O'Conner, Hemingway, Ruark, TR, many others. I subscribe to shooting magazines and still enjoy reading them. Reading about shooters/hunters is part of enjoying the sport.

Shot my Parker SBT SC today. Was pressed for time so only shot one round of 26 handicaps. I have no business shooting those, but it was fun. The Parker worked great! I broke more than I missed...that was something at least.

While PTSD exists, no arguement there, but I know that some folks are faking it for the dough. As an example, met a guy who lives down the street, a young fellow maybe mid-20's. He said he was receiving full compensation for PTSD. I asked him who he did. He replied that he had been in the navy. What did you do there? I asked. He said he had a secondary job as a sniper on ship. (I didn't know they had any.) I asked him if he had shot anyone. He said, "No, but I saw some guys shot by some Navy Seals that we had on board." I let the matter drop, but for this he got something like 130% pay for life.

I was in an RV camp two years ago. A guy walked by wearing an Air Force cap. We chatted. He said he was getting 100% PTSD for life. He explained that he was in the Air Force in VN.

I said, "Oh, were you in a bomber crew?"

"No", he said, "I was a load master".

"You loaded bombs?"

"No, I worked with cargo planes". He went on to explain that he was walking down the street in Saigon and saw a hotel blow up. "People were killed." He explained.

"For that you put in for PTSD pay for life?" I asked.

"yep", he said. "I had nightmares."

Last week my an old friend came over, hadn't seen him for decades. He'd spent '68/69' in country...Army E4. He was one of those guys who went out into the boonies and placed sensors along trails, etc... He registered the site with with the arty guys. When the little machines went off he'd order a fire mission. He'd tell'em to fire for effect until he ordered them to cease fire. He said once he ordered 150 rounds of 105. They'd shoot HE and LOM, messy stuff. Then he'd go out to the target area to see how he'd done. He said, "There'd be lots of blood trails and little piles of gooey stuff." He said he was doing an E6's job and they offered him a commission if he'd re-up, but he told them he'd had enough fun for one lifetime. He talked about his experiences at length. Of course, right after he returned, he jumped at loud noises, and shouted out in his sleep etc...but he recovered. He became a cop and then a fireman around oil rigs.

Now if there was ever a guy who would succumb to PTSD it seems to me he'd be the guy. He killed many people, often observing the rounds splash on target. He often worked alone or with one or two guys. He laughed about being scared. He fought VC until Tet, then NVA. The VC were pretty much reduced as a fighting force after Tet. This guy enjoyed telling the stories. We BS'd for hours.

Me? I was an attack pilot. The only problems I had when I returned was the lack of danger in civilian life. Everything seemed so mundane. I had trouble figuring out that even if no one was shooting at you, you must pay attention.

I am sure there are legit cases of PTSD that need treatment and deserve some additional pay, but from what I've experienced, there are a lot of frauds out there too.

I can't imagine how anyone could fake out the system they have in place to check you out. I didn't even say anything about ptsd but went in for type 2 diabetes as they think it might be a result of Agent orange. I went to 3 different medical facilities in 3 different cities and it was 6 months before I found out they had decided most of my trouble was PTSD.They checked my medical and psychiatric records,which I was not aware they did, and came up with my evaluation.I can see now that I was "losing it" but my behavior seemed ok at the time,to me only.Anyone that would fake something like this deserves to be given serious prison time. On the up side of ptsd I found that you can stay awake for days at a time and not get tired but the auditory hallucinations were the worst.

Those sound like serious symptoms to me! Hope you are okay...

Another tale. Old squadron mate of mine joined a motorcycle club, all enlisted marines. He was the only officer. All of the men were receiving PTSD payments, each and every one. They told the fellow I knew that he should put in for PTSD too. He figured, hay, it's free money. I was in the Nam (he was an F-4 driver.) So he put in for it. Big mistake. He convinced the medical people that he was infected with the problem, so they gave him some drugs. If you don't have PTSD and you take the drugs for it, you get it. Then the cops took his guns (very nice shotguns), and pilots license.

So, it sounds to me that if one fakes it, it is problematic. But still the two guys who I talked to didn't seem to have experienced anything out of the ordinary, but then again; I'm not them.

Fighting men and women have been suffering from tramma due to military experiences forever. Civil War vets did, so did WWI GI's. Survivors of the death camps did not do well after their release. First it was shell shock, then battle fatigue and now post trammatic stress. If someone has it, it is nothing to be ashamed of. Those who fake it should be jailed. I think some, if not many, do, or try to.

Read an article of an interview of a vet who had seen hard combat. He said, "Yeah, I had issues when I returned, but the first thing you have to do is to stay away from the people who are telling you that you are sick."

You, are much more experienced in this matter than I. I was a zoomie and never experienced the bush. You did. I hope that you are doing well.

I think most of my platoon was in awe of the F4 pilots who escorted the choppers that inserted and extracted us. On rare occasions,I was a radio operator,I had direct contact with the pilots when we had something the artillery couldn't handle.Why anyone in their right mind would attempt to f--- with a fighter plane when they are on the ground in plain sight I cannot imagine,but some of the vc tried.Not wise.I would give anything to get that feeling back when that F4 rolls up out of the valley and comes screaming in 10 feet over your head looking for the bad guys.Awesome doesn't describe it.I can only imagine what it must be like to actually be flying one of those things.

Flying the fighter/bombers, everything happened very quickly. Early in the war we flew at 450 kts, (a mile in 6 or 7 seconds)and then picked it up to 500 when the enemy came out with a faster shoulder held (strella)missile. We usually dropped on smoke and seldom saw much of the target. We were truck'n. We often rolled in from 15000 feet maybe 18000 (it has been a while). We were always careful to run in parallel to friendlies. We never ran in toward our troops. The enemy often ran around shooting straight up with their AK's and SKS's. All it took was one round in the wing, which was our fuel tank, to bring us down. Especially with the F-4. My little A-4 could take a lot of hits. I took a few. "doink" sounded like someone hit your bird with a ballpeen hammer.

We were concerned about the guys on the deck. We were marines, so we'd all been through grunt training and many of us served a tour with the grunts as FAC's. I was a FAC airborne for a time.

The chopper guys took the hits. They flew low and slow and had little or no armor. We had some. We were move'n, those guys were doing 130 knots. Zu 23's were hard on choppers.

Well, it's over and now we've had several more wars and ours has pretty much been forgotten. We are old men. I'm just sorry that a lot of my buddies couldn't be old men too.

Yeah, the adrenalin really starts pumping when you're sitting in a chopper and they start shooting her up. I remember coming back to Danang about 20 feet off the ground,barely airborne with the smoke coming out of the chopper. My buddy said he could hardly see it when it landed at Camp Reasoner chopper pad.I'll take my chances on the ground,thank you and leave the flying to smarter and braver men. I was going to say "crazy' but that wouldn't really describe what it takes to be a pilot in combat.Sometimes I still have dreams that I'm falling out of the chopper.I come out of bed wide awake!

I once had the opportunity with several others to talk with Carlos Hathcock. Someone asked him if he had nightmares over some of the things that he saw and did. I believe that his response was something along the lines of: "Combat affects differerent people in different ways. I saw my job as just that, a job. If I took somebody out I looked on it as well: He won't be able to hurt any of our guys anymore." I guess different people have different levels of tolerance to things that happen in combat. One of my best friends was an Air Police Officer in a place called Phu Kat. A mortar round blasted his observation tower out from under him & he took a pretty good hit. He's now the same guy that I knew before Nam although he doesn't like to talk about the war very much.
Different Strokes for Different Folks, I guess.

Best Regards, George

I think I am ok with the death of combatants but the unnecessary deaths of civilians was something that came back to haunt me. It seems many times that the focus on was killing a vc or vcs and too bad for whoever else happened to be around. I don't think the killing of one enemy is worth killing/maiming any civilians. Both sides lost sight of that.I remember a high profile target(1 man) that was targeted after he had entered a village and the ok was given to drop artillery on that village until they were sure they got him.His body was not found when they entered the village sometime later but the villagers took casulties.

The ROE today rules out such attacks, least I think so. I recall when Lt Calley was arrested. There were a lot of flight instructors who were very nervous (I was still in the Training Command.) Seeking humanity in war is usually a lost cause.

I know people who knew Gunny Hathcock, but I never met him. I think he is in that great rifle range in the sky. Gone maybe three/four years.

Robert I was very lucky in that we mostly engaged NVA infantry troops coming in from Cambodia who had bugles flags etc. No civilians in the area and we were usually totally isolated...Terrain very mountainous and many times had food ,ammunition dropped in by parachute.....crazy the things you do when you are young. Once during rainy season I was convinced we were going to be over run and I had said goodbye to the other American with me and prayed like I never had before or since. I guess someone was listening

Not a .416 with Percival- Harry Selby--
 

I just re-read the May/June 2011 issue of Sports Afield, the special hunting rifles issue. It was NOT Phillip Percival who had his double express rifle run over by a hunting car in Africa, it was Harry Selby. He had a Rigby .470 double express rifle, he put it down in the grass to assist the gun bearers with a dead lion just dispatched, another PWH drove up, a friend of Selby's, not knowing this, and the front wheels ran over the double rifle, severaly bending the barrels. Selby did have a M70 in .375 H&H in his battery, but he replaced the double Rigby with the Mauser BA in .416 Rigby with express sights, and used it for the rest of his 55 year career as a PWH. In this same issue there is a description of the Hemingway/Winston Guest Westley Richards .577 Nitro double express rifle, it hammered down for nearly $340K at Julia's, with the buyer's premium added in-- Wow!!!