DA>VH> Reminds me of the Ballad of the Green Berets:  "Fearless men who
DA>VH> jump and die."
DA>VH> They wouldn't have that problem if they'd use parachutes. :-)
DA>Did you ever hear the story about the Gurkhas who were asked to
DA>volunteer for a mission behind enemy lines?
DA>It seems that the British officer who asked for volunteers explained
DA>that they would be flown behind the enemy lines where they would jump
DA>out and then engage the enemy. About half of them volunteered.
DA>Then one of the Gurkhas stood up and explained something to the others
DA>in their own language, whereupon the other half volunteered as well. He
DA>turned to the British officer and apologized for the initial reluctance
DA>explaining, "They didn't understand that you would provide parachutes."
A few months after the Japanese overran Burma, a Gurkha came walking
out, having evaded the Japanese.  He had all sorts of information, but
couldn't pinpoint the locations.
"But I have a map, Sah!!"
And he did -- and he'd marked every twist and turn in the trail, every
Japanese unit he'd seen, every ammo dump -- except that it was a map of
the London subway system. :-)
Of course, look who the Gurkhas had as teachers -- Orde Wingate, the
commander of the Chindits (who operated with Merril's Marauders) had a
1/2 inch scale map (about 1:125,000) of the operational area pasted to
the floor, so he could walk over it and study it.
When he saw it, he gave his staff a royal chewing out for their
incompetence -- the grid lines converged, and the were gaps between
maps.
The staff tried to fix it -- with no luck.
The row between Wingate riding his staff, and the staff trying to get
the map on the floor like Wingate wanted continued until an American
Laison officer pointed out that the floor was flat, and the world was
round, and the grids would ALWAYS converge.
He then showed them how to prevent gaps between maps -- start from the
center and work out.  The Brits had been starting from the south and
working north!! :-)
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