Some old Photos for your enjoyment

J

Jeff H

NW Ohio
richhodg66 said:
....He tells me they'd pretty much consider you a wussy if you plugged your ears....
Click to expand...

My ol' man.

Grew up shooting magnum handguns and hi-powered rifles. Mowers, chainsaws, hours on hand-held grinders and wailing on rivets I'd ground. Went into the Army and they were pretty strict about hearing protection, but the issue plugs weren't great, as I later learned. 81mm and 4.2" mortars don't just go "THOOMP," like in the movies!

Got out, no market for killing other people, so got into construction. Never enough time to don hearing protection, and when you cut steel siding with a plywood saw turned backwards in a circular saw, it's the single most hideous noise one could imagine. Working in factories, hearing protection was "optional" in most cases and not available. If it were, you didn't have time for that.

NOW, everyone gets mad at ME because I can't HEAR. Well, I teach. I make my student sound off! Can't afford hearing aids on teacher pay and the luxurious benefits some seem to think are available won't cover them either so if you don't YELL, I don't give a rat's butt WHAT you said, I'm marking it WRONG in the grade-book if I didn't HEAR IT!

I gave that up defending others' rights and feeding my family. No apologies for making YOU repeat yourself if you can't understand that.
 
462

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Jeff H said:
My ol' man.

Grew up shooting magnum handguns and hi-powered rifles. Mowers, chainsaws, hours on hand-held grinders and wailing on rivets I'd ground. Went into the Army and they were pretty strict about hearing protection, but the issue plugs weren't great, as I later learned. 81mm and 4.2" mortars don't just go "THOOMP," like in the movies!

Got out, no market for killing other people, so got into construction. Never enough time to don hearing protection, and when you cut steel siding with a plywood saw turned backwards in a circular saw, it's the single most hideous noise one could imagine. Working in factories, hearing protection was "optional" in most cases and not available. If it were, you didn't have time for that.

NOW, everyone gets mad at ME because I can't HEAR. Well, I teach. I make my student sound off! Can't afford hearing aids on teacher pay and the luxurious benefits some seem to think are available won't cover them either so if you don't YELL, I don't give a rat's butt WHAT you said, I'm marking it WRONG in the grade-book if I didn't HEAR IT!

I gave that up defending others' rights and feeding my family. No apologies for making YOU repeat yourself if you can't understand that.
Click to expand...
Jeff, compare the hearing test results of your enlistment physical to those of your discharge physical. If your hearing loss is service related you qualify for V. A. hearing aids.
 
J

Jeff H

NW Ohio
462 said:
Jeff, compare the hearing test results of your enlistment physical to those of your discharge physical. If your hearing loss is service related you qualify for V. A. hearing aids.
Click to expand...

After the treatment I got after breaking my neck in jump-school, and for the remaining six years of my service, I'm not sure I could go through all that again without ending up in jail. Long story, but I stay away from the VA.

But, thank you.
 
JWinAZ

JWinAZ

Active Member
The FDA? recently allowed the sale of over the counter "personal hearing amplifiers". Some look just like hearing aids or ear buds. I don't know how well they work but they are much less than prescribed hearing aids. For me the best feature of my hearing aids is the use for phone calls. If I was speaking in front of an audience for work, I'd start off by saying I was hard of hearing. Please speak up or I'll answer the question that I thought you asked!
 
B

blackthorn

Active Member
Jeff H said:
After the treatment I got after breaking my neck in jump-school, and for the remaining six years of my service, I'm not sure I could go through all that again without ending up in jail. Long story, but I stay away from the VA.

But, thank you.
Click to expand...
If your VA is anything like our worker's compensation, they love guys like you who pass on demanding what is rightfully theirs. Hold their feet to the fire!
 
  • Like
Reactions: 462
462

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
I understand Jeff's view and at one time I held it, too. My original V. A. request was only for a hearing exam. I wasn't looking for hearing aids or compensation. The after-exam followup letter granted me a 10% tinnitus disability, but no hearing aid approval.* I told my wife and sister that I didn't want the compensation. They said I earned it and deserved it. They changed my thinking. I suppose that had I spent my entire enlistment stateside my thinking would've been different. However, a year of dodging incoming was the determining factor. Same-same with the heart anomaly attributed to exposure to Agent Orange.

Not every American is willing to put his or her life on the line to defend the country, and they certainly don't do it looking forward to any kind of injury, disability, or monetary reward.

*I later found out that Congress had not authorized the funding that the V. A. had requested, and it wasn't til some years later, when more funds became available, that I was approved for aids.
 
Wiresguy

Wiresguy

Active Member
462 said:
Jeff, compare the hearing test results of your enlistment physical to those of your discharge physical. If your hearing loss is service related you qualify for V. A. hearing aids.
Click to expand...
The Coast Guard was always low on the totem pole for funding, using US Public Health Service doctors and dentists, or contract doctors. For my enlistment physical I was sent to a contract doctor in a small strip-mall type office. Near the end of the exam he walked behind me and whispered "Can you hear me?" That was my hearing test for my enlistment physical.

On my first ship I was assigned to the 20mm Oerlikon gun crew and asked the Chief if I could have some ear protectors. The reply: "What's the matter, aren't you a man? Can't you take it?" Definitely pre OSHA days. Then on to aircraft with piston and turbine engines. At retirement, more than 30 years ago, no disability for hearing loss.

I'm deaf at high frequencies, but my Costco hearing aids are sure a bonus and help a lot to fill in some of the sounds I have difficulty with. My health insurance from my second career covered 80% of my hearing aid cost, so no complaints.
 
RicinYakima

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Just now going through the list of VA exams, trying to get some relief for my cancer expenses. The people on the phone are in India, contracted to a commercial company, since there are no VA Doctors within 150 miles of me. Looked on their website at job openings, they appear to be short about 200 doctors, 2000 nurses and 1500 specialists in the VA system. Of course their pay is about 1/2 what they can make on the open market.

So I am just going to the PA contractors and jumping through the hoops.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 462
JWFilips

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Another great one from Shorpy.com

July 1863. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. "John L. Burns, the 'old hero of Gettysburg,' with gun and crutches." Burns, born ca. 1793, was a 70-year-old veteran of the War of 1812 when he was wounded in the Battle of Gettysburg, having volunteered his services as a sharpshooter to the Federal Army. He died of pneumonia in 1872. Wet-plate glass negative by Timothy H. O'Sullivan.
01658u_0.jpg
 
L Ross

L Ross

Well-Known Member
Looking at the old flinter I assumed it was not the gun he used for "sharp shooting". Looks to me like a surplus Charleville or Belgian musket , and maybe modified at that. May have been what he carried in the War of 1812 and he would have been intimately familiar with flint lock muskets. It would have been less than 100 years old when the photo was taken.
I'm just guessing, but that old man was probably a dangerous and valuable man. Wait, 70, hell that ain't old.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.