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Author: Grumpy
I posted this back in 2020, I am presently out of town, my employer sent me on a roadtrip. so I preloaded my scheduler thingie.
I ran across this on Farcebook and I remembered the incident and it infuriated me. I was at North Georgia College and I heard about the Soviets shooting an American Officer then Soviets being Soviets, trying to blame the Americans.
I still remember the KAL 007 where the Soviets shot down the Korean jetliner then said that it was an “CIA plane” and we had proof that from intercepts that the Soviets knew that the plane was a civilian plane and the Soviets were being Soviets and duplicitous. I knew about the “SMLM” missions because I lived in Germany in the 1970’s and the Soviets had their “SMLM” counterpart delegation in “Bunde” in the British sector and the American Sector they had their Main office in Karlsruhe and a satellite location in Frankfurt.
I know because I saw a guy in a Soviet Officer uniform in the Stars and Stripes in Frankfurt ( Soviets delegations had full access to the PX system, this is part of the reason that getting assigned to the Delegation was a prime assignment so they could send western goods back to the motherland for barter for other things) and he said “hi” to me and my being polite responded in kind as I was buying another book.
I asked my dad who was “El-Cid” in Frankfurt at that time about that and he explained what that guy was and his purpose was and that he was a legal “spy” for the Soviet Military.
That Card on the lower right of the Pic, we all got them when we got “in Country” we were supposed to call a number if we saw this vehicle traveling around in Germany. Especially near any maneuver or Training areas.
When I returned to Germany in 1986 as a GI and joined my unit at the Big Red One at Cooke Barracks, we immediately started border missions inside the (1K Zone) under the auspices of 2ACR who had the authority to run the area immediately behind the border between East Germany/West Germany and Czechoslovakia.
It was good duty, It was sobering to see the little M151 jeep loaded with a footlocker with claymore mines, LAAW rockets, extra ammo, grenades and so forth. 2ACR were Speedbumps for GSFG if they crossed the Fulda Gap and they knew it and we were to buy time for the other troops to get out of garrison to stop the Soviets before they got to the Rhine. During this tour I spent 90 days in Wobeck by Helmstedt. Then I spend the rest of my time at Stuttgart until 1991 with a detour in the Gulf.
14 years ago I bought a copy of a book and talked to the author, his name is James Holbrooke and Here is the Potsdam Missionslink on Amazon
It was interesting reading about the adventures on “that side of the fence and the “souped up Bronco’s they used”
I clipped this story off Farcebook and it is a worthy story of remembrance.
Fort Huachuca, AZ. – When Major “Nick” Nicholson and his driver, Staff Sergeant Jessie Schatz headed out to patrol an area in Ludwigslust, East Germany on the morning of March 24, 1985, there was nothing unusual about their mission. They were in uniform, driving a vehicle marked with the distinctive plates of the U.S. Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) and they were unarmed. As members of this unique organization, the two men were basically licensed spies, authorized by a 1947 treaty with the Soviet Union which allowed all parties of the occupation to maintain communications and exchange intelligence in the occupied zones of East and West Germany.
Originally, the agreement was designed to coordinate efforts and keep tabs on German disarmament and demilitarization. As the Cold War progressed, however, the liaison teams remained in place, keeping tabs on each other rather than the Germans. The Soviets had their own liaison mission which operated on the same principles inside the American, British, and French zones of occupation.
On this particular day, however, something went very wrong. The 2-man team was following a convoy of Soviet tanks returning from target practice — a very typical activity for a USMLM team. At some point, the two Americans left the convoy and headed for a tank shed off the main road.
Seeing no guards, they drove to within 200 yards of the shed. Major Nicholson left the vehicle to take some photos, leaving SSG Schatz with the vehicle to provide security. After a few minutes, Nicholson got back in and they drove closer, this time to within 10 yards. With the driver watching, he got back out and approached the shed to look in a window.
That was when Schatz noticed a young Soviet sentry emerging from the woods. Nicholson was turning to get back in his vehicle when the first shot rang out, narrowly missing his driver’s head. The Soviet sentry, a young sergeant named Aleksandr Ryabtsev, aimed again and fired two more shots.
One of them hit the major, and dropped him. Rising to an elbow, he shouted: “Jessie, I’ve been shot!” Then he collapsed. Schatz reached for his first aid kit, showing the Red Cross emblem to the sentry, and attempted to assist his teammate.
The sentry kept the AK-47 trained on Schatz, however, trapping him in the vehicle for over an hour. By the time anyone bothered to check for a pulse, Major Nicholson didn’t have one.
The Soviets refused to accept any blame, changing their story regularly and contradicting themselves repeatedly. In the final analysis by the U.S. Army investigators, Nick’s death was “officially condoned, if not directly ordered” by the Soviet leadership.
This incident caused immediate political furor, with both sides blaming the other. Major Nicholson’s body was eventually released, and he was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. All 13 of his USMLM team members were present at his funeral. He was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit and the Purple Heart, and in an unprecedented move, promoted to Lieutenant Colonel upon approval of the President.
Three years later, the Soviet Union expressed “regret” over Nicholson’s death. Ironically, by the time LTC Nicholson was inducted into the MI Hall of Fame in June 1991, the two divided sides of Germany had been reunited (Oct 3, 1990), and six months after his induction, the Soviet Union would officially be dissolved (Dec 26, 1991). The veterans of the Cold War, America’s longest war, deserve to be recognized, honored, and remembered. LTC Arthur D. “Nick” Nicholson, Jr: we thank you for your service.
When a liberal Trump hater legally purchased a budget pistol and pump shotgun, hauled them across the country and stormed the White House Correspondence Dinner in an attempt to kill President Donald Trump and other administration officials, many gun-ban advocates reacted by blaming “lax gun laws.”
That claim holds no water, however, as California, where many purchased the guns, and Washington, D.C., where he used them in the violent attack, have some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation.
The Bloomberg-funded anti-gun media mouthpiece The Trace, however, chose to place the blame in another place it didn’t belong—on the California retail chain that sold the would-be assassin his guns. Thankfully, David Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), is calling out The Trace for its dishonesty in using that despicable tactic.
In its report, The Trace tries to make it sound like Turner’s Outdoorsman in Torrence, California, was somehow responsible for the attack simply because the violent attacker purchased his firearms there.
“Eight months before Cole Tomas Allen sprinted past a security checkpoint with his shotgun in an alleged attempt to kill President Donald J. Trump, he walked into Turner’s Outdoorsman in Torrance, California, and purchased the weapon, a Mossberg pump-action 12-gauge,” The Trace reported. “If convicted, Allen would join a long list of criminals armed with guns from the Turner’s Outdoorsman chain.
With over 30 outlets across California, Turner’s Outdoorsman is the biggest gun seller in the nation’s most populous state. A first-of-its-kind analysis of California Department of Justice data by The Trace shows that Turner’s is connected to more crime guns than any other California dealer or chain.”
As NSSF Keane pointed out in his report on the deceptive story by The Trace, the entire story is based on a claim that isn’t even remotely true.
“There’s no proof that the firearm retailer did anything illegal,” Keane wrote. “The firearms sold were transferred after the purchaser filled out the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Form 4473. That’s the form that requires the transferee, or purchaser, to verify that they are not a prohibited person, a fugitive from the law, dishonorably discharged from the U.S. military and that individual taking possession of the firearm is the true, intended recipient of the firearm. Individuals lying on that form risk a felony conviction, which carries a 15-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.”
As Keane further pointed out, the sale also must be approved by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). When firearm retailers ensure that these steps are completed and any accompanying state requirements are met, firearm transfers are legal. In California, that means a firearm retailer also runs a background check through the California Department of Justice (Cal DOJ), the purchaser must wait 10 days to take possession of the firearm purchased at retail, must obtain a permit to purchase a firearm and must register that firearm with law enforcement.
“What’s shady are The Trace’s assertions,” Keane wrote. “Don’t take our word for it. Take the word of the ATF, the bureau that regulates the firearm industry and puts illegal gun traffickers in prison.”
Buried deep in the article is the admission that large retailers, especially chain stores, are “unlikely to engage in risky sales, much less trafficking.” But it’s unlikely most people will get to that part of the story, even though it directly contradicts the theme of the headline and the rest of the story.
Ultimately, Keane wrote that the shoddy, misleading reporting rests directly on shoulders of The Trace and its decisively anti-gun slant.
“The shame here belongs to Bloomberg’s anti-gun mouthpiece, The Trace,” he concluded. It’s clear, though, they have no shame when it comes to ignoring the truth.”
This fowling piece is one of the earliest firearms equiped with the flintlock of French construction.
It was made for Louis XIII (reigned 1610–43) in the workshop directed by Pierre Le Bourgeois’ brother, Marin (about 1550–1634), to whom the invention of the flintlock mechanism is traditionally ascribed. The decoration of the gun includes the crowned monogram of the king. The scroll-shaped end of the gunstock is an unusual and especially graceful feature of this gun’s design.