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Old 06-03-2010, 08:43 PM
Adm.Lee Adm.Lee is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Columbus, OH
Posts: 1,379
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- deck of playing cards*
- deck of pornographic playing cards
- someone mentioned survival manuals elsewhere, I think these would be gold
- maps! some of them might even be for around here. Some of them might be old, and looted from civilian stores.**
- dice (If the dead guys were NATO, they might even be 20-siders! Dead gamers: this fills me with sadness.) Character sheets-- how many guys might be playing an RPG during the long nights in the winter cantonments?
- Cooking gear (pots & pans, strainers, knives, ladles, you name it)
- spices *** including packets of fast-food ketchup or bottles of Tabasco
- vehicles might carry spare parts for vehicles other than themselves, especially tires and inner tubes.
- bicycles (see: inner tubes, spoke wrench, hand pump, chain links)
- cargo pocketful of small tools: adjustable wrench, Philips-head screwdriver, flat-head screwdriver, a clamp or two, all held together with twine/rubber band/plastic twistie/piece of wire.
- handcuffs & keys
- a can of WD-40
- tobacco pouch and a pipe, or rolling papers made from scraps of newspaper or magazines
- Bible (or other religious book)-- the ones with a bullet or shrapnel stuck in them make the best stories.
- cigarette case (metal) with someone's name engraved on it.
- booze flask, also engraved.
- wind-up wristwatch (or several, if the target is into looting)-- all those battery watches are pretty dead by 2000.

Some stories these bring to mind:
* Old Willie & Joe cartoon had one of them telling the other to save weight by throwing out the jokers. Of course, they are both humping the MG, tripod, belts, etc. at the time.
** Another WW2 story: After the Riviera invasion, a young US engineer officer was given the task of finding a way through the Alps from France to Italy. He went to the local library, and hit the jackpot: maps made by Napoleon's topographical engineer, a hometown boy.
*** I was told of a Confederate soldier who filled a knapsack full of mustard jars from a Union supply depot/train. He had trade bait for months, when his companions had the same old beans, bacon and hardtack they'd had yesterday, and the day before....
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988.
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