One of the reasons I like to read soldier memoirs and rummage through their pictures is because the major histories just don't go into the mundania of military life of soldiers at war. It's all about Generals and Prime Ministers, fleets flitting about, tonnages of bombs dropped, the idiocy of reinforcing failure, etc.
Important stuff, and easier to read when you've got a decent depth of knowledge with which to evaluate it.
And then there are the first-person battle accounts, stirring and engrossing.
But, since I spent a 5th of a century as a pistol (and one submachinegun) totin' RLO (Real Live Ossifer, for newbies to Argghhh!) I also really appreciate the pictures that show how most of us spent most of our time, in those long periods of tedium between the short periods of butt-clenching fear.
I've got a buddy I work with who does paper airplanes. Not the kind you tossed in class in school - the kind you download, print onto card stock, and then cut out and assemble. And they are really some pretty sophisticated models in their engineering.
I thought of him and laughed out loud when I came across this picture of German soldiers making paper models for vehicle recognition purposes during the build-up for Operation Zitadelle, better known as the Battle of Kursk to we westerners.
If the pic tickles you - here's a larger version.
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