ARTICLE: A Life of Misadventures

With body parts being blown off one at a time...

‘War is a great leveller: it shows the man as he really is, not as he would like to be, nor as he would like you to think he is. It shows him stripped, with his greatness mixed with his pathetic fears and weaknesses, and though there were disappointments they were more than cancelled out by pleasant surprises of the little men who, suddenly, became larger than life. I have a creed, borne out by war, which is – never to give a man a second chance. It may sound hard, but I have found that the man who lets you down once, will, infallibly, do so again.’

Source: Wiki

So sayeth General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart, VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO, possibly one of the biggest loons in the history of the British Army. Churchill called him ‘my old and valued friend,’ chances are that some other people were less complimentary. He had a foul temper, so bad in fact that he never carried a revolver because he didn’t trust himself not to shoot one of his own men at some point. Also, he apparently qualified for the ‘world record for bad language,’ which makes me like him even more. I count eight and a half wars, as many wounds, not to mention surviving two plane crashes and escaping (for a while at least) a prisoner of war camp. Oh, and he wore an eyepatch like a pirate. This is going to run way too long, but sod it, the guy deserves it. Read on if you want to hear about all of this in his own words…