tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6868589199518435347.post7403150546693850634..comments2023-11-05T14:10:17.294-05:00Comments on Adena Railroad: "A Date Which Will Live In Infamy"Chris Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17386071400545257080noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6868589199518435347.post-18012433763777229212015-12-09T07:59:04.323-05:002015-12-09T07:59:04.323-05:00I think it's awesome that a kid nowadays is so...I think it's awesome that a kid nowadays is so interested in US history & military history the way Brendan is. I am a firm believer in and probably the poster boy for how our hobbies as a youngster help shape our adult lives. No internet back when I was a kid but my dad was in the Navy in WWII and the stories he and his friends told fueled my fire, especially his friend Henry who landed at Omaha Beach and lost his leg from the knee down and another friend of his who was a survivor of the Bataan death march and 3 years as a POW in the Philippines. There was also the TV series World At War which my dad and I watched religiously. It led to building a lot of models but most of mine were tanks and other military vehicles and as I got into my teens it led to building some dioramas. Oh, and it also led to me joining the US Army and spending 32 years as a tanker, but I digress... <br /><br />By far though the biggest hobby I picked up (and is still with me today) is wargaming. I still have all my games (probably 30+ games) and I still to this day play Advanced Squad Leader (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/243/advanced-squad-leader). ASL came out in 1985 and still has modules being published today by a company called Multi Man Publishing which the former baseball legend Curt Schilling is CEO of. There is also a freeware computerized version of ASL called Virtual ASL or VASL which I am using right now to help playtest a new ASL module that will cover Rommel's crossing of the Meuse at Dinant, Belgium in May 1940. The ASL rulebook with all chapters and extensions takes up a couple 4" binders. <br /><br />Back in the late 1970's I also had (still have it packed away) a game called War in the Pacific (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9650/war-pacific-first-edition). War in the Pacific is a huge game with over 3000 counters and the map had to be set up on a 4x8 sheet of plywood with a 2x4 foot extension and a couple smaller tables as well for all the tracks and displays. The game starts with Pearl Harbor and ends with the atomic bomb drops in 1945, with options to start with the Japanese invasion of China in the mid 1930's or to extend the war to cover the invasion of Japan after 1945. My buddy Ed and I played it for over 2 years starting when we were about 14 and we only made it into early 1943. Eventually we got our drivers licenses and discovered girls so the game got put away, but I digress again, LOL. Oh and somewhere in there I started model railroading too...Jeff Lesliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11113231952522584424noreply@blogger.com