It's like, what I am trying to portray, is he is trying to force himself into the group as in an 'accept me as your friend!' Thing. And he thinks by asking the crew what they did in the wastelands is going to help, but it's like asking a guy who was in Nam what he did in the war, it's just... you really shouldn't do that, because most really don't want to talk about it cause it just sucked real hard, and there a lot of bad memories and stuff. :/
Think it depends on the Vet but in geneal yeah, most will talk about things they LEARNED; or saw. They will not talk about combat situations they were in if they killed people, but this varies depending on their attitude toward it. One guy in my Japanese class met a South African mercenary who was pretty candid about what he did. War was his trade, he didn't seem to give a shit about killing people.
One guy I knew was in Cambodia, nobody, I mean NOBODY who knew him even seemed to know this, probably because it was A) illegal and B) he was sworn to secrecy about 99% of it. I was kind of suprised he mentioned it, other then him talking about how it sucked when he got back from the Tet Offensive right in time for the race riots of the late sixties.He wouldn't talk about that kind of thing but he would talk about gear till the sun rose and set and anything else mechanical, had a LOT of experiance with all the warsaw pact stuff too. (He was a machinist by trade.) His words to me were. "You've got enough guns, get yourself some damn ammo, put it on stripper clips and pack it on bandoliers, and get yourself a sling, saw the barrel down as short as you can get away with."
Died of cancer a year or so ago, and going through his effects they found his Uzi had been rather illegally converted to full-auto. He was ready for the Zombies.
I'll never forget the little old man with half an ear who was a demonlitions expert par excellence. He got his first job at 12 when he snuffed out an oil fire with dynamite, used almost every explosive known to man including weird shit like Gun cotton. In Korea he was flown somewhere, he never knew where, planted charges and was flown back. He could have been Sammie's grandfather, easily.
