Paratrooper with MG42 machine gun, Rome, Italy, Sep 1943

Paratrooper with MG42

A Fallschirmjäger changing the barrel in his MG42. Note the captured Italian camo that his smock is made of.

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Without my rifle, I am nothing. Without me, my rifle is nothing.

A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper; his hands remember the rifle.

Wanna live?Well, God damn it thentake care of it!

German paratroopers with an 8.8 cm FlaK anti-tank gun in a town in Southern Italy, 8 Nov 1943