The Army of Poland employed a brown bear as part of an artillery team in the Second World War. His name was Wojtek (pronounced “voytek”) and he worked in the 22nd Artillery Company.
In spring of 1942, after the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, thousands of Polish citizens and elements of the Polish military were deported from Soviet territory. They journeyed through Iran to British Palestine.
Along the way, they encountered an Iranian boy with an orphaned bear cub. According to the boy, the cub’s mother had been killed by hunters. The teenage neice of a Polish general convinced an officer to buy the bear cub, which they nursed back to health and eventually made their mascot.
The bear was trained to perform a military salute, cuddle with soldiers on cold nights, and even march with them by standing on his back legs. He copied the soldiers in every way, even attempting to smoke cigarettes (he usually just ate them).
When the Polish army finally reunited with allied forces, they were assigned to join the invasion of Italy alongside the British 8th Army. However, the transport ships banned all pets and mascot animals.
The Poles refused to leave Wojtek, and got around the rule by drafting the bear into the army as a legally recognized soldier. He had his own personal records files, his own paycheck, his own dogtag ID number, and even held the rank of Private.
It wasn’t symbolic, either. Private Wojtek actually participated in combat at the Battle of Monte Casino by carrying 100-pound crates full of artillery shells. It was a job that normal required four men, but Wojtek did it alone and perfectly, never dropping a single shell. His actions kept the artillery barrage well supplied until Allied forces finally seized the fortified mountaintop from Nazi paratroopers.
In recognition of his excellent performance, Private Wojtek was promoted to Corporal Wojtek and the 22nd Artillery Company made their flag the image of a bear lifting an artillery shell. They still use that flag today.
After the war, Corporal Wojtek retired to the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, where he was frequently visited by fellow Polish veterans, who game him cigarettes just like old times. He enjoyed a long and happy life, weighing over 1,000 pounds as any successful brown bear should. There are several memorials in his honor, both in Poland and Scotland.
I want to meet the legendary balls-to-the-wall WW2 Veteran who first said “Lēte Prívātə Bëªr McBèąrfæçe Cárřý Tħē Fûckínğ Éxpløsivės”
Stop buying Apple products. I know you’ve used them for most of your life, and I know it’s inconvenient to move to a new brand because in most cases, you cannot take your contacts with you on various chat apps.
I know this is inconvenient. I truly do.
But Apple is not the company it was before. There is now no difference between an Apple computer and a Windows computer in terms of graphic design. I know this for a fact. I had to use both in college 20 years ago, and non-apple computers are now generally better for design work than Apple computers.
Most non-apple companies encourage self-repair of your own devices, while Apple refuses it. I also know this for a fact, as I watched Apple computers become slowly less reparable through the late 90s and early 2000s. Where I was once able to do the repairs on our office computers, we had to start sending out our Apple devices because they started gluing things down on their logic boards. Notably the glue they used was not heat-resistant and led to device damage should the heat sink system fail. But they did this because they wanted to dig more money out of their customers.
Apple software is also designed to fail. I cannot believe people are still buying new devices after the scandal where Apple was slowing their phones in order to force people to purchase new versions.
Apple hardware is designed to become obsolete. Motherboards and logic boards are designed to hold exactly what comes attached to them and will fail if upgrade attempts are made.
Apple refuses to work with software developers despite promises of cross-compatibility. One of the very first coding problems I discovered was to discover a gigantic hole in a software program that made a plotter (giant printer) compatible with iOS. This caused a memory leak, leading to necessary resets of the computer after every 2 feet of printing.
I know that it’s not possible for most of you to just throw your devices away and buy a new one. I wouldn’t be able to do that, either. But eventually there will come a time when you have to upgrade, and I encourage you to take the plunge and purchase a non-apple device. I don’t even have a recommendation for you because literally anything is better than Apple. A rock that you write on is better than an Apple phone.
Unfortunately I expect to be shadow-banned on Apple devices because of this, and I’ll try to report on decreased activity as much as I can.
It’s time to stop trying to beg Apple to change. They won’t. It’s time now to just stop supporting Apple.
spider-man 2002 is actually such a funny movie and not even in the “oh so cringey” way. peter waving to mj when she was actually waving to her friends? the ‘go web go’ scene??? peter dragging a cafeteria tray across the cafeteria??? peter finding out he had super powers and immediately jumping off a building and flinging himself into a wall???? peter absolutely demolishing his room and telling his aunt it’s a science project???? peters first costume? so fucking funny
visual evidence
Accurate depiction of what would happen if a teenager got superpowers
Cats understand “naughty”. In fact I think they’re the only animal who understands it. Dogs know “good” and “bad” but not Naughty. Same with theft. Cats know what theft is. They know when they are thieving and you can see it on their faces. Squirrels are thieves but they don’t know that. They know “take” and “have” but they don’t comprehend what it is to steal. Nor do raccoons or coyotes or any species of rodent. They may participate in theft but they are ignorant of the weight of what they do, the full meaning of it. Cats know what crime is and they do it on purpose.
*bolts upright suddenly* Oh, Toph didn’t need to have a life-changing field trip with Zuko because she didn’t have a preexisting strong negative relationship with him. I get it.
Fun fact: there’s a stellar sea lion at my zoo who is, in fact, in sea lion jail.
This big boy is an absolute GLUTTON for endangered salmon, so he had to be relocated by like idk fish and wildlife ig. But he… came back. So they moved him again. And he… came back. Eventually their only choice was to lock him up in the local zoo.
If you look in his eyes you can see him plotting to get back to that river and eat his fill in forbidden fish once more.
I volunteered for a wildlife center/zoo once where one of the ravens was in a similar situation. Instead of gorging on forbidden fish, he was in Birdie Jail for attacking school children and stealing their lunches.
Good question anon! Here’s my secret: the old folks home lets us out for an hour of water aerobics every day and while the other residents are huffing and puffing like a bunch of suckers I’m off to the side of the pool with everything I need for posting quality content to Tumblr Dot Com.
every now and then the internet decides it should revamp the ole “stop texting first and see how many friends you lose” when in reality you could literally just communicate that u feel bad that ur the only one texting first
mfs are legit assuming that their friend isnt texting first because of how little they care abt their friendship when in reality they literally just dont know ur upset and didnt realize there was a problem in the first place. just talk to ur friends its not that hard and if they’re a bitch just tell them to kick rocks
so i just finished watching the extended editions of the trilogy which is nearly 13 hrs long and this meme is correct somehow. this is the only line legolas speaks to frodo in the entire series. the only other debatable line is a scene in fellowship where legolas is speaking to gimli but frodo just happens to be near them and he’s cut to for a reaction shot. i wouldn’t really count it though since it wasnt directed at him.
someone already posted this but the kicker is at the end of return of the king where frodo sees the fellowship again and calls out to everyone by name except for legolas lmaooo
PLS i swear i saw this in another version of this post but i can’t find it now 😭
if anyone knows who wrote this scenario tag them so they can have credit asldfjslkf
Nathan, 23, business Administration major with a minor in social welfare. Just on here to waste time while I'm at work.. Posting and reposting random stuff for people to enjoy. If there's a post you don't like just shoot me a message and let me know so I can take it down.
