Buckshot Bear
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Posts posted by Buckshot Bear
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On 3/4/2026 at 3:44 PM, Buckshot Bear said:
Watched this a little while ago, very interesting.
Gods speed to all the U.S sailors, may you all be safe in what you're presently going through.
Really enjoyed this....I take my cowboy hat off to the sailors that climb inside those tiny bunks....I don't suffer from claustrophobia but I reckon I would discover that I did if I had to sleep in there.
I also get seasick if I take a bath!!!!
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4 hours ago, sassnetguy50 said:
What does one do with thousands of dead camels?
Just left to rot.
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1 minute ago, Sedalia Dave said:
I’ve only been lost once in my life. Since then I may not know exactly where I’m at but I’ve never been lost a again.
Is that because of the ankle monitor SD
LOL
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8 minutes ago, Rip Snorter said:
I thought you still had some in the wild - no clue it was that many! Amazed by AUS yet again!
They are a major problem, they are doubling in numbers every 9-10 years.
I mate I went to boarding school with in Sydney has one of the largest stations in the Northern Territory, around 17,000 square kilometres from memory and they shoot them in their 1000's every year because of the damage they cause and it doesn't even dent their numbers slightly.-
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Australia is home to the world's largest population of feral camels, estimated to be over 1 million.
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Help! My dog just swallowed some coins!
I'm monitoring him, but there's still no change.
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Watched this a little while ago, very interesting.
Gods speed to all the U.S sailors, may you all be safe in what you're presently going through.
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‘BILL THE BASTARD’
Australia's greatest war-horse was the unlikeliest of heroes.
ABC.
Bill was not an easy stallion to ride, and earnt himself the unflattering nickname 'Bill the Bastard'
At the Battle of Romani, Bill made an astonishing rescue and saved four soldiers
A sculptor has now made a bronze statue to commemorate Bill and his rider Michael Shanahan's noble actions
The big, partly broken-in stallion played up so badly while being loaded onto the troop ship he was nearly left behind in Australia.
On arrival in Egypt, he was declared unrideable and given an unflattering nickname.
"He was called Bill the Bastard because no man could mount him and ride him. He threw them off, he didn't just smash them into the ground, he put them into orbit," historian Roland Perry said.
So the 17.1-hand chestnut was put to work as a packhorse at Gallipoli.
"When Simpson died, Simpson and his donkey, it was Bill that brought him down from the heights," Mr Perry said.
"He used to take ammo, food and water up and bring the dead and wounded back down, gently, he never bucked anyone off. It's amazing when you think about it," said Terry Shanahan, the grandson of the only man who ever rode Bill.
While Bill was recovering from bullet wounds to the rump, Terry's horse-whispering grandfather Major Michael Shanahan won Bill over with kindness and licorice allsorts.
"He helped the vet nurse him, he took him into the water at Gallipoli and when they all got back to Egypt he fought very hard to get Bill as a match," Mr Shanahan said.
Australian poet Banjo Paterson headed the Remount Service there and was reluctant to hand Bill over to Major Shanahan.
He had been making "a few pounds" betting how long soldiers could stay on bucking Bill.
"Eventually granddad took him out into the desert and came back half an hour later and he was as placid as anything, he was the only bloke who could ever get on Bill," said Mr Shanahan.
It was at the Battle of Romani in 1916 where Bill and the Major made an astonishing and little-known rescue galloping towards advancing Turkish soldiers to save four comrades.
"Four Tasmanian troopers had their horses shot from under them so they're left stranded in no-man's-land," Roland Perry recounts.
"Major Shanahan got them up onto Bill, he had this reputation of being a pretty ornery horse, how would he cope with five human beings on him?"
"Under Shanahan's calm direction he took the five of them off."
Incredibly, Bill and the Major returned immediately to battle.
"Shanahan keeps on battling Turks, then he collapses because he's been shot in the leg and Bill walks him slowly back to the horse depot."
Major Shanahan's leg was amputated. He was sent to England, never to see Bill again.
He was awarded a Distinguished Service Order, while Bill's reward was to be decommissioned, never to carry a soldier into battle again.
'Retreat from Romani' memorialised
Roland Perry's book 'Bill the Bastard' inspired sculptor Carl Valerius to recreate the daring ride of Bill and the Major in bronze.
Fittingly, Mr Valerius lives in Murrumburrah, north west of Canberra, where in 1897 the first Light Horse Troop was raised to fight in the Boer War.
It's taken him nine years to capture Retreat from Romani, the moment when Bill and the Major carried four troopers to safety
"What an incredible ask of an animal, but he seemed to know the circumstances in which he found himself, and the trust he had in the Major was incredible, the same as the trust the Major had in the horse, it's not a one-way thing it's a two-way thing."
"No-one could imagine the sort of fear these men would be going through when Bill came along and picked them out of the middle of a battlefield and rode them a couple of miles to safety, it just amazes me," he said.
Very few war horses returned to Australia. Most were shot to save them from a life of misery after the war.
Bill escaped that fate. He returned once again to Gallipoli as a packhorse to assist soldiers collecting battlefield artefacts.
It's believed he lived out his life with Turkish farmers, who were warned never to put anyone on his back.
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1 hour ago, Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L said:
Y'all got some pretty flat and wet mountains down there!
Here's some piccies.
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I am lactose intolerant.
I don't like people who are missing fingers either.
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15 minutes ago, Alpo said:
Nice picture, but I have a little trouble accepting that 1850s date.
The exposure time back then could run into minutes. Yet none of those horses are blurred. None of them flicked an ear, none of them shook their heads, none of them leaned down for a drink.
People, who understand the language the photographer is using, can sit still for a minute or two until the photographer recaps the lens -- "nobody move - one, two, three,..., okay". I don't think horses will do that.
Aussie horses are extremely highly trained
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Well done to all and very well done to the AUSSIE contingent!!!!!
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One of Australia's famous pink lakes -
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‘MAIL COACH CROSSING THE BLUE MOUNTAINS - 1850’s
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Like Cypress Sun said, a little all over the place......but we'll keep watching a few more.
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US Sub Sinks Iranian Ship With Torpedo. First Time Since WWII.
in SASS Wire Saloon
Posted
There were two Aussie sailors on rotation aboard the sub.