Some are fairly simple to decipher, but others are an enigma! So I thought it might be interesting to see how we all came up with them.
Since I asked, I'll go first.
My screen name, (lawman56), stems from my time in the US Army. I was a Military Policeman for 9 years, stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC. I was in the 16th MP Brigade (ABN), 503rd MP Battalion (ABN), and "Lawman" was the call sign for our battalion on the open tactical frequency. Every vehicle used that as the prefix, and the unit & vehicle number when in the open. For example, my call sign in the open, was "Lawman 108-431" which is 108th MP Company (ASSLT), 4th platoon, 3rd squad, 1st (Alpha) team. The number "56" comes from 3 years in the Traffic Section as an accident investigator. All the Traffic units had a 5 prefix in the call sign. Mine was 56.
My avatar, (for those who may not know), is of Dominic Gentile, sitting on the wing of his last combat aircraft. P-51B "Shangri-La". I love this guy for many reasons. Not only was he a fantastic pilot, (27 kills, 3 damaged in 350 combat hours flown), but he started before the US entered the war by volunteering with the RAF's 133, or Eagle, Squadron. The nose art on his Spitfire named "Buckeye Don" was a boxing eagle. When we entered the war, he was re-assigned to the 336 Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, initially flying a P-47 named "Donnie Boy". Again with the boxing eagle on the nose. Once he was assigned to a brand new P-51B, he named her "Shangri-La" and carried the, (now familiar), boxing eagle with him. He flew that P-51 with no major damage, until the day he buzzed the field after his last combat mission, when he pranged it while showing off. He was sent back to the US where he was given a new P-51D to fly around the country to sell War Bonds.
There is an interesting account of an incident in his P-47, where after shooting down 2 Fw-190s, and running out of ammo, he was chased by 2 more Fw-190s that emptied their guns into, and a,t his P-47, yet it refused to fall from the sky.
Sadly, Don Gentile was killed in 1951 when his T-33 Shooting Star, flamed out on take off.
So there's mine, what's yours?
Sure does. She's 24 and has 3 boys of her own, ages 5, 4 & 3. Every Saturday she drops them off for 4 hours, where they run my wife and I ragged! Those little guys have two speeds, On and Off.