Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 165 - Simo Hayha: White Death

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

Happy Veteran's Day to all our American men and women armed forces members. Much respect to armed forces members world wide. Going international today to talk about one of the most decorated war heroes in the history of Finland, and the sniper with the highest number of confirmed kills in military history: Simo Hayha. Nicknamed "White Death" by the Russian Red Army, Simo is estimated to have personally taken out over 800 enemy soldiers in just 100 days of fighting during Finland's Winter War of 1939-1940. Learn all about this amazing war hero, and all about one of the coolest countries in the world, today on a special military edition of Timesuck! Check out Lynze and I's new horror podcast Scared to Death. Listen on Spotify, Stitcher, iTunes, Youtube, and more! Here's the iTunes link: https://apple.co/2MRMgai Donating $3500 this month to the Patriot Guard Riders nonprofit! - https://www.patriotguard.org/ Happy Murder Tour Standup dates: (full calendar at http://dancummins.tv) November 21-23 Grand Rapids, MI Dr. Grins (at the B.O.B) CLICK HERE for tix! ** November 23 Grand Rapids, MI LIVE TIMESUCK CLICK HERE for tix! ** December 5-7 Tacoma, WA Comedy Club CLICK HERE for tix! ** LIVE TIMESUCK Tacoma, WA Tacoma Comedy Club CLICK HERE for tix! December 26-28 Spokane, WA Spokane Comedy Club CLICK HERE for tix! Listen to the best of my standup on Spotify! (for free!) https://spoti.fi/2Dyy41d Timesuck is brought to you by the following sponsors: Leesa! Get 15% off your entire order at leesa.com/TIMESUCK - use the promo code TIMESUCK The Great Courses Plus! Get a free trial of the full catalog! TheGreatCoursesPLUS.com/TIMESUCK Manscaped. 20% off with free shipping at manscaped.com when you use the code: TIMESUCK Watch the Suck on Youtube!: https://youtu.be/OLyJ8d6Jq_E Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Want to try out Discord!?! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 6000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Craig Roberts, author of Crosshairs on the Killzone, American combat snipers, Vietnam through Operation Iraqi Freedom, wrote in that book, the sniper must not be susceptible to emotions such as anxiety and remorse. Seemo Haoha, aka the white death, didn't fight in Vietnam or Operation Iraqi Freedom or any skirmish in between. He wasn't American, but he was a sniper, and he was not susceptible to emotions like anxiety or remorse He seemed physically incapable of feeling either one of those He was a small soft spoken reclusive finish farmer

He was a man who prior to a tragic war accident the left his face severely disfigured You wouldn't look at or think about twice You definitely wouldn't think the slight non-desdescript, five-foot, three-tops guy was anything to worry about, but he was something to worry about. Put a gun in his hand and he was a one-man murder machine. He brings to mind another quote, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. Well, holy hell, when it came to shoot in Russian, SEMA was made out of nothing but fight. Fitting for a legend, in almost every documentary or video or article written

about Seemo Howahe, experts pronounce his name differently and assign him a different number of kills. The more you dig into the details about his life, the more of a mythological quality his life begins to take on. And we explore the myth, the legend, and the man of Seemo Howahe today on a killing in the name of Veterans Day edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. You want to listen to Time Suck? Happy Monday and happy Veterans Day, meet Saks and happy birthday to my wife Lindsey queen

of the suck. She turns 22 today. Uh, no, but she looks, she looks 22 today. I'm Dan Cummins, the master sucker, the salt and all the suck sucks, true dumbass and you are listening to time suck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucifer, Praise, Beat of Bojangles and Glory Beat of Triple M. Recording this in advance to the Denver shows where I'm going to guess I had a great time. As a recording this, I think five of the six shows already sold out. So thank you, Denver. Gangs all here, the priestess,

the high priestess, the script keeper, the queen of the suck, the Reverend doctor, horse cock, paisley, sweeten in the sounds. Only a couple weekends of touring left for 2019, I'll announce the 2020 date soon. Follow me on Instagram, Dan Cummins comedy, to really keep track of that more. Dr. Grinsley Grand Rapids, it's Michigan, November 21st, the 23rd, another live time suck on the 23rd. To come a comedy club, and of course to come

to Washington, December 5th, the 7th, last live suck of the year on the 7th, last stand-up shows of the year, the seventh, last standup shows of the year, the Spokane Comedy Club December 26th, the 28th Spokane Washington where my standup career began more than a couple of years ago. A reminder that an honor of Veterans Day and because of all of our military listeners were given $3,500 this month to the Patriot Guard riders. Yes, the Patriot Guard riders are charity of the month, 100% volunteer 501c3. Start it back in 2005 in response to those pieces of shit. I feel like that's an insult

to shit. The Westboro Baptist Church. Their mission is to ensure dignity and respect of memorial services, honoring fallen military heroes. First responders, honorably discharge veterans, right? To be a little blockade in between people doing ridiculous protests of veterans, funerals, and the veterans families. You can ride with them in a funeral procession, just help stand guard at the funeral itself. You can be active military veteran or someone who's never served. To learn more, donate yourself, go to patreonguard.org. Speaking of the military, we have a new time suck challenge coin, hitting the store.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The in suck we trust coin, a standard one inch and three quarters size brass challenge coin electroplated with antique gold comes in a little velvet pouch. You could use later to collect teeth of your enemies if you so wish. I've heard these coins. Maybe they heat up when con artists religious charlatans, other wackadoodles are nearby to alert you that a dangerous bullshit wizard is nearby. These coins are proof in challenge coin form that you are a member of the cult of the

curious. It's a hell fucking numrod. And on our veterans day, a little quick mini suck on the history of challenge coins, whether you get one or not, I think it's cool to know what they are. And sorry, Spaces, I know I already talked about this on Thursday's Secret Suck, but it's worth repeating. I want more people to hear about challenge coins just in general. So the challenge coin goes back to ancient Rome and the Legionaries, Legionaries with a Roman infantry. And if a soldier performed well in battle, you know, on, you know, the day of the battle he would receive his typical

days, pay. And sometimes a separate coin is a bonus. And some accounts say that this coin was specially minted on certain occasions with the mark of the legion from which it came prompting some men to hold onto these coins as mementos rather than spend them. Today, challenge coins used by those in the military in a variety of ways. Some coins are given out, you know, an appreciation for a job well done. Some are given to those who served as part of a specific military operation, recognition for the fact that they were one of the few that were actually there. Sometimes they're handed out kind of like business cards,

can be added to challenge coin collections, just like handed out as collectibles. Sometimes soldiers can use coins kind of like ID badges to prove that they served with this particular unit or that particular unit. Still other coins handed out to civilians for publicity. Some sold as part of fundraising efforts. In America, some challenge coin enthusiasts think the origin of the challenge coin over

here can be traced to World War I. A legend has it a wealthy officer had bronze medallions struck with his flying squadrons in Sydney to give to his men. Shortly after doing that, one of his young pilots gets shot down over Germany, gets captured. The Germans took everything from this pilot, except this little small leather pouch. He wore around his neck that happened to contain that medallion.

And then he escaped, made his way to France, where the French thought he was a spy. They were going to execute him. In an effort to prove his identity, this pilot presented this medallion and a French soldier happened to recognize the insignia. The execution was delayed long enough for the French to confirm his identity and then send him back to his unit. Pretty cool. One of the earliest, maybe the earliest, you know, examples of a challenge coin being minted was the challenge coins minted by Colonel Buffalo Bill Quinn, 17th Infantry Regiment, had the mage for his men during the Korean War.

Coine features a Buffalo on one side as a nod to its creator, and then the regiments insignia on the other side. A hole was drilled in the tops so the men could wear it around their necks instead of holding it in leather pouch. And then the challenge part of the challenge coin, that part is thought to have originated in Germany shortly after World War II. American station there took up a local tradition of conducting fennec checks. The fennec was a lowest denomination of coin in Germany. And if you didn't have one when the check was called, you were stuck by

and everybody else's beer. And this evolved from a fennec to the units of medallion. And members would challenge each other by slamming the medallion down on the bar. And if any, you know, member president didn't have their medallion, then that member had to buy a drink for the challenger and anyone else that had their coin. If all the other members had their medallions, the challenger had to buy everyone else's drinks. So I think, again, super cool history.

Challenge coins began to catch on, really get popular during the Vietnam War. The first coins from this era were created by either the armies 10th or 11th Special Forces Group and had the units in Cygnia stamped on a piece of regular currency and the men in the unit carried them with pride. Prior to carrying these coins, there were bullet clubs where members carried a single unused bullet. Many of these bullets were given as a reward for surviving a mission with the idea that it was now a last resort bullet to be used on yourself instead of surrendering if defeat seemed imminent.

And then carrying these bullets became this whole kind of machismo thing where do you start to get bigger and bigger bullets out do each other or start off as handgun or M16 rounds soon escalated to 50 caliber bullets, anti aircraft rounds, even artillery shells. Of course it did testosterone. When these bullet club members presented the challenge to each other in bars, it meant they were slamming down live ammunition. And were the someone was going to kill themselves or, you know, or another soldier doing this, the command and Vietnam banned this practice replaced the bullets with limited edition special

forces coins and then soon nearly every unit had their own coin. Some even minted commemorative coins for especially hard fought battles to hand out to those who lived to tell the tale. Sometimes I'm given a challenge coin via a handshake where the coin is palmed by the presenter snuck over to me. I think that's really cool where that tradition come from. Maybe not that long ago. Maybe his recent is 2011. June 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates toured military bases in Afghanistan before his impending retirement, along the way he shook hands with dozens of men and women in the armed forces. And what was to the naked eye, you know, just looked like a simple exchange of respect.

In fact, it was a secret handshake with a little surprise, you know, for the recipient, a special secretary defense challenge coin. Pretty cool. Now a lot of challenge coins are given out that way. And outside of the US, this tradition may go back a lot farther than 2011. It could have originated in the second bore war, far between the British and South African colonists at the turn of the 20th century. The British hired many soldiers, soldiers of fortune for that conflict mercenaries.

And due to their mercenary status, they were unable to earn medals of valor. Not unusual though for the commanding officer of those mercenaries to receive the accommodation. Instead, stories say that non-commissioned officers would often sneak into the tent of Not unusual, though, for the commanding officer of those mercenaries to receive the accommodation instead. Stories say that non-commissioned officers would often sneak into the tent of an unjustly awarded officer, cut the metal from the ribbon, then in a public ceremony, they would call the deserving mercenary forward and paulming the metal, shake his hand, pass it to the soldier as a way of indirectly thanking him for his service. And the last 10 years or so, these things have kind of exploded, these challenge coins.

Lots of organizations use them now. Many non-military have gotten into it, you know, organizations, and there's like, you know, a lot of governmental organizations, White House AIDS, Habsirone Coin, as does a secret service, the Boy Scouts, various police and fire departments, various other civic organizations, Star Wars cosplayers, podcasts, like time, stuff, etc. And we've had one before. And what does it mean to me? It just means like, you know, you're showing that you're a card carry member of the Colossus Curious.

I said that once, card carry member, we don't have cards, but we have coins. And there's the backstreet, there's a little bit of extra military information today on our veterans day. Now maybe know about challenge coins. And also before we get into to SEMO, little extra Veterans Day info for U.S. Veterans. A lot of people think it's Veterans Day with an apostrophe. Nope. There's no apostrophe.

The holiday doesn't belong to one veteran or multiple veterans, which is what an apostrophe would imply. It's a day honoring all veterans, so no apostrophe in Veterans Day. Also, Veterans Day, not memorial day. Memorial days are time to remember those who gave their lives for our country, particularly in battle or from wounds they suffered in battle. Veterans day honors all of those who served the country in war or peace, dead or alive, although it's largely intended to thank living veterans for their sacrifices.

So thank you veterans. It was originally called Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I, that's why it's on November 11th. World War I officially ended with the Treaty of Versailles with sign on June 28th, 1919. However, the fighting ended about seven months before that when the allies in Germany put into an effect

in Armistice on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Okay, and I know today's subject is not an American veteran. Obviously, but we have a lot of listeners who are not Americans. And personally, I respect veterans from all over the world, men and women who sacrifice for their respective countries, militaries, all heroes. So now let's go to Finland and honor one of these heroes today. I want to Finland's greatest military heroes, if not the greatest.

I'm not a veteran, but I imagine all veterans would hold this bad motherfucker in pretty high regard. So on this episode of TimeSuck, yeah, we have our site set on a man known as the greatest sniper of all time, legendary, finished sniper, Seemo, Haoha. And again, I said the pronunciation. It really is like every, if you think I'm getting this name wrong because it's something you've watched, watch about 10 other videos. And you're like, oh, they say, and then do some pronunciation things, they say it differently in so many different videos.

And finish in general, I know we have some finished listeners, I'm gonna fuck your language up, because there's not a lot of pronunciation guides for a lot of finished towns, little geographical places. So apparently English speakers just, I don't know, they don't care. So, you know, I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna do my best to get my head around your strange language

with lots of little dots and little circles above many of the letters. Anyway, see how a huh, this man took down a record, 542 kills. That's the most consistent number. Without the aid of a scope, that's what's crazy to me without the aid of a scope. Plus managed to gun down several hundred more enemies

with a submachine gun, rounded out his kill count around 800, and this all happened in just a few months, around 800 days. How has served his country with distinction as a sniper during the conflict known as the Winter War, pitting his homeland of Finland against the former Soviet Union? After the war,

Seymour Voidet public adulation, preferring to lead a quiet, unassuming life. As he humbly remarked to one interview, you know, later in life, I did what I was told to do, as well as I could. There would be no Finland, unless everyone else had done the same. Like he didn't think what he did was that big of a deal. Makes me like him even more. To be sure, what Seymour accomplished in the war was neither easy nor pleasant, as a sniper his duty was to kill his target and he did that arguably better than anyone ever has before since. We're going to first look over what it means to be a sniper before we dig into this badass

mofos life during today's time, suck timeline, but before we even do that, we need to learn a little bit about the relationship between Finland and Russia, the lead to the war he fought and also just learn more about Finland in general. Is that cool? Is that sound good? I think it's worth it. It's a pretty sweet little country. So yeah, yeah, let's get on into it. The five and a half million person nation of Finland for me and I think for many is

the forgotten Nordic country. The Nordic countries are Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland. They're associated territories, such as Greenland and the Faroe Islands, and there's also Finland, and it's little autonomous territory of Ireland. And when I think of Finland, I think Scandinavia, but while often listed as being part of Scandinavia,

that's actually not really true. Scandinavia is really just composed of Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and Norway. These are the four nations whose languages come from the same linguistic tree. Their histories are extremely intertwined, the land of the Vikings. Finland does often get listed again as part of this group, and it is part of the Scandinavian peninsula of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. But it doesn't really fit.

It's definitely the odd man out here, not culturally. More on why and just a bit. First, I found out looking into forgotten Finland, and Finland is fucking awesome, like the most awesome. As per the 2019 Happiness Index, Finland is the happiest country in the entire world, and it's actually a back-to-back champion locking down the top spot. The annual World Happiness Report,

released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations, Luminati. Each year on March 20th, the date the United Nations, New World Order, has declared to be the International Day of Happiness. This report ranks countries on six key variables that support well-being, that is happiness, income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support, and breast size. And by breast size, I mean, generosity. Yeah, yeah, here I lose, Phoenix, God, yeah, come on.

Habanister Port co-editor, John Hellerwell, professor, emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia, says the top 10 countries tend to rank high in all six variables, as well as emotional measures of well-being. And as for Finland, it's not just the native born Finns who are the happiest. It's everyone. Immigrants and natives alike, super impressive. He'll well says, it's true that last year all Finns were happier than the rest of the country's residents, but their immigrants were also the happiest immigrants in the world. It's not about finished DNA. It's the way life has lived in Finland.

US, by the way, down at number 19, US ranks in the top 10 in income, but 12th in generosity, only 37th in social support, down to 42nd in corruption. And surprisingly, way down at 61st in freedom. Oh my heck! Casting! What about the bald eagle? That's free. That's freedom, guy. The UK's in 15th place. Canada's number nine. Australia's number 10 are Swedish listeners.

Your number eight and our Kiwi's in New Zealand rock in the number rock in the number. I think, oh man, I wrote, I wrote it in my notes wrong. I believe it's, it's, I think it's number seven. I think it's number seven. Uh, least happy South Sudan, followed by Central African Republic and Afghanistan. And also according to a few different surveys conducted recently, Finland has the world's best educational system, has the best teacher to student ratios,

most overall number of passing high school students, also students in Finland spend relatively little time on homework, which means they're happier, right? Finnish high schoolers spend on average less than three hours a week compared to an average of over six hours a week in the US. And by law, I love this, teachers must give students a 15 minute break for every 45 minutes of instruction. That's so smart.

I think, you know, a hearing that, that's so much better than expecting kids to sit in classrooms hour after fucking hour listening to lecture, after lecture, and then wondering why they're acting up and getting in trouble come fifth period. I don't like how much homework my son Kyler gets. It's too much. And a lot of it for him, it's just fucking busy work. Just eats up his time.

Now he could be spending, you know, bonding with his family and friends, pursuing extracurricular activities. I mean, imagine if kids got to spend 15 minutes at a class talking with the friends, getting some socialization out of their systems. What if our lessons could be condensed just to the best 45 minutes?

More focused, more productive lessons than kids got to relax for 15 minutes, be kids. I wonder how many less kids would hate school if it was that done that way. And more apt to continue to be curious and have a positive association with education later in life. And I say this, never having run a classroom. So if you're a teacher and you're rolling your eyes right now,

you know, just, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. I know I'm doing some armchair classroom stuff right now. You know, you could think like, what the fuck do I know I'm doing some armchair classroom stuff right now. You know, I get you can think like, what the fuck do I know? Not much, but it's working for Finland. So maybe there's something to it. Taxes are higher in Finland than the US.

Quite a bit higher, but college is free. So is healthcare. You know, basically you pay tiny doctor fees, like really insignificant, like couple bucks, kind of doctor fees, hospital fees. For operations in long hospital stays, you're charged relative to your income to make it affordable. And taxes are super high. The income rate is roughly 51%.

The highest income tax bracket bracket in the US currently around 37%. But you get so much more from the government. That's what a lot of people I think don't understand when it comes to taxes. You know, I know a lot of people, I feel like a lot of people that bitch about taxes and bitch about words like, you know, like certain socialist elements are the people who could use it the most. People who can't afford health care, who can't afford paying back their fucking student loans or even going to college, paying for daycare, like, welcome, you ain't taking more taxes from me. It's like, yeah, but you paid more taxes. It would be more than made

up for. You'd actually have more disposable income because all the other shit that's eaten away your paycheck would actually be paid for. And finally, the average household net adjusted disposable income per capita, 2015, the most recent date on record for this figure, $31,000 a year. The US average, 46, nine a year, so much more. However, that average can really be thrown off

by wealth disparity. I couldn't find any exact figures on the median average, which if you're looking into kind of stats and stuff, median I think is more important than average. What is right in the middle? Who's right in the middle there as far as income range, not just taking all of the income and then dividing it by the number of people,

but more like like the, yeah, I'm not explaining it correctly. You can look into it, you can look into it. But the average can get thrown off by having like the upper 1% have huge incomes that pulls the average income up and it's so it's not truly really the average income. Like the average person doesn't make that money,

where the median, that is kind of like what the average person, what their money, what they would make. Okay, now I feel like I'm babbling. But, yeah, but you know, you're gonna have a much better life in Finland because you'll have healthcare, good healthcare, you can actually afford, you can get a degree without accumulating, you know, the student loan debt equivalent of a fucking mortgage, also in Finland quality preschool and daycare is free. There's also free after school programs for older kids, back to education. Teachers get paid more in Finland than the US, treated with more respect, which leads to a better education for the students.

Harder to become a teacher in Finland, higher standards. Teachers are treated more like college professors in the respect they receive, and culturally makes them happy and teach better. Despite being way up north up north getting super cold having a super short amount of daylight in the winter Finland is an outdoor lover's dream The global wildlife travel index for 2009 also named Finland number one best country in the world to travel to visit wildlife High levels of environmental sustainability unique and very diversity of species beautiful natural landscapes of environmental sustainability unique and very diversity of species beautiful natural landscapes has 39 national parks that cover almost 75% of its land or forest areas do cover almost 75% of its land insider dot com named Finland the number one country to travel to in the world overall in 2019 like they're fucking crushing it.

And check this out part part of now in that top spot to travel to, Finland has this policy called Freedom to Rome. I think this is so awesome. I think this is why it ranks so high on the Freedom Index. The Freedom to Rome policy allows, you know, or gives anyone living in or visiting Finland, the Freedom to Rome, the countryside, forage, fish with the line in rod, and enjoy the recreational use of natural areas. You can enjoy one of the many national parks for free. The parks even include unlocked wilderness cabins. Anyone

can stay overnight in for free. How cool is that? And I'm pretty fucking annoyed that it would be easier for me to go fishing in Finland than it is in my home state of Idaho. In Finland, you don't have to buy a fishing license, premiere to buy shit. You have to look into what kind of fish, you know, you can keep, what do you have to throw back in every lake and stream, none of that. You just grab a reel and a rod, some bait, cast it anywhere that isn't private property. Sounds delightful.

Then you can go pick, there's berries and stuff like these do whatever. You wanna go to the big national park, you don't have to pay a fee to get in. Parks are free to everybody. No one's kept out because they can't afford it. Despite not collecting those fees, their parks are not even close to being in disarray,

you're being, you know, all littered and stuff. Another well cared for, clean and pristine. Another reason Finland is so happy is their obsession with sonnas. No one loves steam more than the fence. They're the biggest steam-loved motherfuckers on earth. Finland has more sonnas than cars. They have a sonnest ski lift.

And Helsinki, a ferris wheel made out of a whole bunch of sonnas. According to visitfinland.com, there's nothing more finished than a sauna. And many fins don't think you can even begin to understand their culture, and these you spend some considerable time with some fins and some sonnas. It's fucking dope.

One America to develop a similar focus, but with hot tubs, only come a hot tub country. At least in the Northern States, like from Alaska to Maine, you know, to everywhere else above the Mason Dixon line, maybe in between where it gets cold enough to really enjoy them, let's go hot tub crazy. Hot tub culture, let's make it the norm

when you go to a friend's house, hop into their sweet ass hot tub. Instead of trying to have the best lawn on the block, the fuck, who gives a shit? Everyone should be trying to have their dopest hot tub. You know, all that hot tub demand is gonna create better and more affordable hot tubs, cooler hot tubs. Culture around is gonna create, you know, cleaner hot tubs.

You know, there's gonna be, you know, super clean hot tub will become a point of just kind of neighborhood pride. I'm in if you're in. You know, if I didn't need to finish this podcast, I wanna go send a hot tub right now. Also, normal for Fins to sauna in the nude. Yep.

Friends, neighbors, family, whatever. Boogs out, balls out policy in the sauna. If you can't imagine sitting in the sauna naked with your neighbors and friends, well, you probably not finish. Fins and also ranks number one in sex. Yeah, fucking number one with sex. Hey, how's the Fina?

Dr. David P. Schmidt, psychology professor, who was taught at the university of michigan Bradley university and elsewhere started a program called the international sexuality description project back in two thousand according to his research after studying fifty nations he found that no one fucks like the fence no one is so happy when it comes to one night stands number of partners attitudes towards casual sex phil is leading the world

Also thanks to a great food scene with an emphasis on fresh fish fish Especially salmon lots of salmon fresh vegetables lean meats a lot of organic farm to table stuff Get a big foodie scene all those sonnas opening up people's pores helping their skin out cold weather short days Limiting a lot of laying out and tanning Cultural emphasis on having a healthy, active outdoor lifestyle, fins are fucking hot. They're hot, they got great skin, God. It's where the suck has not been sponsored by the Finnish Board of Tourism. I don't even have a bunch of Finnish listeners by thinking about, I'm thinking about relocating to Finland. I'm very into Finland

right now. Also a lot of great tech jobs in Finland. They're one of the European leaders along with Ireland and tech related jobs, exporting more and more tech products all the time. They're all known to be reserved and quiet. I like that. I like a reserved quiet and polite. Reserved quiet, polite culture. Fuck yeah. Predominally, a Christian nation, specifically Lutheran. My experience Lutherans are super chill, tolerant Christians.

So short, they sound fucking great. So who the fuck are these happy, steamy, hot nerds? Well the fence, which are about 8 million in the world, with over 4 million of them in Finland, makes sense. Ethically or ethnically, the biggest group of the Baltic Finnick peoples, the Finno-Ugric peoples inhabiting the Baltic Sea area. I see that it's nearly surrounds neighboring Sweden Sweden, the area that Denmark, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia also have coastlines on in addition to Finland. More than 98% of

Finnick people are either Finns or Estonians, residing in either Finland or Estonia. Around 1,000 BCE, their ancestors were thought to have migrated over from the east from an ancient homeland, perhaps somewhere in northwestern Siberia. Nice, get out, get the fuck out of Siberia. Siberia has never ranked high on any happiness index ever. Those ancestors found indigenous people already living in the area of present-day Finland,

such as the Sami. Sami people still live in Northern Finland, Sweden, Norway, Bidda, Russia, Laplanders. This origin, primarily why the Fins are not lumped into proper Scandinavians. Scandinavians are in northern Germanic people with languages that relate to another, but totally different than the Fins.

Swedes have more in common ethnicity-wise, language-wise with Germans, and then do the Fins. Fins are not Vikings, they didn't worship the North Gods, they had their own pagan gods, Jumala, Sky God, Uka, or Uko, the God of Thunder and the Harvest, a whole bunch others, totally separate culture. But their culture has become quite mixed with the Swedes over the last millennia,

and with the Russians, their two neighbors. Finland's biggest minority ethnic group is the Swedes, then after the Sami and the Roma people, a lot of gypsies in Finland, there are Russians. It's also worth noting the careelians. Careelia is where Seemo, Hawaah was born. It was also ethnically careelian. Careelia is the historical province of Finland, down in southern Finland.

South Eastern Finland, part of it would end up being ceded to Russia after the winter war of 1939 and 1940. The war that Seymour fought in. Correlians speak a dialect to finish, part of the same group of people who likely migrated over from the Northwest Siberia. Once they got settled in southern Finland, they developed their own little subculture, separate and subwant from the rest of Finland. Had their own chieftains fought the Russians and the Finns and Swedes in various medieval battles.

Religious wise, while most Finns are Lutheran, most carelians ended up being Eastern Orthodox. And I don't wanna bog all this down too much with a lot of subculture distinctions, just important to know that they're different enough from other Finns to perhaps want some autonomy, to want some recognition as being their own subculture. A lot of carelias surrounds the Western half of Lake Latiga, largest freshwater lake in Europe that now belongs

to Russia, used to belong partially to the fence. 7,000 square miles, very cold water. And their land will be the, in this land, you know, will be the setting for today's timeline battles. And now I want to talk about the formation of Finland as a nation. It leads to the war, Simo will fight in. It's kind of a unique formation as far as Europe goes. It's a pretty recent country. Finland does not have a very long history at all of being its own nation. For most of its history, its people have fallen under the control of neighboring Sweden. In the first millennia CE, the land of Finland was ruled by various chieftains who did not write about their lives or write about anything else, you know, bummer.

The earliest written sources mentioning Finland come from Catholic missionaries in the 12th century. By the 13th century, the region had become part of the kingdom of Sweden. Different language, different culture ruled by the Viking suites. And then from 1397 to 1523, the Kalmar Union was formed, which joined Sweden, Denmark, Norway, under a single Scandinavian monarch's rule. Finland is part of Sweden, continued to be ruled by the Vikings, pulled into this group. When this union dissolved into a series of bloody battles for control, like national unions so often do, the Kingdom of Sweden ended up still maintaining control of Finland. Then between February 1808 and September 17th, 1809, the Finnish war was fought between the

Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire. Sweden and Russia fought numerous times before for control of northeastern Europe, the lands of Lake Latica, Sweden had become a major world power in the 17th century, kicking the asses of Denmark, Norway, Russia, the Polish, Lithuanian, common, or fucking Poland. Can we not get through a single suck without them coming up? Anyways, the more powerful than ever, Swedish Empire expanded enormously in the modern Baltic states, Northern Germany, several of the regions. And then by the beginning of the 18th century, a lot of monarchs and empires licking their

Swedish inflicted wounds were left thinking, man, fuck Sweden! And they all got together and decided to give Sweden a little three against one beat down. I have to see how your little sing song language likes to get beaten by a bunch of other. Well, mostly sing song languages. Denmark, Norway, AKA the Dano Norwegian realm, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth Russia, all former secret alliance for one purpose to fuck Sweden up. And the long Arduous Great Northern war began in 1700. For years, Sweden was winning. They beat back the Dano Norwegian realm, Beat back the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth with a much smaller fighting force. Other nations helped each side here and there, but

Sweden had a lot fewer soldiers. An initial fighting force on their side of 81,000 men compared to 260,000 for the Russians and their friends with more Russian reinforcements. Always coming. The theme with Russia. Always sent them more dudes. Sweden whooped Russia's ass as well for the first decade and then held their own for a little bit longer, but eventually Russia's superior numbers wore them down. Russia would use numbers to their advantage in the winter war starring Simo Halah as well.

It's amazing how often more numbers seem to be why Russia has historically won wars. Traditionally their battle strategy has just been to keep throwing troops against the enemy until eventually they wear the enemy down and win despite taking way more bucking casualties than anyone else. So many examples of wars or skirmishes, the Russian empire or Soviet Union has one quote unquote, but to do so, they had to sacrifice so many more troops than the enemy. Historically, one of the very worst armies to be a soldier

in global close fields and take castle for Russia. But sergeants, it is well fortified and they have strong tactical advantage. We've been able to easily spot us in open field and shoot down to us from behind fortified walls with many mounted artillery weapons. What is point? Yes, maybe they shoot you. I sent 40,000 of you to walk across fields. Maybe they shoot 30,000 before 10,000 take out. It's okay. We have only ration for no more than 20,000 men anyway.

Need to thin ranks a little bit. So you know, get to walking. Your boots are made for walking, or your boots made for me to fucking shoot you face right now. By 1721, the Great Northern War had ended with Sweden's defeat. Swedish Empire loses a lot of its newly acquired land and also loses Finland. Finland right there. After this war, Sweden was still powerful. Russia considered a threat. The two nations fought in occasional skirmishes throughout the 18th century. Had an uneasy alliance when they did get along.

Or I'm sorry, no, Finland, they didn't lose Finland yet. I thought I was, I didn't trust my own notes because I was thinking about the next battle no Finland now is right next to Russia they lost a lot of land got pulled back Russia took everything up to Finland again ahead of myself 1807 Sweden didn't like how a new agreement was made between a former succ sub you can oppose in a France and Russians are Alexander the first they didn't like how to affect it it's maritime commerce and the Baltic Sea. So war was struck up again between the two nations and again, Russia won. This time, when he was known as the Finnish war, here we go.

In preparations for this war, Russia had gathered a wealth of information from Finland using spies and other sources. Their level of detail was so great that Russian maps of Finland were better than the Swedish maps of Finland. Why didn't Sweden already have great maps? Well, because they didn't really give you shit about Finland. Sweden never sent his best soldiers to fight this war, saved them for planning and invasion into Norway. And most, you know, the most he just liked how Finland gave them a little bit of protection, a little bit of a buffer from being attacked by Russia. On September 17th, 1809, Russia took control of Finland. The Russians also, to be honest, they didn't really

fucking care about Finland. They also just wanted to buffer state in between them and those goddamn Swedish Vikings were always fucking with them. And from 1809, all the way to 1917, Finland exists as the grand Duchy of Finland in autonomous territory belonging to the Russian Empire, a buffer state to help keep the peace between Sweden and Russia. Finland, for most of this period, retained their cultural independence, but also were subjected to quite a bit of russification towards the end, cultural assimilation into Russia. During this period, Finland becomes a lot more Russian, a little bit less Swedish. And then in 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsar and Russia. We talked about this at length and the Rasputin Suck talked about it even more at length. Is that a phrase at more at length?

I don't think so, but that's what we did in the Stalin suck. The Bolsheviks would transition Russia from an empire led by a czar, basically an emperor, you know, to a communist nation led by men like, you know, Stalin and Lenin, basically just different worst kinds of empires, just ones that didn't pass the crown down to their kids. And on November 15th, 1917, the Bolsheviks declared a general right of self-determination for the peoples of Russia. This included the right for various territories to secede.

And Finland did that immediately. At same day, Finnish parliament declared themselves their own nation. Finally, in 1917, for the first time ever, the nation of Finland is truly independent. Hail them, Rod, Fins! No longer ruled by anyone outside of Finland. Yeah! And then less than two months later, Finland experiences a brief, but bitter civil war. Duh, shit.

Last from January to May 1918, one essentially fought between people called the red guards who wanted to become, you know, socialists, or, you know, communist nation like Russia. And then the white guards, people who wanted to live in a capitalistic democratic nation. And the white guards won. And they immediately voted to establish a constitutional monarchy to be called the kingdom of Finland. That was to be ruled by a German king. Why? Because the Germans were the ones to help the white guards defeat the red guards as part of Germany's battling with Russia and World War I.

So damn it. They've just barely become an independent nation. And then Germany's like, nah, now you're puppet again. Now let my prince son, son, your throne. But then a few months later, Finland gets lucky and Germany loses World War One. And Finland's like on second thought, no, what we're not going to be a constitutional monarchy. We're going to be capitalist democracy. And we're going to run share ourselves to fuck your pants on. And then the years between World War One and World War Two, you know, Finland gets to run their own show. They get to hang for, you know, running to become primarily a nation of farmers, a rural agrarian economy, folks non-Logon, growing crops, crops like wheat, rye, barley, oats, potatoes, sugarbeats, various

grasses for feeding herd animals like cattle. Finland would show up a little bit late to the Western world's industrialization party. There's a lot of farmers in between World War One and World War Two. And Finland started to have problems with Russia almost immediately. The new communists, they didn't like having a capitalist neighbor. They wanted a communist neighbor. In 1923, former Sucks, subject subject Joseph Stalin calls upon Carillion Fins to

establish their own autonomous society called the Carillion Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. What a fucking perfectly soleless communist name. And the Carillions from Finland, the US and Canada all had out and do just that. Part of Carillion lays on the finish side of the Finland Russian border, the majority of this lay on the Russian side. And the Russian side becomes the Carillion autonomous Soviet, so does the Republic. Their fucking names are so sad. And then they wanted to bring their Finnish brothers and sisters

into their new little Soviet state. So the Soviets are fucking stirring the pot. Got that little group that Seema was a part of, little ethnic group. And now they have on the Russian know, they're really getting these guys worked up under their own little state, and then those guys wanted to have their, you know, family on the Finland side be part of their little country. So you know, that's going to lead to war.

Russia wants to incorporate the rest of Korea into this new satellite state. Finland does not want to seed any land to the communists. Hello, future border conflict. 1932, finnish, finish communists backed by Russia, attempt to coup of Finland, luckily fail in their attempt to take over the capitalistic government. And then throughout the rest of the 1930s, Russia continues to antagonize Finland. They do stuff like they start limiting the navigation of Finnish merchant ships, traveling between Lake Latiga and the Gulf of Finland, totally blocking their

travel. This is important commercial travel in 1937. And Finland's like, you guys stop it, you're such dicks. Why does living in Europe have to be so fucking hard? Too many countries always fight in Jesus. Just let us grow our wheat and you know, and log our trees and catch our salmon and fuck each other in our saunas already. And a few few years later World War II begins. Hitler would eventually declare war on Stalin, Soviet Union, and June of 1941. Prior to that, Germany and Russia signed an uneasy pact on August 23rd, 1939. Hitler hated communism, but he initially wanted Russia as an ally that wouldn't bother him so he could go and fuck up Western Europe. Russia wanted some more land in Eastern Europe, so the two, you know, they strike a little deal.

Part of Stalin and Hitler's pact was to secretly carve up Eastern Europe into spheres of influence for each nation. Nobody bothers to tell Finland about this. After the pact is signed, you know, Finland has been given by the Germans without them knowing it to Russia. Stalin demands military access from a number of Baltic states including Finland. Finland knows that they let the Soviets borrow some of their land for military

bases and military access, they're not going to get it back. So they're like, nah, now suck it. And Russia was like, no, you suck it. And Finland was like, nah, I told you first, you guys can suck it. And then Russia was like, you don't tell me what to do, you're not to my mom. And then Finland was like, that don't tell me what to do, you're not my mom. And then Finland was like, that fucked your mom, I'm a sauna last night. And Russia was like, God damn it! Yeah, see it's it, now you get the tax!

And they didn't of course have that back and forth. The Russia did attack. Actually attacked itself to justify attacking Finland. Weird, more on how that went down the timeline. We're almost to that timeline now. First, let's go over, you know over what it means to be a sniper. So now you understand what Finland is, the pretext to this war, SEMA would fight in.

Now let's talk about it, you know, get an understanding of his job as a sniper. What is a sniper? Sniper is what I wanted to be off and on, starting when I was maybe six or seven, until I was 12 or 13. Now I'm just sitting up in the mountains around Riggins, Idaho.

They imagine some kind of red dawn scenario. The original Swazie version, fuck the remake. And I know the Swazie version, the acting is atrocious. I actually just watched it again last night because I got, you know, thinking about it because of this suck. I was, I had it on while I was doing research.

Being on, hiding up in the woods, moving from tree to tree with a young Charlie Sheen, picking off Advancing, Commie Scum, Russians are coming. I have to defend my home turf to you know to you know make Jennifer Gray notice me Wolverines This is basically the exact reality that Seymour Howeha lived the Russians did come He did hide around in the trees and pick them off He was like a the older swasey in this scenario, but actually way more efficient than swasey killing Russians Usually Hollywood has to exaggerate their action stars. Have the action star version of the

real dude in some war movie, go full Chuck Norris, full Steven Seagull. I'll take on 10 enemy dudes at once, make a bunch of impossible kill shots. Now with Seemo, his real story would actually perhaps tone it down in the movie version almost. Seem almost not realistic. Let me jump in ahead. I'm excited to get into a story, almost there. Seema was a sniper. What's a sniper? Snipers are elite soldiers with specialized training, weapon re-enquipment.

Unlike an assassin who will generally kill anyone for the right price, snipers targets or armed enemy soldiers, he serves as an integral part of a professional military organization. Military has invested great deal of time, money, and resources on training snipers, often operating isolated and alone, far from friendly units. Snipers have to be trained to cope successfully under extreme physical, mental, and environmental conditions.

Because of the additional psychological and physical hardships the sniper will often have to endure, their hand picked, put through a challenging and lengthy training regimen. In addition to being incredible shots, these motherfuckers have to have nerves of steel. The ability to sit under intense enemy fire, waiting for the right moment to take that perfect shot, it's like they got to be like an elite NFL quarterback, waiting to almost get sacked before large in that throw,

it's just the right moment, except they don't get sacked, you know, they can get shot. Within larger enemies of the world's superpowers, snipers undergo separate, intense qualifying competitions and exams, where the final decisions regarding the individual's capability to carry out such an assignment are decided. Most candidates fail. Sniper's trained throughout the year, day and night, both alone and with his spotter. Spotters as eyes and ears helps him set up the perfect shots.

The rationale being that he must learn how to react under all battlefield conditions, even when isolated, without logistical or intelligent support from friendly forces. Snipers given special training and precision shooting and other applicable specialised training in subjects such as human physiology, survival, acting on the battlefield, estimating ranges, camouflage, advance and movement skills, basic requirements, and setting up a firing position, moving to and from various firing positions, observing field, zeroing a weapon, target selection, destroying various targets. Sniper also has to be training reconnaissance, intelligence gathering. And of course, this is all general information. Each nation has their own, you know, puts their own twist on how to train a sniper. In the case of, you know, Seemo Haoha, he had to pass, of course, the Finnish sniper trials. A sniper in the Finnish defense forces around the time of Seemo Haoha would have had to meet the following standard requirements. In addition to performing the standard duties of an infantryman,

a sniper must be able to one, estimate distances. Two, recognize various sounds and their general direction. I guess that's like, you know, you got another difference between like a, like a fucking owl and an enemy soldier, you know, or like a, you got to recognize difference between like a nice, finished lady and like an angry Russian dude. Number three, utilize the train for cover against enemy fire and observation.

Number four, camouflage himself, his equipment, fire and position, gear and accessories. Five, read a map, navigate in the woods at all times the day and night, you know, in the year. Number six, recognize, define and pinpoint enemy personnel and equipment. Number seven, utilize the terrain to support one's own mission. Number eight, have excellent physical strengths. Nine, be able to endure pressure and remain still in a certain position for lengthy periods

of time. 10. Have tremendous initiative and the independence to carry out complex missions without further instructions or supervision. 11. Understand the basics of intelligence gathering. 12. Know how to quickly set up and tear down a small sauna, big enough for at least two people, but not big enough to accommodate more than four people. 13. Be able to clean a rifle both inside and out of a sauna. 14, be able to hit a target.

300 yards away in one shot from a sauna. 15, be prepared to detonate, special explosive devices inside of saunas to keep Russian commies from enjoying the fucking pleasures of a finished sauna. And of course, I made up the 12 to 15. And of course, SEMA aced all of the real qualifications, more than exactly how well he aced those in today's times of timeline. Simo would use his sniper skills with devastating effects in the face of superior Russian firepower. A lot more men, a lot more equipment.

The Russians would use anti-tank guns, armor piercing and exploding bullets to try and kill Simo. But they couldn't. Now when you're fighting to fucking Finnish ninja, Seymour would fight for his country in the cola front, a southeastern part of Finland, the border of the Soviet lands located in, you know, Krelia. The Russian 8th armony was placed in the area north of Lake Latica near the Finnish border. The Russian army in total would send anywhere from 425,000 to a million soldiers to invade

Finland. Estimates very wildly used to use anywhere from 2500 14 to 6,541 tanks almost 4000 aircraft Finns had anywhere from 300,000 to 340,000 soldiers only 32 tanks only 114 aircraft There was severely outnumbered

Where SEMA would fight even more so at one point on the Kula front battlefield where SEMA would first fight, there were 4,000 Soviets. This one, those skirmish, that had several sources to say this. 4,000 Soviets fighting against SEMA and 31 other snipers. 32 versus 4,000. And they somehow, and they held the front. It didn't break. Fucking crazy. How are they able to fight off so many Russians?

Well, partly because the fence had a home filled advantage. You know, the understood the snow covered, pine tree covered, very thick, forested, hilly rugged landscape of the area. Also partly because the fence fought with a lot more conviction and passion than the Russians. Morale way higher. By 1938, the year before the Winter War began, 36% of the Communist Party's membership have been purged by Stalin's paranoia. Three out of five marshals, 14 out of 16

Army commanders charged with being agents of foreign powers secretly tried and executed. Stalin murdered almost half of his own officer corps before the war began because he was fucking insane. One of the biggest monsters in the history of the world. Subsequently, incompetent officers received accelerated promotion, so they didn't have the best leadership. Stalin realized this mistake once the war with Finland was underway, so he was thinking stuff like, maybe not the great ideal to kill best officer

right before war. I'm not, you know, too big man to say sorry. I make mistake. Just do not bring up a mistake or I have you killed on spot. But during just three months of fighting their forces suffered over 300,000 casualties compared to around 65,000 for the fence. The Winter War, Seymour Fought and May of Save countless allied lives also may have led to an allied victory that may not have happened without this war. This little war with an war very important to the overall, you know, World War II efforts of the allies. The red army struggles against this, you know, outman and

outguned fins said to have led to Adolf Hitler's mistaken belief that he could, you know, take on Russia with his June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. He thought it would be, you know, easy based on how the fins were, you know, keeping Russia from getting into Finland. Had Simo in the fins not fought against the Russians so valiantly, Hitler may not have attacked Russia when he did and just continue to focus on the Western front. Had he done that, who knows what the fuck would have happened. Nothing good. The US might have had to drop atomic bombs all over the place.

Just stop, Hitler. Okay. Enough context. Now we know a little bit about Finland. Cool country worth fighting for. lots of sonnets. Negrarian country back in 1939, country that had just been given a taste of independence. We know that Russia had been making moves to take career from Finland. They didn't like capitalists living close by.

We know it's not easy to become a sniper. Only the best shots and mentally tough as soldiers can qualify. Seamose will find out was the best of the best. We know he and an outnumbered Finnish army gave the Russians one hell of a fight in the winter war. And now let's take into Seemo's life and into a lot more war details in today's time suck timeline right afterward from today's first sponsor. Today's time suck is sponsored by Lisa.

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well over a year now. It's just as good as when I first got it. Same support, same sleep through the night comfort. Lisa mattress are built to last. So get your Lisa sleep right, feel right, get 15% off your entire order at Lisa.com slash time suck. Use the promo code time suck. That's L E E S A dot com slash time suck promo code time suck link in the episode description time suck timeline right now. Shrap on those boots soldier, we're marching down a time, time, time line. December 17 1905, the future war hero, will be called White Death, born as Seymour Haoha in the hamlet of Kaskinen in Route Jorvi.

Beautiful place. Watch a couple travel videos. Rolling Rugged Country covered by dense pine forest, big jagged rock outcropping, beautiful streams and lake sopristine. Looks like a Lord of the Rings type forest. Stuck makes me wanna go to Finland so bad. And just random thing, I just gotta get out of my head.

I was amazed how many like Finland kind of travel videos A that there are and B, almost none of them have voiceover. Almost all of them have like weird techno, like fucking music in the background. It's just like nice, beautiful shots. So fucking people walking around yoga pants and like a beautiful sunset. So apparently if you like the woods and sonas and you just love, you know, some fucking house music, you get your ass to Finland. Half of this area, this, uh, Carilia,

wind up being lost to the Soviet Union by the end of the winter war. Seymour born seventh out of eight children in his family with four brothers, three sisters, Seymour's father, uh, Jho Haoha, owner of the Matila farm, while his mother Katrina was a loving and hardworking farmer's wife. Uh, the Matila farm covered about 80 acres, part of which was forested, the rest consisted of farmland. In many respects, it was called a forest farm, uh, what was called a forest farm since it didn't have enough land suitable for

actual farming to support like a large family through crops alone. Country was too rugged. Too many rocks. Too many pine trees. Too bad you can't, you know, just farm fucking pine cones. So they also had some domestic animals such as horses, sheep, pig. Their farm was quite modern for its time. It feels equipped with subsurface drains which allowed for the growing of sugarbeats for animal food. Farm also had approximately 10 cows which along with occasional timber harvest, got to do some, you know, got to do some logging, gave the family enough income to make it through the long finished winters. Actually, the winters in this part of Finland, not as bad as I thought they would be. Temperature typically varies between nine degrees, 71 degrees Fahrenheit year round, rarely drops below negative 14, rarely gets above 81 degrees

Fahrenheit. And I know if you're like living in Florida, you're like, no, it's fucking terrible. No, it's like worse than some parts of Upper Minnesota than that. It gets tons of snow between December and March, average is over 20 days of snow fall a month for those four months. That makes for a lot of fucking snow. Several feet of snow in the ground every winter. They're the family farm comprised of a main house along with additional buildings and sheds for the animals,

grain, food, painted yellow, cute. Main house originally contained four rooms with the fifth one added later when Seemo's family grew larger. Juho, halaha, would eventually transfer control to farm to his son, Juhana, who together with Seemo and an older brother, Mati, then you know they all took care of it. Life on the forest farm wasn't easy. Death visited the family often during Seemo's teenage years. One of his brothers, Auntie, died in the 1918 Finnish Civil War.

And I might be fucking completely butchering these names again. There wasn't no, you know, random old-timey Finnish name pronunciation guide I could find on the internet. I'm sure you're not surprised. Second brother, Johanna, was wounded in this war. Third brother, Tuomas, died of a sunstroke or working in a row construction site once summer. That surprised me. Sunstroke in Finland. Apparently you can get hot enough for a sunstroke, it wants to know. Uh, Johanna's wife, Hilda, her

three daughters, Anni, Toiney, Saini, Hinda, Hinda, Hinda, Hinda, uh, helped contribute to the everyday affairs of the farm. Uh, during the winters, firewood cut according to needs, CMOS mother Katrina sewed most of the clothes worn by the men herself as a whole extended family affair, very little house on the prairie. And they're old enough Seymos three sisters, Mari, Katri, heal, Ja, taught to so men's men's men's clothes as their clothes had to endure wear and tear of heavy farm work. Seymos mother created a warm carrying atmosphere in the households who's responsible for taking care of their spiritual upbringing as well,

singing songs, living in a religious Lutheran atmosphere a big part of Seymour's childhood. And short life was good and simple. Family lived in a peaceful country life. It's a child's Seymour completed only four years of elementary school. And then he was like, ah, fuck, I get it, I'm done. He received above average grades,

but he just didn't care about it. He learned to read and write, basically a written tick. And then he was like, ah, that's good get it, I'm done. He received above average grades, but he just didn't care about it. He learned to read and write, basic or arithmetic. And then he was like, ah, that's good for what I want to do. Loved farm work decided at early age, he was in care on his father's profession, and that is what he would do. For Seymour higher education was for those more ego, or more eager, excuse me, to educate themselves.

Seymour was a practical man. He just, he was a simple guy, he loved nature, loved farming, loved to work with his hands, loved to work hard. That's just gonna do. And then the military came calling. 1923 to age 17, Simo joined the Rajjadavi civil guard. Initially, he didn't really stand out much from his peers.

If anything, maybe a little bit less was expected of him. He was a small man. He's a little bit bigger than, than, than Reverend Dr. Joe. He's five foot three with a slim build. He's inquisitive. I don't know why that's always funny to me. God damn it. He's inquisitive.

He's willing to learn so much of the country man. It's not that small. I just I don't know why that makes me laugh to picture him just being a little teeny tiny guy. Stillgar contested a man who consider themselves Patriots, shooting skills and personal sacrifices and shirt Finland would enjoy its new democratic style of government and independence. A civil guard shooting trainee had to pass several tests and markmanship. This is where Seamo began to stand out. A rookie would start as a C-class shooter until he passed the so-called C-program.

Five exercises, the last one of them shooting in a distance of 300 meters, five shots from a prone position, minimum requirement, 25 points. Once prompted to be a B-Class shooter, the individual could attempt to pass the B program, consisting of six exercises in this program, the last one is shooting at 150 meters, six practice shots. I don't think I do well with this.

Shooter begins at a starting position, standing with the rifle at ease, loaded with one cartridge and safety on, five cartridges positioned in a cartridge clip in a closed pouch. The target is visible for 15 seconds and disappears for 10 seconds. Ugh, sounds tricky.

Through the next stage, the target's visible for six seconds, disappears for nine seconds. It's tricky here. During the last stage, visible for six seconds, disappears for 14 seconds, too hard. Finally, the target is visible for 30 seconds. Three shots are fired. One per each turn of the target. The last three shots at the stationary target, I

would miss every fucking shot. The requirement to pass to A level was a minimum of three hits on the target. Only after completing this stage, a civil guard member can continue to participate additional training with individual combat shooting competitions, a class, also a qualification event for the civil guard regional combat shooting championships. Seymour of course went right fucking through, smashed straight away to the a class like, you know, no one had ever seen, like it was nothing. This guy grew up hunting on the family farm, he loved to shoot, he was fast, really fast, incredibly steady, amazing.

He was like the fuck, he was the Michael Jordan of marksmanship. Seymills first practice rifle was the Mosin the Gaunt M1891. Soviet five shot bolt action rifle developed from 1882 to 1891, not exactly state of the art in his time, but it was all he would need. He would use a couple of the rifles, but this was his fave. Civil Guard distributed ammunition to its active members as well as it could, considering that there was a shortage of everything including ammunition. Civil Guard also distributed gun powder primers bullets so active members could reload their own

ammo. It's meant that active members could train practice and hone their shooting skills. More often, as he had greater amounts of ammo for training use. Seymour distinguished himself during the 1930s as the elite shooter of his platoon in various regional civil guard competitions, which he fucking dominated. In combat shooting practice, he represented the Rutch-Jottervy light machine gun squad when numerous competitions, especially skilled with the brand new Swamy submachine gun. He won numerous regional championships with that weapon as well.

He was a man born to shoot a gun. It's like it's just a part of his body. He was also awarded the class two medal for skiing and physical condition. I love the skiing part. These just literally ski around in the woods, you know, during battles in the winter, you can find like old footage of this stuff.

Skine soldiers, I don't know why, it's just kind of comical to me. You know, they're just out there, they're not like, because the snow is so deep, sometimes snowshoes, but a lot of, they're out like, because the snow is so deep, sometimes snow shoes, but a lot of times it's just like these dude with fucking guns is in a little single file line,

just like skiing down a trail. And they just like, you know, stash it over to the side, then you know, like start firing, it's crazy to me. This, actually, these type of soldiers is where the Olympic sport, the Biazlan, or, yeah, Biazlan, there we go, comes from. Cross country skiing, target shooting combined. Nuts to me, shooting off a a by a th lawn. There we go. Comes from cross country skin target shooting combined

Nuts to me shooting off a fucking pair of skis these guys were forest ninjas. They were winter forest ninjas Seema was a right handed shooter. Always made it a point to shoot this left eye closed It's enabled him to focus better with his right eye when looking at the rear sight No doubt Seema was a natural shooter when for example He participated in his first competition in 1930s without having practiced, he shot a score of 93 out of 100 points from a distance of 300 meters.

And didn't use a telescopic site when he was doing these shots. He preferred iron sights. You know, I just like to see that little dot on the fucking sights there. Nothing, no scope. He's doing the shows, he's naked eye. That's crazy. My dad's a really good shot. My dad loves Han-Dee and he's a great shot. Oh, but a scope, has to have a scope. If it's

anything, you know, of any distance, like most people. Seemo How I Was Forced To Be Educated in the Art of Shooting by older, more experienced members of the Civil Guard. Many of this men, veterans of the 1918 Finnish Civil War, understood what was required of a soldier on the battlefield. These were veterans who didn't fuck around with, you know, useless academic training techniques. Instead, they concentrate on what limited resources and funds they had, you know, to do the most essential aspects of war such as a marksmanship. Considering the limited amount of ammo available for shooting practice and zeroing weapons, every shot made by young trainees counted. They were expected to hit as close to the bull's eye as possible.

Seymour didn't waste bullets. These men taught Seymour everything from the theory of shooting to standard triangle aiming practices, as well as the various subsets of shooting, such as how to execute a proper fire in position, handling the rifle, aiming, breathing, squeezing the trigger properly, how to not, you know, be too hard, but not too limp, you know, while you're firing a shot, you got to get the blood flow right. They probably didn't do that, but maybe by the time SEMA would enter the winter war years later, his skills as a marksman were well established. Fortunately for SEMA, while in the civil guard, he was able to keep up as a shooting practice, while also still being a farmer, which he loved, the civil guard's activities were mainly restricted

to the weekend, kind of like the national guard, you know, often here in America. During his service with the guard, SMO learned the importance of fast reloading. Blue the minds of other soldiers who saw how fast he could work a bolt action rifle. There's a story from around this time about how CMO's friends once gave him a number of rifle cartridges, told him to shoot as many times as possible. In one minute, he had one minute at a target located 150 meters away over a football field on a half way that works out to about 165 yards. No scope.

As the timer started, Simo began shooting. One minute later, he had fired a total of 16 shots and he put 16 holes in the target. Fucking, he was like a fucking superhero. With his bolt action rifle, considering that each cartridge had to be manually fed with the fixed magazine, you know, held only five cartridges. It's mind-boggling. And I'm sure there's a lot of listeners I know, a lot of you guys know a lot more about guns than I do.

Now I would imagine your minds are even more blown than mine because you understand on the level I probably don't. Seymour did his transcription service 1925 and 1927 served total 15 months. Did his duty, he promoted the corporal. And after the mandatory conscription service, you know, and did he return back to his home on the family farm. And he found some squirrels and he stayed sharp

by lighten those motherfuckers up. He gets you 10 to 15 squirrels a minute, at 100 meters out, and he can do that for five minutes straight. Now he didn't do that, I don't think, maybe he did. On October 21st, 1926, Finland and the Soviet Union started unsuccessful negotiations for a non-aggression pact. The Winter War was on its way because the Soviet Union was a bunch of assholes, but you knew that already.

Well, he didn't kill all the squirrels in the area. Seymour did enjoy hunting in the Rajjavadjarvi throughout the 1930s, according to him. His closest and most trusted friend was a hunt dog, Kile. Kile was a rare hunt breed known as the Finnish spits. And Seemo would go on to breed hunt dogs after the war. And I love that he had a dog named Kile. Kile was a fearless, reliable dog, you know, a great spot and moose, another big game.

And Kile accompanied Seemo often. And I'm gonna pretend that Kile in English translates to bojangles. I'm just the same dog. When he wasn't farming, Simeon was hunting or trapping. He learned from area elders how to hunt moose, beaver, birds, other small predators. Simeon's specialty was foxes. I guess for somewhat difficult to catch, even for a skilled hunter. During his life, Simeon would shoot quite a number of foxes, and he would trap many others.

He loved to kill. Wooden creatures. No wonder he was such a good sniper. Dude was a natural born killer, natural hunter. Hopefully I can channel a bit of female this week and kill a deer. God, I don't want to fucking get one. Trying to get a white tail. A few miles from my house this week. Hopefully, Lindsey will be complaining about the freezer being filled up with venison. She claims she will not eat, you know, when she whenever I bring it up. Hopefully,

that's going to happen. Don't bother sending any emails about, you know, wanting me to not hunt if you think it's sad. Even if you're vegan, I don it up. Hopefully that's gonna happen. Don't bother sending any emails about, you know, wanting me to not hunt if you think it's sad. Even if you're vegan, I don't care. I thought about it a lot, and there's nothing unethical about hunting. Animals die. They're gonna die whether or not I shoot one. If I was an animal, you know,

I had the choice between a one shot kill from a hunter and never even saw or be taken down by disease, famine, natural forest predators. I'm picking bullet, quickest, most painless, most humane deaths. You ever seen a fucking wolf kill something? Laugh! Not good.

Way messier. You ever seen a mountain lion get a hole with something? Way messier. Or dying of disease, you know, not there, started sad. Also, I don't know if you know this but naturalists have been able to do brain studies on deer for the last few years with some new technology. You can get a basic feel for what they think.

And it turns out they mostly think about wanting to kill humans, specifically kids. Mm-hmm. That white tail, you know, you think is so cute, would hoof slap your third grader to fucking death if given a half a chance. Of course, that's nonsense, but I want you to pretend it's true if you ever get sad about hunting. I kind of want to hunt. Okay, I'm getting distracted, but I'm just so sick of the deer in my yard this year. I'm so sick of it. I hate him so much. I wish I could just keep him out. I try I throw rocks at him. I sling shot him. They don't care and I chase him. They don't care

If I get close up, I sometimes I change them with a stick not even joking just to run down the street like a like a lunatic I'm gonna fucking beat him if I get close enough because my dog Gigi is an idiot who this is obsessed with deer and Just winds and barks in any hour of the day if the deer anywhere nearby. Anyway, yeah, kill deer. Meanwhile, wars brewed in 1939. Seamos 33 years old, April 2nd 1939, the finished government decided to start building fortifications along the Crillion Ithmus, the area located south of Lake Latiga. Six months later, in October 5th, the Soviet Union states it would like to initialize talks. I want to describe this current issues

between the Soviet Union and Finland. And the basic issue is like, they won't just give us stuff when we ask for it. They won't just give us our land, they're being weird. Now the current issue is that Finland wants to, you know, let the Russian army, it doesn't want to let the Russian army inside his border to do it whatever it wants.

And finish leaders, you know, they don't want to do that because they think that that sounds exactly how to stop being a capitalist democracy and end up becoming a satellite communist state. That Stalin will purge of its leadership. Since a mutual agreement between the two countries can be met, can be found, the Soviet Union tries to revoke Finland into war on November 26, 1939 by launching artillery shells at itself near the Russian village of Manila, an incident known in history as the shell-ing of Manila. Classic false flag operation. The Russian, you know, trying to make it look like the Finns Act first will have a cleaner excuse to attack, little draw less international backlash,

less chances of Finland being able to pull allies into a war with Russia. Manila is located on the Krilyan Ismus, a few hundred kilometers south of Kula. Seven shots fired. Their fall is detected by three Finnish observation posts. Witnesses estimate that the shells detonated approximately 800 meters inside Soviet territory. They hit nothing. Finland proposes a neutral investigation of the incident, but the Soviets are like, no, no, we don't even want it. Nope. They refuse.

They break diplomatic relations with Finland on November 29th. The Russians try to blame this incident on Finnish aggression. They demanded apology and they finish it like, you guys, you know, you bond yourself. I mean, if we would have done it, we would have actually hit you. There's a lot more accurate than you guys are. Russia began moving in a number of divisions close to the Russian Finnish border now if this incident.

And then when Finland refuses to acquiesce to Russia, denies responsibility for what had taken place at Manila, the Soviet Union attacks on November 30th, 1939 with 23 divisions, totally and approximately 450,000 troops. They're not fucking around. And they kick off the winter war. And before we get into that war,

quick word from a sponsor. Times I've brought you by the Great Courses Plus. It seems like there's an infinite amount of information uploaded to the internet every day. It's hard to know what's accurate, but stuff about reptilians, not accurate. I'm gonna say that. That's why I love having the Great Courses Plus.

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of the show. Now let's get to the Winter War. David versus Goliath. Finland has a population of less than 4 million and 1939. The Soviet Union over 168 million. By the end of the war, the Soviet Union would mobilize over 30 million soldiers, over eight times the amount of people in the entire nation of Finland. And it didn't mobilize all those against Finland, but just in the war in general. Just trying to establish, you know, underdog would be an understatement comparing

Finland and Russia. Soon after the Russians attack, the Soviet Union creates a puppet regime government on December 2nd 1939 at Terjeleky, a town on the finish side of the Russian Finnish border in Karelia, designed to create an impression of political and diplomatic legitimacy to the outside world. Filled no one. Known as the Finnish Democratic Republic, it was a little more than a puppet government founded by the, or led by the founder of the Finnish Communist Party, Otto Ville Kucinin. What was SEMA up to this time? Luckily dude kept a diary.

He made those four years of great school count. And on days he didn't write his diary, he wrote down what happened later. He's also interviewed, is a national hero numerous times shortly after the war, so we get to know what he was thinking about, you know, what he was doing throughout all of this. He wrote, on the last day of November, I was in Suvlate, where I had been sent the previous day

with some others to participate in an anti-tank course. That night we slept well, only in the morning where we told the Soviets had started a heavy artillery bombardment against villages and her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her

her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, I would be able to really apply for real all the skills I had honed when practicing for the annual the plurry civil guard autumn shooting championships. I knew I was in excellent shape as I was extremely satisfied with my results during the last combat and rain shooting exercises. I love this guy. So calm and still look about all this. So brave. You know, this is just writing about, you know,

all this, you find out that Russia is attacking. He's calmly thinking about stuff like, yeah, I had a good breakfast. I was excited to put my skills to the test. I did well in the autumn championships. See, I'll probably do well with the Russians. I would not be as calm. Like, if you could see like a diary entry for me, you know, right, right, in this moment in time,

it wouldn't be good. November 30th, 1939. Fuck! Not a good day. Just found out we're fighting Russia, so probably gonna die. God damn it. I mean, there's no way this is gonna work out. What's our president thinking? Just lay down, dude. As you ever looked at a map, we're not fighting Estonia or Latvia, we're fighting a real country. A big one.

Stalin is gonna fucking, he's gonna bend me over and fuck me with his savage comedy dick. I didn't tell mom to watch Kile, there's no way I'm gonna come back home. No, no doom and gloom for SEMO. SEMO continues with, once we reached Piajokie, we assembled our barbed wire, fortified our trenches, and finished digging our foxholes. The first Soviet attack against us came during the darkness. After a few days of heavy fighting, we were given orders to withdraw all the way to Svulate.

Then we participated in a minor battle to hold off the russians once again ones incident i will never forget i was given a mission to destroy the telephone line i did that and cut the wires taking my time although the russians were shooting at me with the machine gun from a position about two hundred meters away i just couldn't think yet that i would be in any real danger as our losses

in piajoki had been very low despite the heavy fighting and bombardment. This guy. The Russian reshade a mate with machine guns, we know, I don't know, a 200 yards away, but I took my time. Full steel. Full steel balls in this guy. And did he just throw some shade at Russian marksmanship abilities?

I think he did. I think that was a little bit of like, nah, I wasn't worried. I mean, it's not like they were good soldiers. It was fucking Russians. I didn't think they were actually going to hit me. I mean, sure, they're 200 yards away. There was a whole bunch of them. They're throwing artillery shells my way.

But come on. So I fucking Russians, I could have, you know, I could have just laid down, taken a nap there. What are they gonna do? Seem more participated in the first battles of the war in Sotrjavé, the Finnish troops, the Finnish troops withdrew to Savate from where they disengaged to the Kola River,

some 300 kilometers away with a Russian attack was brought to halt. The battle here was intense bloody. Many men from Rajadvi, guys, Simo grew up with fell during the first days of fighting. A specialist for difficult missions in the early days of the war, Simo's company commanded Lieutenant Jules, Jules Lainen was impressed by Simo's marksmanship abilities immediately after just a few days of fighting. Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, to Seymour ordered him to try to knock that man out and Seymour replied, I'll do my best. Seymour then selected a suitable fire in position as daylight was slowly coming to an end. After several hours of waiting,

Seymour noticed a little flicker on the horizon. Last raise the sunlight, reflecting directly off the Russian sniper scope. And then after spotting this flicker on the horizon, and again, he has no scope himself. Part of the reason he had no scope is he didn't want snipers to see the flicker on his scope. Seemo keeps his, his Hawkeye on this dude. And soon the Russian, you know, stands up rather carelessly, probably just thinking that with

dusk approaching, with no shots having been fired in the last few hours, you can't see any fins. You know, his day's work's done. He's gonna pack up a shit and go home. While he's standing there for a moment, Seemo carefully aims as M1891 at the Russian sniper. A few hundred yards away, looks through his iron sights, squeezes a trigger, hits to dude one shot in the cheek killing him instantly. Without a scope! After the shot, a few others like it, Seymour's promoted from corporal to second lieutenant, it's the fastest jumping rank in Finland's brief military history. Seymour also spoke of another incident when this lieutenant unsuccessfully

tried to kill an enemy sniper with a scope rifle. Shortly thereafter, Seema was ordered to kill him and related the following. It happened once that my CEO, Lieutenant, Jutilainen, the horror of Morocco, that was this guy's nickname, that's a bad guy's nickname. As he was known from his previous service

in the foreign legion, tried to kill an enemy sniper with a scope rifle. The Russian had taken up position about 400 meters from us. Jesus Christ, over four football fields away, like close to the five, constantly shooting towards our lines. After a while, the lieutenant sent for me and showed me approximately where he thought

the enemy sniper's position to be. One of our second lieutenant was with us, acting as a spotter, when our duel begun. At first, I did not see a trace of him. Just a small rock where he was supposed to be. After careful investigation, we spotted him behind a little hump with snow near the rock. I took a careful aim and the very first shot

hit the intended target. Did one shot Johnny. Seymour's legend continues to grow. He just showed up and do with the badass nickname of the horror of Morocco. That's how you get a badass nickname in your own. He's gonna get that nickname in just a bit. Seemil's reputation as a marksman reaches the Russian frontlines just days into the war. Snipers are held high in high regard in Russia, and this dude was embarrassing them. He was killing

their snipers. Their top snipers freaking them out. It was like they were fighting some type of five foot three finish Batman just zipping around on cross country's fucking skis popping out from behind rocks and trees. Going to fucking head off of anyone who just you know took a second to peek out from behind some shrubs. One time in the early days of the war after Seemo once again finished off an enemy sniper with a single shot. The Russians tried to kill him by shooting indirect fire just a mortar bombardment. Just send all your mortars in that direction. We got to get rid of this guy. Just, you know, throw them at the general vicinity of his fire position. Miraculously, Simo not wounded and not, of course, killed his legend grows on another occasion

in artillery shell landed near his fire position and blew off basically his coat. It just tore apart the back of his coat. He just took off the rest of it and just kept shooting. He's only a minor scratch because he's a fucking Superman. No big whoops. No reason to stop shooting. Just blew up. Just blew my coat off.

The Russians put a lot of effort into killing him, including using heavy artillery. One of the female stories recounts these efforts. He says, there was this forward observer in his crew nearby. And once I knocked out their sniper, they sent it. I was just casual. Once I knocked out their sniper, once I just killed this other highly trained guy, they sent a swarm of shells in my direction from a rapid firing cannon shooting direct fire. About 50 shells landed around my foxhole, but in vain.

Many of them threw clouds of sand into my face, but nothing worse than that. Lieutenant, Judith Tainin, that whore of Morocco guy, sent a man to tell me to get out of there. They'll kill you there, he said. Well, getting out of the fox hole was not really on my mind. So intense was the enemy fire. Yeah, this guy doesn't even just so chill, so chill, but all this, no anxiety, no fear. Soon the Russians were feeling like they were trying to kill a ghost and the nickname White Death started getting tossed around.

Seem what became the Finn's go-to guy for the highest level combat situations. Most important missions at times. He was even personally summoned by car or a horse on sleigh to other sectors of the battalion to undertake specific tasks that other snipers could not complete. Once they told me from the HQ to go to the fifth company section to destroy the forward observer site where an artillery spotting periscope was cited. He said, there was another forward observer who was preparing fire for effect. I got, I only got two or three shots at the forward observer's periscope before the Russians started to shoot at us with heavy artillery fire. Shrapnel,

tree branches and ash are flying all over the place. More accurately, we survived. However, it resulted in our aborting the mission and the spotting periscope was not destroyed that time. What? Seymour? Are you not a superhero? Why would you leave this target unsniped? He didn't. He was back. Seemo never left his mission until it was accomplished and the story continues.

Later that day, I returned to the scene, this time from a different angle. This time, I got my shots out as the artillery fire was hitting further away and the periscope was destroyed. But, of course, it was. Then it continues, rushing artillery fire intensified all the time,

and now it was targeted against the accommodation bunkers of the fifth company. There was a direct hit on one of the bunkers, but the men inside survived with minor scratches from flying pieces of logs. We estimated that although I had destroyed the forward observer and the seventh man team around it, what? If I can kill this guy, there would be a replacement. And so it happened. Well, we repeated our performance and the new spotting scope was destroyed as well. Although this one was a monoscope instead of the stereoscope that we destroyed the day before. White death striking again.

Get go ahead. Scent thousands of rounds of artillery shells and the Russians did send thousands of shells a day in these battles. Or white death. You just can just hide behind some logs, some rocks, you know, whatever. Pop up and shoot whatever, you know, whatever scope she tried instead of up for other snipers, just with this with his iron sights, this is whatever. It's probably just having like, sandwich sandwiches and stuff, you know, just drinking

some juice or whatever behind the log, just all casual. Taking a nap maybe here and there. Serving as a sniper wasn't Simo's only duty. He also participated in a number of well executed, finished counter attacks, which were typical on the cool front, made necessary by Russian penetrations. Seemo said on December 4, 1939, we disengage from the battle because of the pressure of the enemy force. With Drew Tukula, started fortifying our trenches, preparing firing positions.

We expected to be able to get some rest as we were quite exhausted for several days of heavy fighting. Our lull did not last long before the fighting started again. As far as I was concerned, it continued in the same region until the early days of March. By mid-December, the Russians had resumed their usual attacks. And after a while, we started counter-tacks on our behalf. The Russians were taken by surprise as they sat around our four large campfires and we crawled very close, or they sat around four, not our, they sat around four large campfires. we crawled very

close before opening fire the resulting battles scattered the Russians in complete disarray we captured plenty of booty from this trip among the items we capture were machine guns sub machine guns and four anti tank guns fucking Wolverines not just sniping the raid in the Russians guerrilla warfare surprise attacks you guys were badass more brave attacks by finished soldiers follow often called culminated in the seizure of considerable quantities of Russian weapons other prize items that the fins lacked right remember they don't have much in the terms of supplies seam on his comrades had all the odds stacked against them in the early days of war they were winning they were actually defending their homeland against the much larger Russian army much better supplied the out the winter

war there was a constant shortage of combat material for finished troops. One major reason being that only a short time before the war began, Finland's prime minister repeatedly voted against funding for the military. Yeek! Ah, dumb. When the war, especially with all the things building around there, anyways, when the war broke out, many soldiers were given only a military hat and a rifle.

That's it. That's all the government can afford to give them. These dudes were wearing civilian clothes, wearing whatever coats and boots they had in the closet at home. Where and, you know, these during one of the worst winters in recent memory, the temperature would drop during this brief war. The last is just over 100 days to negative 45 degrees Fahrenheit, negative 43 degrees Celsius. These guys were a mess, but they were defending their homes.

They were fighting the tyranny of Stalin. They knew what true defeat would mean. Stalin's gulags, a nightmare system of government coming to Finland. Now time for another cool, seamo story. He wrote this regarding the thoroughness of his preparations. Of course, I had to participate in many other attacks and recon patrols with my men. But one was like another, so it was pointless to comment on them all.

Precision shooting, either alone or with a comrade, was also the everyday duty and we got some remarkable results. We observed the enemy activity during the day, tried to figure out when we would find the most target rich environment. When darkness came, I prepared myself a good firing position. I even packed the snow on the ground in a manner that it would not give me away by dusting from the muzzle blast. From a position like that, it was easy to shoot

and I was happy with the results. Dude, his attention to detail is amazing. I'm guessing that attention is what led to him becoming such a good shot in the first place. It's so inspiring. Like, what if we all put that level of planning and attention to details that much work, you know, towards our careers and families,

just lives in general. Are you doing whatever the equivalent to packing down the snow so that dust from a muzzle blast doesn't give away your fire position? Are you doing the equivalent in your life? More Simo Russian kills coming up, but first one last sponsor. Times like it's brought to you again by Bell Gunnaces, Norwegian massage parlor. This week in honor of Veterans Day, veterans get 50% off a sexy, sensual massage given you by a burly, powerful Norwegian woman.

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Uff, da, uff, da, hangi bangi, pushin' underneath and the turgen, putting the thingy dingi in the horsie wordsy, squeezing the tiny finish man as much. So squishing on his Arctic pela hane, rubbing on his tiny, Nordic meaty sickle, uft, uft, hangi bangi. And of course, that's not a sponsor. Just something I love to do. I did a little long feel like I was gonna pass that. I started to get a little bit light headed. It's hard to breathe when you're hoing you boing in it. I'm one more real sponsor. Excited today. Excited to say, excuse me, this mainly episode of Time Suck is brought to you by Manscaped.

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I have. So good. Oh, I can't even. I can't even. Why was I let my balls be chaped before? I didn't realize how sad I've been for 33 years. Right. Now I'm happy. Now you got some happy newspaper thing is sweet too.

Oh yeah, the cover to the hair. The hair. Mm-hmm. Happy balls, happy guy. Now back to a time and place where no one's balls were happy. No one's balls were even remotely clean or well grown. I can't imagine what balls smelled like on the Russian finished border at the end of 1939. Rough. I'm going

to guess real rough. December 21st 1939, just a few weeks into the war, Seemo shot will prove to be as high as daily tally of kills on record as far as confirmed 25 confirmed kills in one day. Prior to this, his record was 23 confirmed Russians killed in one day. By the time you achieved this amazing body count, SEMA had already been credited with having killed more than 100 Russians. And again, just a few weeks into the war. Just picking them off like it's a video game. Incredibly over a three day period in December, he amassed a total of 51 confirmed kills. This might be a good time to point out that most historians seem to think this is confirmed kills were roughly just a third of his total kills. Because the confirmed ones had to be recorded

in this very specific way, with a spot or other soldiers, actual number probably much higher. You might have killed 50 or even 75 enemy soldiers in one day. You know, one at a time, no scope, bolt action rifle, is SEMA, finished for Rambo. December 29th, Christmas, 1939, the fighting continues. SEMA recalled that the Russians did not give us peace even during Christmas, but God was close to us. We sang Psalms, how the Christmas tree received many gifts from home. Man, the poor Russians. They probably didn't want to fight on Christmas.

I don't even probably want to fight at all. It's nearly as good shot if they didn't. Seema continued his methodical preparations over the holidays. At night, he'd visit his favorite fired positions, making whatever preparations and minor improvements. He felt might increase his advantage. By the end of the year, when Seymour approached 200 confirmed kills, he started to receive awards other than just praise and admiration from his commanding officers. An unnamed individual from his hometown region contributed several fine pocket watches

that were given out to the only the most distinguished combatants. And of course, Seymour receives one. Sometime later, he also receives a rap gift from his commanding officer at the Kool-Off front, inside as a nice pair of warm gloves. Most likely knitted by the general's wife or self, Seymour loved these gloves more than the rest of the winner. Seymour was quickly becoming a national hero, and I love that he was excited to get a pair of knitted gloves.

For constantly, courageously risking his life. My kids don't do anything heroic, and if I gave them a pair of knitted gloves for anything, they'd be so pissed. They'd think I was joking. Do you ever think about how spoiled most of us are now compared to how people were less than 100 years ago? I get a new iPhone now and I'm like, I don't wanna ever.

I'll be impressed by like some new feature like a minute and I'm just like, nah, I'm trying to keyboard it out. I'll just be instantly furious over nothing. Fuck, stupid phone, got down. Why can't I leave alone, where's the emojis? I'd be like genuinely mad. This dude is killing people.

A lot of people for his country, risking his life, sleeping out in below zero temperatures, happy to get a pair of knitted gloves. I mean, I shouldn't be inspired by that as well, right? Appreciate what we have. And I doubt he was mad at all. Yeah, he's happy. He wasn't like stupid gloves, don't even fit right. Don't like this color. In December, the advanced Soviet troops

comes to a standstill as a result of numerous Finnish defensive victories. David Beating Goliath, the Kula Front will go down to the Finnish history of the Winter Wars, having never been broken. 1500 Fins would be killed or wounded, fighting it to Kula Front compared to 8,000 Russians. Russians. The finished forest warriors, as they be called, who fought on the Kula Front, detained a legendary reputation among the Finnish, amongst the Finnish people. They would speak during and after the war about this region with reverence as one would of an individual hero and good reason. The Russians concentrated the majority of their manpower, material and firepower resources

on the Korean isthmus and reposed by two-thirds of the Finnish army in such a confined region, not much room for tactical maneuvering, but the situation was different in the deep forests of the Kula Front, where there was ample space for movement. In this area, Finland's skillful mobile ski troops operated with virtual impunity. They inflict considerable damage on the Russians over and over again. The rural Finns use their inherent knowledge of the terrain to beat the Russians time and time again. Finland's Sparse Road Network severely limited Russian options for troop advancement.

They couldn't utilize their huge army. It wasn't easy to mobilize all these troops in artillery and tanks because the roads were too tiny to move them to the forest. It was very again, red dawn-esque, very wolverines. Fins repeatedly conducted surprise attacks against the unsuspecting Russian troops. By the end of 1940, or I'm sorry, by the end of January 1940, however, the Russians were able to send another division to Kula, able to start hitting the fins a little harder. The fins had more reinforcements arriving as well, but not as many.

Finland just couldn't compete with Russia when it came to reinforcements. They can just always just keep sending more and more dudes. They're suing the Russians, had four divisions in this theater, which gave them the opportunity to begin widening and steam rolling, local roads widening their front, being able to move equipment a little more easily. Russia and we're able to really escalate their aggressiveness. All of this fighting goes on, SEMA continues to accumulate more and more kills. After the war, he'd still win more awards for all of this. Some of them would even be better than a pair of knit gloves. For his accomplishments on the battlefield, he was awarded a custom built precision rifle

made by prominent Finnish rifle manufacturer, Sako. The rifle was contributed by a Swedish businessman and a great friend of Finland. The rifle was intended to be awarded to the most distinguished shooter of the Corps, so a course that was given to SO. Citation that would accompany this award for the rifle read, this honorary rifle from Sweden is thus granted to NCO SEMO Hauha in recognition of his great accomplishments as a shooter and combatant. His deeds, 219 enemies shot with the rifle,

the same number with the submachine gun, that is crazy. shot with a rifle, the same number with the submachine gun. That is crazy. Ah, ah, ah, shows what a determined, finished man who fears nothing can do has sharp eyes and whose hands do not shake. This honorary rifle should be passed from father to son as a reminder for the yet unborn generations of the great deeds done by Simo Haoha in the Great War with the men of Finland bravely and with success fought for the freedom of their country, the future of their people, and for the greater ideals of mankind. That's a legend. I hope it was all said and done.

Simo would read that from time to time, you know, just feel proud about what he did for his country. Simo often did his sniper's work alone, though he did have a spotter, you know, sometimes he usually worked with the same soldier for his spotter. For many decades, Simo the loaner never disclosed the identity of this chosen spotter. He wanted to protect his soldiers, you know, this guy's privacy. And then eventually many years later in 2001, the War of Veterans Institute, he said his battle buddy was Corporal Mommie.

There's no real records of Mommie or further information on him, but Seymour mentioned work with Corporal Mommie, you know, several weeks. Here's one story Seymour told about his cooperation with Corporal Mami, you know, several weeks. Here's one story Simo told about his cooperation with Corporal Mami. He said in early February 1940, Corporal Mami and I spotted a new area of enemy accommodation bunkers. The two of us set out to an observation post to learn what was going on there. We moved silently through the forest, got within 150 meters of the enemy bunkers, which were located between the front lines.

We spent the whole day in our position and killed 19 Russians. They never learned where we were, dared not to send a patrol out under those circumstances. Damn, two dudes, hanging on the woods, inside 150 meters from a Russian bunker, just chilling, just thinking,

nah, I can send a patrol over here. We're just getting clipped by a white death. Yeah, I hear. And I just picture those guys munched on sandwiches. You know, maybe spotting a Russian peaking out somewhere and then, you know, see him would just calmly set the sandwich down. Make sure he doesn't set it in some dirt, you know,

just fucking pops the Russian one shot. Wait a couple seconds to see if anyone else is moving and then just, you know, calmly just, you know, goes back to eating the sandwich. Full steel, full steel balls. Despite the heavy losses and its suffer during the war, the Finnish infantry regiment 34 was given orders on March 6 to counter attack and halt the Red Army's 128th division,

which was attempting to penetrate the Kula defenses. The Finnish artillery had literally, literally zero shells left at this point. It's leaving their infantry to stop the Russian advance without indirect fire support. The Russians were not going to be easily stopped. They started rushing into the enemy, getting mowed down, continuing to rush. More guys just pop up, no matter how many they'd shoot, just more guys behind them. After the war and interview, SEMA wondered why the Russians kept on charging into direct, heavy, finished fire.

Why did they keep trying to break through finish lines when most and were quickly being gunned down? It seemed like a suicide mission. He wondered if the reason was the patriotic propaganda speeches that were constantly being given to these guys by communist leaders or if it was their tanks, which he thought would have machine gunned anyone who turned around. Turns out it was the tanks that kept the soldiers charging. The Russian battlefield leaders had ordered the tank gunmen to shoot their own soldiers

if they hesitated in their attack. If they even thought about retreating, fucking Russia, it is incredible how few fuck Stalin gave about his own people. Not even defending Russia here in this battle. They're fighting to try and take land. They don't even need. They have so much of it already. Feeling very thankful right now that I wasn't born in Russia or anywhere near Russia

at the beginning of the 20th century. Stalin was such a motherfucker. He ruined the lives of so many people. During this intense Russian offensive, Haoha was given a squad of his own, a squad of his own, excuse me, the battle was fierce. The enemy used its sheer numbers to break through Finnish forces. Seymour recalled killing roughly 40 Russians in just this one day. They just weren't confirmed before the pressure of the battle became overwhelming

and the enemy started to break through finished lines. And then Simo himself finally got shot. White death took an explosive bullet to the face, obliterating his jaw, part of his cheekbone. He bounced in and out of consciousness and then he was put on a sled dragged out of the battlefield and he lapsed into a coma and incredibly did not die. He woke up a week later in March 13th and when he woke up and armistice with Russia had already been signed. Finland has stopped Russia from invading most of Finland, but it did have to give Russia, Korea, part of a land called Salah. And not all of Korea, but a lot of it. And the northern

Rabaki Peninsula to Stalin currently only 3,800 people living in the Finnish Salah. It's very rural area. About 30 people live on the Rab Salah. It's a very rural area. About 30 people live on the Rybaki Peninsula. It's a frozen shet hole. So at least other than the land around Lake Latiga, they didn't have to give up much other good land. Months later, Seemo described his final battle moments in a letter he wrote to a friend. He wrote, then there was March 6, 1940. I was in the dark forest of Osama. We were given, we were once

more given a mission to counterattack one of many. We moved to our starting positions in early dawn about five or six in the morning. There was a swamp, some 300 meters wide, which we managed to cross without difficulty as our own machine guns gave protection. Once over the swamp, we charged against the enemy that was really close to us. My rifle functioned very well. We were so close to the enemy that there were sometimes even only some two meters from me. The enemy was forced to withdraw, but some individual brave soldiers renamed behind, a remained behind, to cause havoc among us.

Wow! The enemy was two meters away, roughly six feet away, where you you can just step forward one step and touch him Can you imagine fighting dudes that close trying to kill you? The older I get the crazier war seems to me like like action scenes and movies look so cool You know fight scenes look so cool, but can you imagine that in real life? I know we have a lot of veteran listeners. I know many of you've seen combat and I just gotta say man your bravery blows me away Holy shit, I cannot imagine how intense that would be to have something just right there just right next to you Once it kill you a bunch of other dudes like that around you know Seymour continues he says suddenly there was a shot from maybe 50 to 100 meters away

I felt I was hit I only heard a suppressing sound and I knew immediately that I was hit I started to get this bright tunnel vision then went closer and further and forth. I felt a suppressed bang on my mouth. I lost consciousness. At for some time, I woke up as one of our boys was turning me around by my arm, twisting me into a better position to give me first aid. I felt how my mouth was full of bone fragments and blood. The bullet had entered through the upper lip, punctured my left cheek. The boys were yelling to the medics to get me. I remembered how I started my journey to the rear of the lines in a man-toed lap sledge. I managed to stay conscious for maybe 300 meters before I blacked out.

I did not wake up until March 13th, the day of the armistice. When I found myself in a military hospital a week after the battle, I think I was in such bad shape that they really did not believe they could rebuild this man, but here I am after all. A lap sledge by the way, the long, low-ung, small, like toboggan, used in a sport for transport pulled by a dog or a skier or in lap land pulled by a reindeer. At some point during the battle, SEMA was actually declared dead. And this is, here's an account from one of his relatives given years later. When SEMA was wounded during the Russian charge

on finished positions, he was taken away and placed on a pile of those killed in action. So there's various stories for how he was taken out of this battle. Seymour Squad Leader adds his fitting for like a mythological type dude. Seymour Squad Leader started to wonder where he was and asked around. Nobody seemed to know, could not answer. The squad leader said, we won't leave until we find him. They started an intensive search and when the squad leader went closer to the pile of bodies, he saw a boot making a barely noticeable movement beneath the pile.

He moved some of the bodies away and found the wounded Seymour under the pile of bodies he saw a boot making a barely noticeable movement beneath the pile. He moved some of the bodies away and found the wounded Simo under the pile. Holy shit, just laying out the bottom of a pile of dead men, face blown off with an exploding bullet and he lives. And again, like with all legends, there's more accounts of some of these kind of moments. In another version, it was a member of the Women's Auxiliary Services who noticed the movement of the boot under the pile of bodies. Another story tells about how a soldier asks a man to help women's auxiliary services who noticed the movement of the boot, you know, under the pile of bodies. Another story tells about how a soldier asks some men to help him carry Seema away from the pile.

And that's when he noticed that Seema was still alive. Seema was then transferred to a local aid post for first aid, transferred further from there, taken away, when he was taken away, the squad leader demanded, make sure that Seema was taking quickly to the hospital and gets the best possible treatment. Everybody loves this guy. SEMA reaches the medics just in time to receive life-saving first aid. The worst bleeding was reduced

although they could not entirely stop it. The medics use a lot of bandages, cotton wool. These legendary snipers rifles left on the battlefield. Sadly, no one was able to salvage it. The priority was taken SEMA to safety. As pressure from the enemy was hard, the lines were broken and the finished troops from disarray. SEMA was transferred by one of those lapsed sledges

and various vehicles along a pre-planned evacuation route, finally admitted to a hospital in central Finland to receive surgical treatment. When those responsible for awarding decorations were finally convinced that Seamos was alive, he was immediately awarded the Kool-Akross. After undergoing a number of complex surgical operations, he was transferred to Helsinki.

Following the end of the winter war, was no longer under danger of Soviet air attack. Here he received further treatment. The explosive bullet that caused SEMO's wound was actually technically illegal, not to the Russian soldiers gave a fuck. It was forbidden under this St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868 to use exploding ammunition. The decision to use exploding bullets was likely made by a Russian commander who wanted to maximize the firepower of his assault troops, you know, just given the best ammo they could use against soft targets. Seamos injuries left him in tremendous pain near death. He lost numerous teeth. Part of his jawbone. His jaw had to be reconstructed rebuilt using bone taken from his hip about 10 centimeters worth. He was unable to speak

or eat for three to four months. He could only drink fluids and soups until dentures were made for him. Then he ended up going through a total of 26 surgical operations, could have died during many of them. And later interview, Simo always pointed out the importance of good physical strength when it came to why he survived. There's no doubt that had he not been in top-notch physical condition, he could not have accomplished what he did nor would he have been able to recover from the wounds he suffered. After all those surgeries, he was left severely disfigured.

There's numerous pictures of SEMA online. It looks like he must have been in pain for the rest of his life, but he never complained, at least not publicly. SEMA was released from the military hospital to civilian life on May 19, 1941. SEMA did not participate in the continuation war as the latter part of World War II is known in Finland, more on that in a bit. Instead, he carried on in his life as a farmer.

But before we get to that, let's back up the timeline just a bit, about a year, a peace treaty between Finland and the Soviet Union was signed in Moscow, March 12, 1940. Finland welcomed a return to peace, even though like I said, it had to give up a lot of territory along its southern and eastern borders to the Soviet Union.

But then finished intelligence reports soon indicated this new piece is not going to last long. Fucking Russians. They didn't care about what bullets you're supposed to use in battle and they didn't care about treaties. Many fans believe that the Soviet Union was only halting its aggressive behavior temporarily and would not stop until all of Finland was under communist control. Consequently, finished political and military leadership

concluded that Finland could not risk being caught unprepared once again, right? To put some money and to get in some supplies. August 18th, 1940, Finland was informed that Germany was willing to provide weapons for Finland's defense. Oh my heck, yikes. Making a deal with the Nazis, inviting one devil into your home

to keep another devil out. Finland would be criticized by some for aligning with the Nazis, you know, at this point in the war, but Finland would explain that it only did this to keep Russia from mother fucking them into communist oblivion. Like I said last week, sometimes war is hell. And sometimes when you're in hell, you got to make a deal with the devil. On September 12th, 1940, Finland and Germany signed a so-called transit agreement, allowing German troops to move unhindered through Finland in exchange for aid to help Finland be defended from Russia.

Meanwhile, in 1940, Simo continues to recover from his wound slowly and steadily, regains his strength, begins his life in New. What he wanted most was to live in peace and quiet, far away from the memories of violence in war. Accordingly following the war, he runs a farm, does some forestry work in the village of Batula. Of course, people knew of his reputation, and deeds, courage, but seem I wanted to be left alone.

Just live a normal life far away from public attention, referring to concentrating the things he considered most important in life, you know, farming, hunting, spending time with his family, fishing, breeding hunting dogs in his mind. According to interviews, he felt that after narrowly escaping death, he gained a second chance on life and he wanted to make the most of it. Such a practical dude. Such a... During the short interval of peace between the end of the Winter War and March 1940, the

beginning of the Continuation War in June 1941, a proposal was made to award Simo Hawa the Manorheim Cross. Highest military award you can get in Finland. Colonel and Tero Svensson suggested in February, 1940 that Seymour be awarded the Manorheim Cross for the following pretty blunt reason. Maybe it just doesn't translate well into English, but it's written, the famous sniper who destroyed with rifle and submachine gunfire almost a battalion of enemies during the winter war, he got seriously wounded in his face during the last day of the war. Not a real poet. Colonel Svensson there. Why

should SEMA be given such a prestigious award, Colonel? He shuddered a lot of people, got shot in his face at end. All right. March 6, 1940, the day SEMA was wounded, not the last day of the winter war, a little mix upon dates there by the Colonel. June 1941, when Seymour was out of combat, the war began, or sorry, between Finland and the Soviets began again. It was a war precipitated by a Finnish attack on the Soviet Union, the wake of Hitler's attack on the Soviets on June 25th. And the Finnish army used the current weakness of the Red Army to advance and take possession of some of those territories that had just lost in the Winter War that Seymour fought it. So just take that, Dix.

You didn't take that land, we just let you borrow it for a couple of months. But then three years later, 1944, Finland forced to withdraw before the advancing red army. Dang it. That always got more dudes. The borders from 1940 are restored. Bucking, Russia. Keep sending more troops. And this continuation war, Finland suffers 225,000 total casualties compared to

890,000 to 944,000 casualties for the Russians And again Russia just had so many people to consider to expendable Finland just couldn't hold them off forever Seemo volunteered to fight in this continuation war, but they wouldn't let him because his wounds were too serious He hadn't recovered enough So he's placed on the horse call up board where he did the work of choosing suitable horses and vehicles for military use.

During the continuation war, Simo also worked on his farm. His family had been evacuated when the front lines moved back eastwards towards Lake Latica, though, it was possible for him to go home again. After the continuation war, the lap plan war took place and that involved chasing Germans out of Northern Finland. So many wars. After the end of the lap land war took place that involved chasing germans out of northern Finland so many wars after the end of world war two came the era of war

reparations and Finland kind of got fucked here since Finland had chosen to align itself with the Nazis at the end of the war got put on the allied powers not he list which is a bummer since Finland only aligned with Germany to keep Russia from fucking them up there was just they were you know situated right next to these two horrible nations. And now since the Soviet Union was technically a friend of the Allied powers during the war, they were on the good guys list. So Communist Finns who had evaded the war, the war now climbed out of their holes, hiding places.

They took their place, you know, alongside the veterans, usually questioning the value of these guys as sacrifices. These commies were constantly looking for a chance to provide info to Soviet spies and the Allied control commission, which now resided in Finland after the war. The purpose of this commission was to monitor and make sure that the naughty fins weren't doing stuff they weren't supposed to. Make sure that they were not arming up again, do something crazy and not see like, like, try to defend themselves from Russian aggression.

The Allied control commission was supposed to be supervised by British, by Britain and Russia, but in reality, Britain really just didn't involve themselves. So Finland ended up being put in the awkward position of being monitored by a commission and ran by the country who got them into trouble and took some of their shit. It's like almost like a, like if you're in high school and a bully punched you in the face a couple of times. Some bully had a reputation for always punching so many people in their faces. And then you swung back one time to defend yourself and the teacher saw that and gave

you detention. And then for some reason, put the bully that had hit you in charge of making sure you didn't act up during your detention. This was what I was like for Finland after the war was insane. And this post war environment finished war veterans. Don't receive the respect they showed from their own government because Everybody's worried about, you know, what the, what the Russians are going to think about that. I don't think Simo cared, though. You know, he moved to go live with his brother on Geo's farm in 1946 after the war, helping his brother run

the farm, had a room of his own there until 1960, lived a simple farm life he'd wanted to live before the war, you know, or had lived, wanted to keep living, totally content. 1961, CMO found himself getting bothered by Russia again, fucking Russia, right? They kept adjusting the Finnish Soviet border. The municipality of Ratshavari was bisected in a land dispute. The lease wasn't fought over this time, but then CMO's home ended up being on the wrong side and the Russian side. I mean, can you imagine having the Soviet Union for a next door neighbor sucks so bad as a government and as a neighbor?

The USSR, such a piece of shit. I mean, they'd be like the kind of neighbor that would order a new fence and then just casually start to put in the new fence like 10 feet inside your property line. Say, hey, what are you doing? Hey, you're on my property now. Oh, no, it's not way. It cannot be. I know this is my property, but you know

It's okay. I'm nice guy. I put fence up, you know, further back inside my property. Let you have extra No, fucker now. You just moved to five feet back and you're still five feet onto my property Now you're just stealing less of my property. Come on, dude. Let's come on. I'm a rush out. Let me have it Let me have it. I. I fucking take everything from you. Seemo could have remained as a refugee and his native municipality where he would, you know, still own some forest land, but he didn't want to live in Russia. So the Finnish government gave him some land in the village of Uttula and a neighboring municipality as compensation for the farm that Russia took from him. So that's good. Seemo went right back to work on his new Farman, Forestry, all kinds of out-dourgy stuff,

you know, probably killing lots of small wood and creatures. Did it all himself, never married, never had kids. Grown up grain for zone use, and also enough to sell, plus you grew hay for horses, took care of the forest and two other parishes. Forest harvesting, other timber work was extra hard, since he wasn't using the chainsaw, any other modern tools out there,

splitting, you're not falling down trees with an axe, splitting up that wood, he loved it. Her timber work was extra hard since he wasn't using the chainsaw and other modern tools out there. Splitten. Splitten. You're not falling down trees with an axe. Splitten up that wood. He loved it. He kept working outdoors, hunting, living on the farms until the mid-70s when he was in his mid-60s. In the mid-70s about a studio apartment in Rastila, tiny town, the center of a municipality

that looks like a word that somebody made up. Ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro-ro and finish sonnus in the early 90s when he was still in fairly good shape in his early 90s Seemo used to drive around in a little yellow Volkswagen Beetle December 17, 1990 celebrated his 94th birthday, Brigidier General Curry, Heatonin was one of the many visitors who came to pay their respects. A ceremony in Seemo's honor was held at Hotel Simon Lamohavi. Here Seymour was awarded the Golden Medal of National Defense on behalf of the Keating Regional High Command. That reported that the great Finnish hero was in a good mood and fine health. Bridgeteer General, Heatonin personally wrote a poem for Seymour, the last verse which describes Seymour's wounding, particularly touching.

The poem is more or less untranslatable, but the following gives an idea of what it is about. It's kind of weird how it comes across in English actually. A petite man from Carrelia surfaced like a mushroom after a spell of forest rain, reserved and composed known as Simo Haiha, a steady hand ensures a certain hit during the grim war winter. Losses greater the young soldier holding this country in his people's hudder. Therefore he lay in the snow under enemy fire near. A stranger, enemy lulled by the warmth and safe glow of the bonfire killed by the bullet. Here it gets pretty dark. A countless number of hits, split skulls, concealed shot from the winter white forest, a squad in the snow with no return. The air heavy with bullets dense with shrapnel. The horrible feeling of the hit in his head.

The cheekbone tearing, the bullet exploding. Overwhelmed, swallowing red blood, tilting his head, closing his eyes. Spitting blood and bone out of breath. Not yet ready to let go of life. The pain takes over, grip of death. Now ready to go under the dark ensues. But with the helping hand in a firm grip,

the sledge moves to the forest alley of wood to rescue with the crooked mouth and one cheekbone missing. A less composed character would be lost. But now his steady hands lift the blue rifle barrel, ensuring certain prey for the hunter. Jesus. Kind of a dark poem for those 94th birthday. Imagine, we interrupt some like that. Hey, I just want to read a quick little poem for our birthday boy, guest of honor. Before you were old and peaceful, man, you really used to get after it. You put so many bullets in people's skulls and left them all dead and shit. I know this guy seems quiet now and frail and totally harmless, but when he was young,

he'd take out a machete and hack off your limbs until you were totally harmless. So raise your glasses and let us toast our birthday boy today. A guy who mother fuck the Russians to hell and made them pay and pay and pay. Anyway, who wants to hand out some cake? Seymour's hell started to deteriorate significantly in 1999. His doctor said it was due to him being old as fuck. He was 93. Then on April 1st, 2002, Seemo Hayah died in a war of entrance nursing home with the age of 96. I think I kind of skipped there in the timeline. Now I'm

just in my own head. Oh yeah, he was 94, December 17th. And then he was, oh, okay. Um, yes, his health started to deteriorate a little bit before his birthday there. I just the way I wrote it, I was, what's going on? Tension to detail. I would see Mo Hayah say about this. Then on April 1st, 2002, see Mo Hayah died in a war veterans nursing home at the age of 96, or at least that's what the staff thought when they started wheeling him out of the home on a stretcher, healed April Fool's motherfuckers and they shot two other nursing home residents, both one shot one kill headshots. And one was actually at another nursing home, half a mile down the road, no scope.

Of course, that's nonsense. He was very old and he died. He died peacefully and that takes us out of our time suck timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. Man, what a talented and humble dude, SEMA was, still considered by many to be the, or even most, to be the greatest sniper of all time. How could somebody get that good at shooting? Let's break down this guy's skills. Cold will and discipline, according to several sources,

Seema had excellent self-discipline, self-control and a drive to do his job. If Seema was unable to destroy the enemy with his first attempt, he kept trying. He would try different approaches, methods and actions until the work was done. Perseverance, man, the man had no quit in him. A logic and experience by the beginning of the Winter War,

Simo was already an experienced marksman hunter. Now, he was in his 30s, early 30s, he knew both his strengths, his own need for further development as well. He was highly logical, so you need to predict the intentions and movements of the enemy. Stealth, as a sniper, everything depends on stealth.

Simon was, er, Simon, Simo was an expert at hiding his movements. The enemy never saw him. He would even put snow in his mouth to cool his breath so he couldn't be seen. Attention to detail. Oh yeah, which goes to preparation. Seymoo was always prepared, cared enough ammunition for his missions, his normal load with 50 to 60 rounds.

In addition, he carried several hand grenades, which he referred to as a rangers sparks, not known if he ever used those grenades in combat, also not known why the, he called them rangers sparks. Bravery and self confidence, another part of Sino's, uh, uh, Simos success was his confidence in his own abilities. He knew his own strengths, weaknesses, was comfortable with where he was at. He was an award winning sharpshooter hunter and skier who was in a macular physical shape. He did not need to boast about his abilities to anyone, but to be fair, finish folks,

not keen on boasting in general. And he was, you know, where he lived, the chrysalion, according to Simeau, such behavior would not be respected amongst that breed of fence, the chrysalion. Simeau's legendary skills were partly natural, but also came from the muscle memory of rigorous practice on numerous occasions. He practiced the secrets of precision shooting at the range with live ammo at home, tested and trained in various shooting positions. He also trusted his weapon.

He knew his weapon. He bought his rifle with his own money trained, hunted it for years between his civil guard service and the winter wars, knowing one's own rifle, one of the most important details in shooting. Every rifle has its individual strengths and flaws, even those of the same model differ. The accuracy of the rifle, the trajectory of the bullet, together with the adjustment of sites vary from one rifle to another. Simo knew himself, his equipment, his subordinates, his squad members were from the same home village. Simo trusted him, they trusted him, proved a solid foundation to a successful leadership.

Now, he also knew the battlefield well, seemed to know his enemy. These were all the ingredients of success according to the Chinese war strategist Sun Zhu and his battlefield guide, the Art of War as well. As character and physical condition, Simo respected the Russians and human beings who fought for their own nation, never underestimated their ability to fight. When asked if he felt hatred towards the Russians for attacking his homeland, he promptly answered no. their ability to fight. When asked if he felt hatred towards the Russians for attacking his homeland, he promptly answered no.

Simo explained what he, uh, that he only concentrated on ensuring that his weapon was well supported and stable. He said, I always took full sight. I took steady aim at the middle of the target. I felt nothing towards the enemy. I shot and reloaded as long as there were enemies present. I shot whenever I saw the enemy. I did not care if he was a leader or not.

SEMA approached his role as a sniper as if he was at the shooting range. You know, it's as if he was just shooting at paper targets. He did not let his feelings affect him in any way, preferring to concentrate on securing the best possible shooting performance. Man, I feel like that ingredient right there is what took him from a good sniper to legend. The ability to completely shut off a motion. That's some robot shit. Like he was a T800 Terminator, something. He always dressed the importance of good physical condition as well,

remarking without really good fitness, it's just impossible to be a sniper. Make sense, my cardio alone would keep me out of sniping. Now right now, I wouldn't be able to control my breathing. I had to walk 10 feet of any kind of incline. I'd be like, all right, I gotta wait at least two minutes before I try and shoot somebody. Obviously, there was something special about SEMA's aim, yet some natural talent.

SEMA's weapon was zeroed for the most common combat distance of the time, 150 meters. He kept the site adjusted at 150 meters as it enabled him to rapidly adjust the proper setting as needed. According to him, most of his kills were made on distances, ranging between 100 and 150 meters. He aimed middle, fast, accurately, Seema always took a careful side of the enemy, but wasted no time admiring the target.

He shot quickly, knowing that the sharp aim of the target only lasts for a moment. Using too much time resulted in the eye being tired, blurring the field of vision, which would naturally not improve the probability of hitting the target. Again, the dude was a fucking robot. He just simplified the process to the best way and then never overthought it after that.

Right? What's the most effective, quickest way I can do this? Well, I'm just going to do that. I'm just going to try and replicate it over and over again. No major tweaks, just refinement. Gun maintenance and times of peace, Cemo always cleaned his gun immediately after daily training, which concluded or whenever he thought it was necessary. And his opinion the most important part of sniping was the proper maintenance of the barrel, chamber and bolt. He typically cleaned the stock and other wooden parts with the cloth several times a day as they could easily become soiled with dirt and snow in the conditions he was fighting

in. This was the case, especially when the enemy tried to kill SEMA with an anti tank gun, infantry gun, or by artillery fire concentration. He camouflaged his gun with a white gauze bandage, which from time to time needed an inspection and replacement. When it came to his weapon, he inspected everything. Oh, yeah, that's nothing to do with camouflage. Man, he would just like, completely white it out, hidden in the snow.

When it came to his weapon, he inspected everything, sites, clean this with the barrel, bolt, feeding ramp, never had a jam. He was also an expert at field zeroing, which is the ability to zero ones rifle, check the actual impact in the battle. There was something that the civil guard taught their sharpshooters. During combat, steam-mo-construed and destroying the enemy, whenever there was a lowland battle, he checked the zeroing of his rifle during interviews. He often mentioned with the grin how he checked his zeroing by shooting at small, snow-covered treetops, because it was easy to see the impacts when you would shoot at the snow. Sometimes that method was not possible, so you stumps of trees, located suitable ranges

on the battlefield, and asked how often he zeroed his weapon, he remarked always when I had a reason to do so. Seamos hunting experience helped his sniping immensely. When he hunted, he acted as a visitor in the forest, believing that one could not just enter nature's domain and take something from it. Rather, he felt that you were only entitled to take something from nature if you're willing

to be a part of it. He was a thoughtful hunter, only shooting from a distance where he was sure to obtain a kill, he had a healthy respect for animals and their right to live. During the Winter War, his prey was a thinking, calculating fellow human being. Any miscalculation could cost him his life. Seamote was an expert utilizing sounds, smoke, artillery fire, other factors to cover his movements when changing positions to not be seen. Seemo's peacetime training saw him rise to corporal.

His leadership skills had been observed during a conscript period, and training and in military review exercises, he had no intention or ambition of having a military career, but he was able to become a good leader. His leadership skills were duly noted during his later wartime career. He led by example. He did his work extraordinarily well. His leadership skills may have been one of the reasons that his comrades were so keen to find him when he was wounded.

Using the terrain was another part of what made him good. During the winter war, maps were scarce. Some officers such as company commanders might have had maps, but lower ranking officers hardly had maps. In order to the snipers, on the battlefield, the essential maps must be carried in one's own head. And Seymour learned this very fast. He learned his area of operation in detail. He memorized it. He could utilize the train to his advantage in the best way possible. He was an experienced trekker. This is where many others of his time. His father was an experienced hunter who had taught Seymour the basics of using the terrain

to find game. An animal in the forest tries to hide and escape from the hunter by utilizing the shelter of the terrain in the best way possible. Seymour knew that. He knew that humans would do the same. He tried to avoid exposure to the enemy by maneuvering to his pre-selected firing positions under the cover of darkness. I mean, every fucking detail he paid attention to.

Firing positions. He was clearly ahead of his time when it came to planning and preparing firing positions. He favored natural hiding places that needed no alterations. If alterations or other preparations were needed, he did it with the utmost care to ensure everything blended into the surroundings. When preparation was necessary,

he carried it out during evening hours. An example of such preparations that he often soaked the ground in front of his position with water so that his muzzle blast Would not expose his location by disturbing the light snow mentioned that It was required many times whether Cima ever camouflage his fire positions anyway his usual answer was never Snow provided all the camouflage he required

There's some other aspect you know one could easily assume that Cima never ate or drank while waiting in the fire in positions This was not the case he would take little sugar lumps out to firing positions or rye crisps. One could silently chew them and maintain the proper sugar balance in the body. He needed, like, he just treated himself like a machine. It seemed, you know, he wouldn't drink anything when he'd work. He wouldn't bring like thermal bottles because they weren't available for every soldier to drink in at that time. And then the other type of container would have just froze solid as the temperatures were

so low, I don't know, maybe he just fucking drank melted snow. Maybe he was a cyborg. It didn't require, you know, to be thirst quenched. And then the last thing they held him was his height. You know, a sniper definitely benefits from being small stature as a relatively short man. Seymour could better utilize the shapes of the forest to his benefit, where a sturdier clumsier man could not go or fit. Small man, more difficult to detect.

Snow and soft terrain also offer more support to a small and lighter man than a sturdier one. Due to a small size, he could utilize natural hiding places. I just can just keep reminding me of like Reverend Dr. Joe. I think Joe could be a great sniper, you know? Joe, how tall are you? Are you like four, four, six? A real answer?

Real answer. Oh, five, nine. Okay, all right four nine Thank okay, that makes me happier Why do I want you to be such a little guy? I don't know I was a little guy if I'm a guy it doesn't help like I work with giants You and Dan are you and Zach are fucking huge? I know it's just me. It's like who look at me Oh, man, okay could be that one carry me into the restaurant? Oh man. Okay. To wrap up. Love you. To wrap up, this guy was such a badass. He's not to have killed between 500 and 800 Russians and 100 days of combat. Average of five to eight a day every day. He and his finished comrades held off the much larger Russian army and weathered the drop down to 40 below. He would be named white death, awarded his nation's

highest military honors. The Russian forces constantly baffled by Finnish marksmen and their issues dealing with the Finns gave Hitler the confidence that his Nazis could take on the Russians, which helped allied forces defeat a weakened, stretched to thin, fighting on two fronts Nazi army. Strangely on the list, the most the most prolific snipers of all time, while Seemo sits at the top, the top 10 consists of nine Russian snipers, all with over 400 kills a piece. I find his tail very inspiring. I'm inspired by how hard he worked to be the best sniper he could to help his country.

I'm inspired by how he didn't let his sniper career define the remainder of his post for life. He didn't let his facial injury define him either. He just seemed to operate on this awesome principle of I wanna do the job in front of me, the best to my abilities. but his facial injury defined him either. He just seemed to operate on this awesome principle of, I wanna do the job in front of me, the best to my abilities. What would the world look like if we all did that?

If we all just worked really hard at what we already like to do? Thank you for your brave and heroic service, Simo. Ha-ha. I hope you're resting in peace. I'm sure you are somewhere. You were a calm dude in life. I don't know why you wouldn't be calm

in some kind of afterlife. Time now for top five takeaways. Time, suck. Top five takeaways. Number one, Seymour Howellhaw killed between 500 and 800 enemy combatants and seems like a pretty well-adjusted dude after all that. He didn't kill out of hate,

or out of blood lust, he killed because it was his job. He was protecting his homeland and just happened to be super good at it. I wish we had his brain to study. Number two, the winter war was what it sounded like. It was fucking cold. Minus 20 to minus 40, you know, degrees at times. I achieved this crazy kill total while freezing is nuts off in the ice and snow. Shoving ice as mouth to keep his breath from giving away position. Winter ninja. Number three, the winter war was a pivotal part of World War II. And the ice and snow shoved an ice his mouth to keep his breath from giving away position winter ninja number three

The winter war was a pivotal part of World War two if the Germans hadn't decided to invade Russia the world would look very Different today it might look probably would look the decision for the Nazis to invade came from Russia's inability to handle the fence And hi, hi, hi, hi, was a how-ha was the goddamn Michael Jordan of the Finnish team So Seema hi, oh, huh, know, may have kind of saved the world. Number four, the Soviet government under Stalin has to be the top five for the worst government of all time. I mean, they shot their own soldiers if they retreated. They executed most of their good officers before the war started at a communist paranoia.

And I didn't even bring up the gulags. Number five, new info. Simo is the greatest sharpshooter in military history. Who's number two? Russian Ivan Sidorenko. Ivan Sidorenko, originally an artist and a college in high school dropout taught himself how to be a sniper for the Red Army. He lived by the one shot, one kill ethos became a one man killing machine for the Soviet

Union who would rack up some 500 single handed deaths during World War Two. Story goes, he started off as part of a mortar unit that helped load, unload, and reload long range artillery. From there, he would go off on his own to shoot at Germans. After a while, he taught himself how to kill from a distance and the Red Army soon took notice. He wanted to teach others how to kill

in the same covert fashion he did as students were hand selected by commanders as men with great eyesight and knowledge of their weapons. Every man in his training, you know, made an immediate impact in the defensive Moscow. His troops were so deadly that Germans flooded the area with their own snipers to counter the threat and it didn't work. So the ranko and his men were just too skilled and they just sniped the Nazi snipers. So the ranko rose in rank to become the assistant commander of the 11 or 11,nd Infantry Regiment at headquarters.

While there he trained more than 250 snipers, some of whom would go on to make record kills like himself. On June 4th, 1944, Ivan Citorenko earned the title hero of the Soviet Union First prowess. And that column even earlier, I think I even, I think Ivan. And like Simo, he looked along in quite life after the war, became a coal mine for him and died in 1994 at the age of 74. Man, maybe that's the key to a long life. Be a sniper. I don't know. I do know that's all for today's top five takeaways. Time, shock, top five takeaways. That's it. Seemo, Hyo-Ha, sucked. Now I need to figure out how to get to Finland.

I really want to travel there, try those sonnets. Thanks to the time-soaked team. Thanks to the birthday girl, Queen of the Suck, Lindsey Cummins, high priest of the Suck Harmony Vella Camp, Reverend Dr. Joe, H.C. Paisley. Thanks to the Bidelixer app design crew. Hopefully get to have some new trivia thing here

before too long. We'll bait a test and some new stuff. Thanks also to Axis Apparel, big thanks to the Script Keeper, Zach Flannery, Axis Apparel now called a spicy club. So I guess thanks to the spicy club. If you want to meet more time suckers, I keep seeing more and more out in the wild. You know, join the Colt the Curious,

private Facebook group, more social interaction. If you want that, go to Time Suck Discord group. You can link to the, from the Time Suck app. Link for both in the episode description. You can link to the from the time suck app link for both in the episode description next week back to true crime and start a two week serial killer run. We're sucked on the happy face killer over the course of five years from January 23rd 1990 to March 10th 1995 serial killer Keith Jesperson murdered eight women as he worked as a long haul truck driver. Jesperson dumped the bodies of his victims all over the US, took a long time for law enforcement officers

to realize a serial killer was responsible for a series of grizzly strangulations at truck stops and rest areas. That is until someone else tried to take credit for one of his crimes, and this inspired the psychotic piece of shit to write letters to the media to take ownership of his murders.

Also via rest stop graffiti, he signed all his confessions with a simple smiley face, earning him the nickname of the happy face killer. The suck could also be called how to raise a serial killer 101 or worse childhood ever. The abuse this dude suffered at the hands of his family peers and in his mind society seemed only cement his desire to revel in the pain of others. So you know, if you had terrible childhood, that means it's Steph Cox Kirby. Probably going to be making some cambios. The list of cruelty, the happy face killer committed included grotesque animal abuse,

arson, robbery, trying to blow up a teacher's house for Rambo style, and at least two attempted murders before he was even old enough to drive. As an adult, he would satisfy his lust for rape and death at least eight times, although this perpetual liar would take credit for dozens of other murders, even linking himself to some of the Green River killer murders, by the time his killing is pre-ended, he would try and take credit for 160 murders. Echoes of the confession killers here. And it's all coming up next week on Time Suck. And now let's mosey over to today's Time Sucker Updates. Yeah, yeah! this mosey over to today's time sucker updates. Yeah, yeah.

Updates, get your time sucker updates. First one from Matthew Walker, writes, Suck Master General, my brother and I are having a dispute. Did the leadership of the Manhattan Project really execute death row inmates? My brother claims it was one of your jokes I can't tell from the context. Also, if you do read this in the podcast, can you mention my brother Dave? He's a cool guy.

I know you too. It's great. Oh, that's nice. Hey, Luciferina, thank you. You regards Matt. Thank you, Matt. Davey, so nice. And yes, I was making up that whole thing.

Sorry, I know it was a little confusing. We got some other emails about that. It wasn't just a Humphrey Bogart part. It was that entire thing about executing death or inmates. That was all that was all nonsense. That was all nonsense. Maybe I took that one too far. Now it feels fitting for veterans day. We got a Chester puller update. Awesome one from Time Sucker, Alyssa Green who writes Dear Lord God, Mr. Sucker He who will enter Nimrod's mighty ball sack the holder of Bojangles leash. I'm a little time sucker in recently Space did as well. I've been trying to go back to all the episodes recently listened to Chesty puller suck

I have a story I think would interest you and I'd like to apologize for the length beforehand come from a military family My mom and all three of my grandfathers had long military careers. Oh, well, thank them for their service My mom was a navy corpsman her stepfather was a tanker and desert storm. Her biological father was part of the cavalry. My dad's father was a Marine of the Vietnam War. Wow, you do come from the military family. In June of 1968, my dad's father, my pops, as I referred to him, fought Kasson or fought at Kasson. This was during the Tet Offensive. I'm not sure if you're familiar with this battle, but it was gruesome. The estimated number were 6,000 U.S US Marines against some 40,000 North Vietnamese. He was the only person in his unit to survive.

Wow. If you're interested in particular, details are happy to discuss, more than happy to tell you, but for now, I'll bluntly say that my grandfather is a double amputee. He doesn't have either of his legs below the knees. One was blown off completely with grenade.

The other was so mangled, he had to cut what was left off with his booey knife. My God. Whew. Why, yes, he's left off with his booing knife. My God. Whew. Why, yes, he's a badass. We're all quite proud of him. He was flown out to the Philadelphia veterans hospital after this to treat gangrene, probably take care of his stubs. He stayed there for a long while to recover. It was during this time he recalls one of his most fun or one of his fondest memories of being a Marine. The whole wing in the hospital, he was in head by this point. Let their hair grow out and we're all, you know, together.

He says, and we're all together out of regs. But then they heard that the legend, Chester, he pulled her himself, would be coming to visit the hospital. They all cut their hair, ironed their uniforms, shaved their faces that night. Chester came to shake their hands and thanked them for their sacrifices. My pops was one of those to

shake that glorious man's hand. He says at this point, chest, he looks small and you can tell age was kept catching up to him, looked almost beaten, but that didn't diminish the respect his presence commanded one damn bit. This is a story my dad told me growing up. He raised my brother and I with deep respect for our men and women in uniform. Even if you don't support the fight itself, you should support those who do the fighting, the risk, and oftentimes give up a great deal. However, during the episode that I realized you hadn't come to that hospital for the sole purpose of shaking the hands of one of the Marines, he was there to visit his son, which explains why he looks so defeated.

It's one thing to get hurt, but it's another thing entirely to watch someone you love get hurt. My pop, that's right. Now I'm remembering that. I got the chills from you. I remember that from that episode. I forgot about that part. My pop is still alive. I've gained enough trust to hear some of his war stories And let me tell you Vietnam was uglier than ugly and while I say and while I may not serve in the armed forces myself

I'm a military brat and your support doesn't fall in deaf ears My mom listens to time suck with me and she thinks thanks you for your support. She also says she worries about you Because of the fixed stories Ah, and while by no means you have to. I think she get a kick out of a shout out. Well, shout out for mom. Her name is Tonja Green. Shout out for Tonja.

And while in service, everyone called her mom a green. Thank you for sucking hard. Keep sucking all the dark, weird and badass knowledge holes. We love to follow you down. Hail Nimrod. Praise good boy, both jangles. Hail Lucifina. Glory be to Michael motherfucking McDonald.

Keep on sucking. you magnificent evolutionary achievement. PS would love to have you come down to Charleston. Well, thank you, Alyssa Green. Hopefully I'll get to Charleston one of these days or at least close and big thanks to your family and to, uh, to Mama Green. Happy Veterans Day. Okay. Now an important new clear update from cat baits.

Sarfus comes through twice. The site refreshed weird. Okay okay it's a right cat cat greetings master sucker and the rest of you dungeon dwellers listen to the most recent episode on the monaheadin something caught my ear is a little off during the top five takeaways when talking about how awesome it is that we now have new clear energy you made the statement that new clear power has zero carbon emissions I scratched my head a little. Zero being a very small amount of emissions. After a little poking around on the internet,

I couldn't find a source that I both understood and trusted. But do feel confident that claiming zero emissions will not explicitly false isn't exactly true either. You're right that the actual use of uranium, uranium, and a reactor does not release carbon. But uranium is a huge pain in the ass to make. It needs to be mined, go through numerous refining processes. Later after fuel pellets are used up, they need to be stored securely, also a pain in

the ass, considered not only hazardous, but so hazardous need to be guarded. All of this effort requires energy. I'm open to the possibility that in the future, energy could be used to power all the equipment needed at the different stages of the process and the construction of the facilities required, but I'm pretty sure that we're not there yet. New clear. Power cleaner than oil or coal? Yes, most certainly, but that does not mean that it is zero carbon energy or a zero carbon energy source.

I know similar issues exist with renewable energy sources as well. As far as I know, the only truly zero carbon way to live is to eat wild fruits and berries never build a fire and sleep on the ground. Barring that, as a lover of hot food, my car, having a heated home, et cetera, I think it's really important that we recognize that pretty much nothing we do in this modern world is without some environmental impact. And be honest with ourselves about what those impacts are. Sorry, my first time reaching out, it's critical.

I've been sucking for a few years now, a huge fan. I appreciate how much work you put into keeping the show unbiased. Excuse me, when opinions or personal ideas come up, it is clear that they are your own, not some regurgitated cookie cutter bullshit. I'm just as likely to think, oh fuck yeah, as I'm to think, no hell no, all listing, which is great. And I love that.

Yeah, I don't agree with me. I'd be fucking weird if you guys agree with me all the time. I say a lot of weird shit. You have stretched my mind by both making me think and by shoving all kinds of weird information in there. If you keep on sucking, I'll keep on spreading the suck. Mad respect, cat, PS. Have you touched on planned obsolescence?

Like being obsolete, obsolescence, I think, is in any episode. It seemed related to this topic. I'd love to hear how you present it. I have not thought about that. Hopefully I'm saying that word right. I don't wanna say obsolete. I don't know what obsolescence,

but it sounds right. And you're right, you're right. That was, you know, it's funny. I, as I was going to my notes, I was like, hmm, zero, I kind of, then I moved past it whatever, but you're right. Technically, in the final stage, no carbon emissions,

but yes, to get to that stage, carbon emissions. And so that is a good thing to bring up, which is why through this message in there, thank you for the attention to detail. I love that. Thank you, cat baits. Fastening updates to an update from Guy Green, who writes, please, oh, suck Lord, hear this.

Since you read your listeners' question about your inclination to sympathize with a serial killer who prayed on pedophiles and rapists, I thought it was my duty as a member of the cult of the curious to inform you, dear leader, that such a man exists. His name is Pedro Rodriguez Filo, aka Pedrino Matador, aka Killer PT. Despite having killed at least 71 people, many of them fellow inmates, he is today a free man. Due to a quirk in Brazilian law, this stipulates a maximum of 30 years. Oh, yeah, behind bars. He was a product of extreme violence, but somehow perceived the injustice of it and sought to balance out the evil of this world in his way, pretty impressive by any measure, especially considering his circumstances.

To be fair, he didn't exclusively kill sexual predators, though he liked to, but he did prefer to kill such people. He killed gang leaders, drug dealers, wife beaters. He loved to pran criminals. He propodedly devoted his life since his release to Jesus and keeping under-privileged kids out of gang life. He has an active YouTube channel to this day. What the fuck? Google him. Well deserving of a full blown suck.

Sorry to bother you. No, not at all. He didn't bother me. But I thought you should know. I'd supply more info, but I don't have assistance. Horsecoctor otherwise. I'll give you what I have up to you to do with it. Love and angst, guy. Well, thank you, guy. Man, we gotta put Joe Paisley, make a note.

Pedro Rodriguez Philho, please make a note, put it on my desk if you will. Somebody out there, cause I do wanna add this guy to the top of the list. That is fascinating. Is that, is that, is that anyone here? Oh, okay, good. Anyway.

Anyway. Anyway. Okay, now we have Lauren Smith with the Manhattan Project update. A level of the extra info come this week. Lauren writes, Hail and Will Met, Sultan of the Suck, love the episode was glad to find out more, I didn't know about it, but I felt the need to inform you of another scientist

who was part of the Manhattan Project, who I feel needs mentioning. I'll try to do it without cursing. Tommy, fucking doubt, nope, couldn't do it without cursing. Tommy fucking doubt. Nope, couldn't do it. The guy who was a scientist in the Manhattan Project, as well as an audio engineer, Reverend Horscock Paisley should especially be a fan of him.

He invented the idea and construction of vertical faders on sound boards. Before he created that, it was all door knobs and hard to actively mix levels. He was a crucial engineer for so many things, but I feel like the most noteworthy was Laila. Oh, so many songs. But the feel like the most noteworthy was Laila

by Derek and the Domino's aka Eric Clapton. Wow. Laila. That I should know, found about him when I went to college for audio engineering, keep on suck in regards Lord Lawrence Smith of Sealand, Knight of Sensible Castle and Starving musician. Well, thank you, Lord and Smith. I'm also a Knight of Sealand, Knight of Sensible Castle, and Starving musician. Well, thank you, Lawrence Smith.

I'm also a Knight of Sealand. Yay, or Knight Brothers. Another sucker has been knighted. And finally, last one, Church of Satan update, very interesting, thought provoking. This was sent by Mike Moffitt and Mike Wrights. Hey, Dan, for several years, I thought I'd have high school introduction

to religious studies and included occasion looking into Levesi's Satanism. I was eager to hear your research and commentary and appreciate much of what you said. In particular, I was glad to hear that you reached the conclusion that Satanism in Levei and Satanism is not a religion per se, but rather an anti-religion. I encourage you to take it further.

Satanism is ironically also anti-human, I'll explain why. Satanism is swirling in a world pool of irony. First, Satan is ironically owes his existence as much to Jesus Christ as Levei suggests, as Christianity owes its success to Satan. Satanism's indebtedness reaches beyond Jesus, of course, who spoke in no uncertain terms about Satan, but also to a nuropical, cultural phenomena linked to Christianity. Whether or not they are grounded in the Bible, which is another topic altogether, these include values like compassion, recall Levei's disgust with the notion of turning the other

cheek and purity. Do call, say, dism reactionary is an understatement. The only reason it could exist is in reaction to what preceded it. In the Abrahamic religions, interesting he would not also include Vedic religions like Hinduism or Buddhism, among others. Thus, Levée should thank God or at least Christians, Jews and Muslims, for giving him a color palette from which to paint his starkly contrasting picture. Second, the irony of Satanism claims of truth have been authored by a bona fide, compulsive liar cannot be overlooked. I appreciate how you highlighted this irony throughout your episode.

Levay and his Satanism belong much more fittingly in the company of Barnum Circus than in a dialogue with religious world views, theology or spirituality. I did not know Leve had been a carnival worker before. He's more infamous time found in satanism, but I found it enormously revealing. The notion of delighting people with illusion is clearly the foundation for the structure Leve built on PT Barnum. When is that suck gonna happen? Yes, I know that would be a great suck. Third, of course, is Leve's choice to use the idea of Satan as his moniker. The Hebrew term Satan denotes an opponent, accuser, adversary. It is not a name, but rather a title. In this way, Levay chose the right term, but only denote, denote, denotively. The connotation of Satan

is, of course, red guy with horns and tritons. And Levay knew this. Thus, the irony here is not the denotative, there we go, meaning, which is right on, but rather his choice to use it as a spiritual concept and entity for it. Had he, had he more atheistic integrity and called his movement a poachers of religion or the like, he wouldn't have gotten the press he wanted, for which obviously he found his upstart. He was a capitalist to be sure and like Barnum, he didn't care what product he peddled as long as he got him what he wanted.

I do believe that. The world has rewarded him for his lies as is our species sensationalistic tendency. And in the words of Jesus, he has received his reward and full. Finally, how a Satan is an ironically anti-human? I think you answered this yourself when you reflected on the undeniable and comparable destructiveness of the human race on the one hand,

well, on the other, that human beings remain your favorite of the creatures. Why is that? How could your favorite also be the worst? Is it merely because as a human, you are wearing the home jersey, or is there more to it? Is there something about human beings that transcends mere animalism,

which makes our abuses of each other in the natural world all that much more heinous? If human beings are no more than meat sacks or similarly, similarly dirt bags as another teacher I enjoy calls us, then Levet would have nothing to oppose, nothing to protest. He would be forced to see the behaviors of the other religious animals around him as objectively and unemotionally as lions and cheetahs, just two kinds of cat. As you say, no big whoops. You cannot claim that they were wrong per se, but just in competition for the same thing for followers. But that is not what I see him nor in his writing doing. Rather, I see a highly

emotionally charged human being, a child in a man's body, fleeing from his own pain, equipped with all the faculties that makes humans human, morality, compassion, ego, self-awareness, reason, etc. And yet in order for Satanism to hold up the very human characteristics that make it possible are what Satanism tries to deny. Compassion mixed with levets and tolerance for humanity is no compassion at all. Morality that begins and ends in the subjective human mind is no morality at all. The very idea of an organization with principles and rules that purports to allow its adherence to follow only their own principles and rules is perhaps the most absurd irony I've ever

heard of. Satanisms claim to be pro-human by way of giving individuals absolute autonomy as ultimately anti-human. Humanity is a co-op, not a solo gig. That's a fucking great quote. Humanity is a co-op, not a solo gig. I love thinking through this kind of thing critically, so thanks for the opportunity and the opportunity

to procrastinate since this whole time, I was supposed to be writing about something completely different. Peace, Mike. Thank you, Mike Moffat, for giving us so much to think about there. For what a well-written peace. Man, I love humanity is a co-op, not a solo gig. Let's end on that thought with today's Time Sucker Updates. Thanks, time suckers.

I need a net. We all did. Have a great week, everyone. Again, happy Veterans Day, happy birthday to my beautiful wife, Lindsay. Don't piss off any teeny tiny finish men who grew up with guns. And most importantly, how about you just keep on sucking? Come on, dude, come on, let me have it. Let me have it, I fucking take everything from you.

Come on, dude, come on, I'm in Russia, just let me have it. Let me have it, or I fucking take everything from you.