Posted July 11, 2017 3:41 pm by Comments

By Van Harl

Army Infantry Zippo Lighter

By Major Van Harl

While learning how to be a Soldier in the wet, mucky, swamp land of south Georgia, I sometimes needed to light things on fire…
Major Van Harl USAF Ret
Major Van Harl USAF Ret

Wisconsin –-(

Army Infantry Zippo Lighter

While learning how to be a Soldier in the wet, mucky, swamp land of south Georgia, I sometimes needed to light things on fire. Matches get damp and will not always work. Disposable lighters were around back then but not in the numbers you see now.

When one of the men in my class, an old Vietnam veteran, prior enlisted Special Forces Soldier pulled out a Zippo lighter to burn his C-ration box, to heat his meal in the field, a light went on in my head. The next time I got off post I went out and found me a Zippo lighter.

If I had taken the time to look in the Base Exchange I would have found Zippos there for less than I paid off base.

Zippo lighters have been a main stay of the US Soldier and Marine since WWII. Zippo stopped making lighters for public consumption during WWII but they kept making them for the military …Read the Rest

Source:: AmmoLand

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