Quote :

"For 65 years, Alfred Mann didn't talk much about his war-time experiences. Not that he didn't want to. He had just given up trying thanks to a combination of old war injuries that made it difficult to speak clearly. But now the 87-year-old veteran is relishing a new lease of life - after finding a half-inch piece of shrapnel on his pillow one morning. The metal shard is thought to have suddenly dislodged from his jaw and fallen from his mouth while he slept. Mr Mann had no idea he had been carrying the shrapnel or that it was behind his speech problems. He has also had great trouble eating for many years. 'It's fantastic,' he said yesterday. 'I can move my mouth properly and I have been able to eat steak and lamb cutlets which I couldn't eat before.' Mr Mann served as a nurse with the Royal Army Medical Corps and was injured in 1944 at the battle of Monte Cassino. It left shrapnel embedded in his leg, shoulder and hands, although surgeons never spotted the piece in his jaw. 'I don't remember much from the explosion. It happened around midday and we were under fire and were travelling in a jeep on our way to pick up the wounded from Monte Cassino,' Mr Mann said at his home in Sheldon, Birmingham. 'When I opened my eyes I was in a hospital in Naples and having my jaw wired shut for ten weeks. I guess the doctors just never spotted this bit of shrapnel in there. He told how his mouth had begun to swell up a few weeks before he discovered the shrapnel. 'I went to the doctor and I was referred on to the dentist who said I had an ulcer,' he said. 'Then I woke up one morning and felt something move in my mouth. I discovered a piece of shrapnel lying there.' His wife Constance, also 87, said she had noticed a real difference in her husband. 'It's strange, he has never talked about the war this much before,' she said. 'I never knew half the stories he has told me in the last couple of weeks. It took him all these years. He seems happier - but the food bills are more expensive.' "

http://tinyurl.com/qvdo5y

5/26/2009 5:28:12 PM

better late than never!

5/26/2009 5:36:34 PM

it's about damn time

5/26/2009 5:37:02 PM

Quote :

"He seems happier - but the food bills are more expensive"

HIT UP THAT EARLY BIRD SPECIAL!

5/26/2009 5:38:02 PM

good for him, enjoy the steak my friend, you earned it

5/26/2009 6:43:13 PM

happy memorial day

5/26/2009 7:28:11 PM

now watch him lose disability pay

5/26/2009 7:29:54 PM

Quote :

"now watch him lose disability pay"

Don't worry, he is a Brit so that won't happen. Now if he were American...

5/26/2009 7:32:57 PM

Damn, why can't people stay married as long as he has?

Awesome for him that he can go back to a "normal life" again.

5/26/2009 7:38:10 PM

the human body is an amazing thing

5/26/2009 7:39:27 PM

game time

5/26/2009 7:41:22 PM

If only that goddamn Ratzi saboteur hadn't killed Erskine, this poor bastard couldn't gotten the amazing Vita-Ray treatment.

5/26/2009 7:43:20 PM

If you didn't want to deal with shrapnel, then you shouldn't have joined the war. Duh.

5/26/2009 8:22:01 PM

Quote :

"good for him, enjoy the steak my friend, you earned it"

5/26/2009 10:30:41 PM

^^ I'm sure he didn't have much of a choice

5/26/2009 10:50:53 PM

So I was thinking, hmm that's really strange that they didn't catch that on a dental x-ray at some point...then I got to the part where it says he was in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

5/26/2009 11:00:07 PM

^haha

5/26/2009 11:10:20 PM