... And I never had to work for the Nazis... not much common ground there...

Nah, we were crazy teenagers, amazing we all survived with all our appendages...

I was at ground zero of so many explosions as a kid that I have some hearing loss...

Every winter we would have what we called 'Fireworks fights', Two teams loaded up with improvised explosives and incendiaries... one would hike out on our land and fortify a position, then 30 minutes later the other team would track them down through the snow and stage an assault... rockets and grenades would fly until munitions were exhausted...

Absolutely insane what kids will do...

The reality of the risks we were taking never sank in until one incident where I realized that it was only dumb luck that 4 of us hadn't been killed in an instant during one of our battles... I wrote a short story about it when I was 16 and still have it somewhere... it was called 'The Cold War'... maybe I will dig it up and post it...