Larry Thorne [Lauri Törni]
I'll post some photos of Larry Thorne — some of which I received from a friend on the East Coast, other photos are culled from the internet. Before doing so, I'd like to preface this post by saying my father was in the 77th Special Forces ca. 1954~55 and was, for a short time, Thorn's team sergeant. My father's career path went like this:
505th PIR, 77th SFG, 1st SFG (before and after the black border), 6th SFG, 5th SFG (B-33, Camp Widder), Training Group, JUSMAG-MACThai … (with some leg assignments interspersed).
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Bud Power
…I don’t recall exact dates I was in the 77th, but less than a year. There was a big turmoil at that time, they were still filling out vacancies in the 10th SFG, which were all taken from the 77th. I was left with a Team filled with Freedom Fighters from Hungry, ex-Foreign Legion, ex-SS Officers and a mix of European who didn’t speak English or very little of it. We were trained as a team -- everyone taking the same training and no one excused. The hardships placed on us were many; our field training was mostly Guerrilla Warfare and how to win the hearts and minds of the people. “ We are the fish and the people are the water, we can not survive without the people”. Sounds like it is straight out of Mao's little red book. [ghp95134's note: actually, it IS right out of Mao’s On Guerrilla Warfare (1937).]
Our mountain training was in the Grandfather Mountain area in NC. Thorne was an outstanding cold weather instructor. I remember one of his classes, about consuming alcohol while cold, he said "it is like peeing on yourself, it’s hot at first, but then it freezes; therefore, eat sardines and drink the juice because it’s a fuel and will warm your body"….
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Many know Törni attended the Waffen-SS officer's school for a short time before being recalled to Finland, so there are a couple of not-well-known snaps of him standing in formation; plus the couple of him wearing his SS-Unterstürmführer uniform.
One of "Larry" as a roofer before he could join up, and a couple of him in the US Army.
I'll also tack on some of Aito Keravuori — whom I met as a 13 year-old. My father ended up being the S4 in Training Group and LTC Keravuori was the Group's XO. He came to the house at least once that I recall. My father jumped with him during Keravuori's "final jump", and there is one of Keravuori trooping the line during his retirement, just before being promoted to 06.
Cheers!
[P.S. I just learned how to insert images; however, I'm leaving the hot links as they will open to a larger image.]