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Show ELIZA FIFE SEPTEI\1BER 17,2001 kid turned twenty, he had to go for basic training. Okay? And then after he went through basic training he got issued a rifle, ammunition and his uniform and he took it home. So when there was a war or anything happening, a national emergency, within twenty-four hours they could have the whole works mobilized and they all had their rifles, they all had their ammunition, they had their uniforms and everything else. So this is why for a Swiss it's pretty difficult to say, "You can't have any guns, you can't have a rifle 'cause if you do you're going to shoot people." Well you don't! You know, only the crazy guys do. And if you let the regular people not have any guns to protect themselves, the guys that are robbers and murderers, they can always find guns. BEC: So what you're saying is every home in Switzerland had a gun, at least. ELI: Every home had at least a rifle. BEC: So as a child growing up with all this war tension going on around you, do you remember being frightened, thinking that Hitler would come in and bring the German soldiers in there? ELI: BEC: ELI: night, you know. BEC: ELI: Nope. No way. We weren't at all. You didn't? That didn't phase us at all. Except that we had to have blackouts at Uh-huh. And, oh, once in a while the sirens would go off and you'd go down to the basement and stuff like that, and after a while we didn't do that anymore. The 12 |
