Best Christmas Gift Ever

[LRRPF52]

I'm guessing it is a 7.62X53 cartridge case from the famed Finnish sniper of the Russian Finish winter war of 1939-40, Simo Hayha.

So several of the active Finnish snipers went and interviewed Häyhä right before he died in the early 2000's, basically picking his brain for all the information they could gather from his experiences. As they conversed, he suggested, "Why don't I take you to the areas and show you...."

So they drive out to the historical front, in the area of operations he had fought in, and he took them to some of the positions he had occupied when he was set up in his Sniper Operations Sector. As he pointed out over his fields of fire from the exact locations, these guys start looking around on the ground, and found several of his spent cases. Keep in mind that Häyhä was empowered by his Company Commander to go operate alone, so during that 105-day period in the winter, not a lot of other people would really have ended up in these specific places. It's a heavily forested region, frozen much of the year.

They took the cases, and made these plaques with them, with an authenticity card on the back. For those that don't know, I'm half Finnish, and have been traveling there since 1979. I have competed in, and supported their sniper competitions since 2007, and have found many lifelong friends there that are really good dudes. This was an unexpected, but very memorable gift to receive, considering the history behind it.