My Uncle Sony is a war hero.
When I was a kid, I fear I pestered him with to many questions about the war, and he'd be polite and tactful, but never talk about it. He flew B-17's in WW2, out of England, and it wasn't until I was a teenager I relized how awful some of the experience must have been. I shut up aftt that.
After the war, he stayed on in the newly organized Air Force when it became a separate arm of the armed services. Being a heavy aircraft pilot, they made a nice offer for hi to stay in, and he did his 28 and 1/2 years before he'd had enough of it. In Korea he flew the B-29's and then they had the B-52's. At that time he became part of the strategic air command during the cold war, and was away from home and family for long periods.
But one thing about Uncle Sony, he was never without a SAK in his pocket. Being a knife nut at a young age, and a fan of the mighty SAK, I asked him about that. He was willing to speak on that subject without any promoting. It was a fascinating story.
Early on in his service, he was issued one of those all steel scout knives the military has. The MIL-K knife. All during WW2 he carried that knife, and the screw driver and can opener came in handy many times. It was basically a scout knife pattern, and handy for lots of things besides cutting.
Just after the war, when the Berlin airlift was going on, the air force needed qualified 4 engine rated pilots very badly, for the airlift into West Berlin. Uncle Sony did his bit to keep the people in West Berlin from starving or giving into the Russians. At that time he was based in what was then West Germany, where they would load up the plane and do a ho into West Berlin. In his off time, he'd prowl around the Germany countryside that he'd only previously seen from 20'000 feet while on a mission over Germany. He found the German people to be a great people, and he grew to love and appreciate them in peace.
While on one of his rambles, he was in some small shop and he saw a display of knives. Some were the typical stag handle knives from before the war, some new stuff just starting to roll off the factory lines. But there was his first introduction to SAK's. He already high appreciated the scout knife the Army Air Corp had given him, but now he saw similar knives with more tools and better quality. Naturally, being a pilot with combat experience, he saw the advantage of tools in a pocket size package.
Uncle Sony bought a SAK, and now and then he'd buy another one for a different tool set when needed. When he became a strategic air command pilot, he made a point to always have a SAK with a saw blade in the pocket of his flight suit. Off duty, and being a family man, he used a SAK try often for small jobs on the post housing he and the family lived in. They traveled the world, being based in such places as Germany, Italy, Japan, Alaska, and the U.S. SAK bases in the midwest. Sometimes the model changed, but there was always a SAK.
Now in his 90's, but still mentally all there, he still keeps a SAK in his pocket. As an elderly gentleman of leisure and traveling a lot with senior citizen tour groups over the past 20 years, he's found a SAK a indispensable travel companion. Now with some Parkinson's disease setting in, the executive has the light springs that let him get the tools out to use.
So from a 19 year old army air corp pilot of a B-17, to a senior citizen, he's carried one SAK or another his whole life. That's a lot of dedication to a brand.
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