The Garand as a hunting rifle. Sometime in late summer after VE Day, when my dad was still in Germany, he and a few friends took some Garands and went hunting for dinky deer in the Harz mountains where they were stationed. Asked a farmer if they could hunt, he said they could, as he'd like some deer meat.
Punched a few deer out of the woods and all managed to miss them with the Garands. Later, the old folks on the farm invited them to lunch and at some point the patriarch made a comment that elicited laughter from the other locals at the table.
One of dad's buds spoke a bit of German, told the other GIs that the ol' boy had wondered HTH they'd lost the war, if that was all the better Americans could shoot?
Dad's excuse was, that none of them had ever fired a Garand much before then, other than some target practice at camp after VE Day.
They'd all qualified with the 1903 in basic, prior to Pearl Harbor (dad was drafted in the summer of '41). All were carrying M1 30 Carbines throughout the European Campaign, because they were in a halftrack crew.
Dad said the old Krauts wasn't having any of it, decided that Americans can't shoot and that was that.
Thirty-some years later when dad and I were hunting together and he missed a running deer, asked him if he'd gotten confused and thought he was hunting with a Garand again? Wasn't amused in the least. ;O)
Lots of Garand owners at our club, but I've never had one. Do have some CMP Carbines though and enjoy the hell out of them.
