To provide distraction from discussion of Iraqi conflict but still thinking military thoughts, I offer you this little meaningless tidbit of my thought process.
Being deprived of american movies but amply supplied with italian comedies (Andriano Celentano(sp?), etc.) in Soviet Union, it is only relatively recently that most russians discovered that wonderfull american sign of extending a middle finger. I certainly learned it only upon coming here - or probably seing the video-cassetes of american movies that appeared in the late 80's.
Before that russians had to contend with much tactically inferior, if more expressive italian sign - that we attributed the same meaning (any italians here, please confirm if that was justified) - consisting of bringing one's right arm up with fist clenched and bending it at the elbow, with the left palm slapping the right biceps the moment it reaches horizontal.
When someone is shooting at you and misses or bounces a bullet off your helmet, it is much easier to use american sigh. You can do it while lying down, on your stomack or on your back, from behind the horisontal obstacle, exposing just a tiniest part of your body while still leaving one hand free, etc. - while the italian version requires standing up or kneeling behind a vertical obstacle, like a tree or a boulder and exposing much more of oneself.
I've seen/heard of a few people getting wounded by bullets/shrapnel exposing themselves like that - for only one guy who got his middle finger chopped off by a helicopter blade doing the "american" version.
Of course at the time not being aware of the significance - he must have been ahead of the times, we could not figure out why the fellow would stick his finger into the main rotor all of a sudden...
Any stories on culture differences anyone cares to contribute?
miko