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My grandad went into the army when he was 17 around the closeing years of ww2 he allso served in korea and vietnam. the tale goes, that in 63 my dad gave my grandad a then knew in the box astra firecat .25 acp.as a birthday gift and he took it with him to vietnam. he was a maint. ssg in the motor pool. they had to go out to an ambush sight to recover some vehicals. there was security on sight and they had several prisoners. at some point one of the prisoners stabbed a guard with some kind of make -shift knife and the prisoners ran for it. one ran at my grandad who was standing by a 113 (could have been a 114 by his description) his weapon (which he descibed as a m1 carbine) was on the recovery vehical. he pulled the firecat from his pocket and fired from 7 to 10 feet at the escapie's face. the guy fell to his hands and knees after running a few feet. seems a couple of the rounds tore through the artery in his neck and he died shortly after. now when i first heard this i was about 13 or so back in the 70s and i just wrote it off as one of gramps "war stories" fast forward to 04, i had come home from serving a tour in Iraq. went to visit grandad and while there he gave me the little 25, said he wanted me to have it. so i took it home and put it in the back of the gun safe. then grandad passed away in 06.when we were cleaning stuff out of his old house i found several shoe boxes of old letters my grandmother had saved through the years, they mostly talked about daily army life and cant wait to come home things. but there was one short letter telling her about useing the gun "Billy" (my dad) had give him to defend himself. which reads pretty much the same as he told it to me. i carry it now and then with a whole new respect. 
