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Captain Koons wrote: This green biner I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the first World War. It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee. Made by the first company to ever make carabiners. Up till then people just carried quicklinks. It was bought by private Doughboy Erine Coolidge on the day he set sail for Paris. It was your great-grandfather's war biner and he wore it everyday he was in that war. When he had done his duty, he went home to your great-grandmother, took the biner off, put it in an old coffee can, and in that can it stayed 'til your granddad Dane Coolidge was called upon by his country to go overseas and fight the Germans once again. This time they called it World War II. Your great-grandfather gave this green biner to your granddad for good luck. Unfortunately, Dane's luck wasn't as good as his old man's. Dane was a Marine and he was killed -- along with the other Marines at the battle of Wake Island. Your granddad was facing death, he knew it. None of those boys had any illusions about ever leavin' that island alive. So three days before the Japanese took the island, your granddad asked a gunner on an Air Force transport named Winocki, a man he had never met before in his life, to deliver to his infant son, who he'd never seen in the flesh, his green biner. Three days later, your granddad was dead. But Winocki kept his word. After the war was over, he paid a visit to your grandmother, delivering to your infant father, his Dad's green biner. This carabiner. (holds it up, long pause) This carabiner was on your Daddy's harness when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He knew if the gooks ever saw the biner it'd be confiscated, taken away. The way your Dad looked at it, that biner was your birthright. He'd be damned if any slopes were gonna put their greasy yella hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something. His ass. Five long years, he wore this green biner up his ass. Then he died of dysentery, he gave me the biner. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the green biner to you.