I was the first IPSC Section Coordinator for the Province of Manitoba, Canada in 1980. Jeff Cooper was still World Director at the time. In 1990 Canadian Doctors told me my constant throat irritations were caused by the cold Manitoba climate and that perhaps I should consider moving to warmer climes. I came down to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and worked around for a few years on odd jobs and finally ended up owning an Ice Cream Store. I bought myself an old classic VW Safari (Thing) because I thought it was cool.
One day, coming out of a restaurant, I saw an old guy admiring my car. I walked up to talk to him and he told me he had one JUST like it, same color, same model. His name was Phil Roettinger. He made some quip that I sensed was gun related -- oh, I remember, he made a Rat Patrol quip, that was it, and I shot back with another.
"You a shooter?" he asked me. I told him I was. He told me I should come up to his house some time to look at his guns.
"You have guns here?" I asked, astounded. I had thought that was impossible. He made a comment about how his former job had allowed him to get guns registered here in Mexico and left it at that.
Anyway, this is a long story and I am trying to make it short; I went to see him. We hit it off like peas in a pod even with 40 years difference in age. I mean, you had to SEE this guy. Big tall guy, beautiful ex-wife who still visited him all the time. Nice photo on his living room wall, the wife sitting on Manuel Noriega's knee. I mean, all the stuff that just made a young -- well, younger -- guy like me shake his head in absolute disbelief.
He showed me his guns and I saw the old 27. I picked it up, asked his permission to test the action, and admired it openly. He told me he had used it in the Pacific Campaigns -- in later years he told me so much more about that -- and had used it as a principal sidearm in the C.I.A. whenever he thought things might go really amiss. (His C.I.A. issue gun was an old pre-1957 style M & P .38 Special, no serial numbers, no markings. Period. A Doctor here in San Miguel owns it now. The Mexican Army ENGRAVED a serial number on it when they registered it. Aggghhh!!! Idiots!)
I remember turning to him that first day with the 27 in hand and saying, "When you die, this one's mine!"
His eyes sort of lit up, and he drawled, "Well, okayyyy." With a smile.
This started a friendship (this was 1991) that lasted until he died. He would come to my Ice Cream Store almost every day, and I ALWAYS stopped what I was doing to go sit and talk with him while he ate his Ice Cream. We talked about everything;
- Guatemala, and what happened there.
- Guadalcanal, and the whole campaign.
- Thompsons versus Grease Guns.
- Thompsons versus Garands, at night, during a Banzai attack.
Come on, figure it out. My Dad landed at Normandy (Juno) and I had become an EXPERT at making him talk. Phil was like my Dad, he wanted someone to tell this stuff to. I could ask whatever I wanted, I had 10 years to do it, and I asked a lot. He always answered as best he could. His ex-wife and daughter always told me that "Dad never talks to ANYONE...except you."
I remember doing so many things with Phil, whenever I could. It was sort of like the relationship between Denny Crane and Alan Shore on Boston Legal except we weren't lawyers. We were great friends, but 40 years apart in age and experience. I remember going to the 80th Birthday party of a first-day survivor (Stan Levine) of the landings on Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Man, there were two other Tarawa vets there. I went with Phil, and Phil's other "best friend", Colonel Phil Maher who was the American Consul in San Miguel at the time. It was Maher who, after Roettinger's death, arranged with the Mexican Army to actually let me register the Magnum he left me. Maher kept complaining "Cal wasn't even in that war..." . I was the youngest guy in the room by half. Roettinger cut him off with the comment, "No, but he SHOOTS better than you."
Anyway, I had a great time hanging out with those guys. They always called me "Boy" or "Kiddo" or whatever, but I didn't mind. Maher was also a W.W. II vet, a P-51 Pilot from the Pacific, and also later C.I.A. . I mean, those two guys knew were the bodies are buried and they were both ardent "gun guys". They are both gone now, but like my Dad, they were real heroes to me. They will live in my memory.
I was back in Canada in 2001 visiting my Mother, who had suffered a stroke. My Dad died in 1994 while I was down here and I wanted to be with Mom. When I got back here, I found out that Phil Roettinger had died and been buried while I was away. Well, that's life. My girls in the store told me; "The Spy has died." They called him "El Espia." They knew he was the ex-CIA Station Chief. It wasn't a secret or anything.
A month or so later, my phone rang at the store and it was Phil's daughter calling. She told me she was selling off her Dad's guns with the help of Phil Maher, (two Phil's, always confusing) the Consul. She paused, and then said; "He always wanted you to have the big one."
I sort of choked up for a minute, not knowing he had ever told anyone, and then blurted out; "I know."
"Well," she said, "come and pick it up."
Over the next few months, Phil Maher (the Consul) helped me with the Mexican Army so I could register the gun. Get this, I am Canadian, but the American Consul came to bat for me. Why the hell my country isn't backing the U.S. more is beyond me because in MY experience, well....the U.S. Consul sure went to bat for me and he didn't have to do that.
So, I have the gun. It is in my safe. I sometimes take it out -- in the bottom of the gunbag, and shoot it. It is not really dangerous, all the Police here KNOW I have a gun permit and can take my .38's and .22's and .380's -- the only guns permitted for civilian ownership in Mexico -- out to shoot. So they don't check me. They just wave me on through in my blue Safari (Thing). I reload for the gun, as I could never BUY .357 ammo here. Sometimes I do get the odd box of Factory .357 stuff smuggled down, it's how I get my brass -- but generally I have to reload. I can buy .38 Special ammo, and I sometimes shoot it with that. I guess you could call it a "Safe Queen with priveleges."
I tend to "baby" the gun, though, and don't shoot it often.
The other Phil, Phil Maher -- the former American Consul -- died past January. Another great loss of another great man.
I don't know what else to tell. If someone has specific questions about things, ask away. I will answer if I can, and will be honest about it if I do not know.
Thanks for reading and suffering through my remembrances of how that gun came to be sitting here in my safe.
Cal Nordman
