{"id":29716,"date":"2012-04-27T19:45:10","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T23:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=29716"},"modified":"2012-04-27T19:45:35","modified_gmt":"2012-04-27T23:45:35","slug":"bootlegger-big-hy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=29716","title":{"rendered":"Bootlegger “Big Hy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times<\/a> tells the story of 92-year-old Hyman Strachman, a World War II veteran who, in 2004, reconnected with the military when he began shipping bootlegged DVDs to the troops almost as soon as the movies themselves were released. The Times says that “Big Hy” has sent more than 4,000 boxes of the DVDs at his own expense over the years;<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the right thing to do, but I did it,\u201d Mr. Strachman said, acknowledging that his actions violated copyright law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for his brazen violation of domestic copyright laws, Mr. Strachman nodded guiltily but pointed to his walls, which are strewed with seven huge American flags, dozens of appreciative letters, and snapshots of soldiers holding up their beloved DVDs.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I got back an emotional e-mail or letter, I sent them another box,\u201d he said, adding that he had never accepted any money for the movies or been told by any authorities to stop. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After Mr. Strachman\u2019s wife of more than half a century, Harriet, died in 2003, he discovered a Web site that collected soldiers\u2019 requests for care packages. He noted a consistent plea for movie DVDs and wound up passing his sleepless nights replicating not only the films, but also a feeling of military comradeship that he had not experienced since his own service in the Pacific during World War II. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Funny how we always succumb to that call of comradeship and commonality sooner or later. The Times estimates that “Big Hy” spent over $30,000 bringing a bit of home to the troops in 90 minute doses.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Susie for the tip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times tells the story of 92-year-old Hyman Strachman, a World War II veteran … Bootlegger “Big Hy”<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-support-the-troops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}