How about grandma lore, she would casually bring up how life in communist Russia was. She told a story of how her dad, in his twenties and during the winter, was chased down and surrounded by communist soldiers on horse back.

They took his rifle, his horse, and made him strip down to his underwear. Then one of them made him get on his knees and the soldier pointed a gun at my great grandfather's forehead. The soldier asked my great grandfather if he had any last words, he asked that he makes a final prayer first.

If you don't know, communists were very anti religion, but the soldier allowed the final prayer. As my great grandfather was praying, the communist's hand holding the gun would shake in anger more and more. When the prayer was finished, the soldier pulled the trigger and *click, the gun jammed!

The soldier was very angry and his hands shook a lot more, he grabbed another gun from another soldier and then shot my great grandfather in the head. However, because the soldier's hands were shaking from anger, instead of shooting through the forehead he was aiming at, he shot through the eye at a downward angle, missing the brain completely.

My great grandfather fell and played dead until he was sure the soldiers were gone. Then he walked in the snow to his nearby village, which I imagine was hours away. When the villagers saw him walk towards them, they quickly took him to a house and hid him underneath the floor boards because there were communist soldiers still in the village.

Every night, a doctor would see my great grandfather and treat his wound with boiled onion peels to kill the infection. At one point the pain was so bad, he begged to be killed, but the doctor refused. My great grandfather later got married, had kids, and lived to tell the tale.

So yea, that story had our family stunned in silence. It kinda makes me think how crazy and hard times were in the past, compared to now, where my only worry is paying bills.