Is there........... ( Archived) (94)

A young deaf American was taking a vacation overseas. He got a Eurail pass and toured Holland, France, Belgium, and a bunch of other places before ending up in Germany. At his first village, he went into a pub and there, off in the corner, were three older German gentlemen who were signing. They appeared to be deaf. The young man watched and figured he could understand the signs enough to carry on a conversation.

He got a beer and asked if they would allow him to join them, and they did. They chatted about this and that, and soon conversation gave way to how each of them became deaf. The first older German said, "Well, I was a soldier in WWII, and my platoon was hit by a big American mortar, and it exploded near my head, and I lost all my hearing." The American boy was kind of saddened by this. The second German went on:" I was in a UBoat and my job was to listen for enemy ships. An American destroyer dropped a depth bomb on my ship, and it went off very close to it, and I lost my hearing as a result." Oh no, thinks the young American. How awful. The third German held forth: "I was in a plane, and we were struck by a bomb, and it went off right next to me, and it blew out my ears, and that is how I lost my hearing."

Well, that was just awful, the young American thinks. My country is indirectly responsible for these poor chaps going deaf. He was sad about this until they asked him how he became deaf. Smiling, he signed, "Well, before I was born, my mom got German measles."