History's Ultimate Badasses

[Goodspeed]

So, what makes a badass? Someone who is unsuspecting, tough as nails, and totally batshit insane? In a word: yes.

The purpose of this thread is to share history's ultimate (and real) badasses. Nothing serves as good of a pick-me-up as hearing a badass story about a badass person doing something utterly badass.

So, look upon the pages of history, and share with us the one single person you've determined is the ultimate badass of the ages. Tell us their story, teach us the ways of their badassness, and maybe...just maybe, we'll all be contented because of it. I'm sure you'll be compelled to share with us your badass, probably because their soul is threatening you to from beyond the grave.

And then we'll inevitably devolve into the discussion of which is the most badass and who would win which fight.

My Badass:

Simo Hayha. Simo, a Finnish man of a slight 5 foot 3, was a farmer and hunter who completed his one year mandatory military service in 1925. After completing his one year ending as a corporal in a goddamn bicycle unit, he maintained his reserve soldier status until the 1939-1940 Winter War broke out between the USSR and Finland, and Simo found himself an active soldier.

When the Soviet Red Army invaded his native Finland, Simo was promptly all like "F that", so he took to the forest with his rifle and began sniping Soviet troops.

He sniped a lot of Soviet troops.

In the dead of winter, in the woods, in temptures up to -40 degrees F wearing all-white camouflage.

Simo had a confirmed 505 kills, using an unscoped Mosin Nagant M/28 rifle, which he chose after turning down the use of a scoped Mauser. He preferred to use the standard rifle sights of the M/28, allowing him to keep his head down, to ensure lens glare wouldn't reveal his position, and to avoid a scope lens from fogging up. He also froze the snow in front of his barrel to avoid dispersing the snow, which would reveal his position upon firing.

This soon garnered him the name of the "White Death". Not only that, but he had a possible 542 kills including those unconfirmed, and he had an extra confirmed 200 kills with a submachine gun. This brings the total deaths accredited to Simo to at least 705. And he did them all in under 100 days.

Finally, the Soviets got pretty upset with everyone dying and all, so they sent counter-snipers out after him. When they all turned up with a bad case of the deads, they began bombing the forests, but alas, Simo survived.

Until afterwards, when he was shot in the face by a Red Army soldier. Oh wait, he didn't die. He composed himself (again, after being shot in the face), and killed his attacker. When fellow soldiers found him, he had "half of his head missing". The bullet removed much of his left jaw and cheek, and he soon fell into a coma, waking nine days later on the same day the conflict ended (with Finland losing, probably because Simo wasn't around).

When asked decades later if he felt any remorse for the sheer number of enemy soldiers he killed, he said "I did what I was told to as well as I could". And how did he become so good? "Practice".

And then he lived until 2002.

Badass.