I realize this doesn't exactly comply with rule #1, but I believe this story deserves to be told to an international audience.

Nikke Pärmi was an officer of the Finnish Army during the WWII & the word "eccentric" doesn't do him justice. Baptized as Nikolai, he was born in 1887 in the town of Alahärmä & as a child he was spanked a lot, sometimes even "just in case" after a children's prank in the town even if he wasn't directly implicated; his record for spankings in one day is said to have been seven.

He served a couple years in prison for a drunken fight & during the Continuation War this experience prepared him for the command of an infantry battalion consisting of volunteers rounded up from prisons. In the understandably anti-Russian atmosphere of the immediate post-Independence period he wanted to change his name from Nikolai to Nikke, but when the Vicar of the parish was reluctant to allow it he, being an active service army officer, pulled out his pistol and asked the vicar what his name was & the vicar agreed that it was indeed Nikke.

His military career started in 1916 when he sneaked out of Finland to Germany in order to join what would become the Royal Prussian Jäger Battalion number 27, a unit formed out of Finnish volunteers in order to create the core of what would become the armed forces of Independent Finland, he participated in the Finnish Civil War as a platoon leader & stayed in the Army afterwards, retiring as captain at the mandatory retirement age of 50 in 1937, during the Winter War he served as a staff officer & in 1941, after the start of the Continuation War he was assigned as the commander of an infantry battalion formed out of volunteer convicts, it is said that when during the inspection of his new battalion one of the volunteers answered his question "what were you convicted for?" with "I killed a man", Pärmi replied "good, good, we need men with that sort of experience."

Pärmi had some eccentric habits, such as starting sentences with "tuota tuota" ("well well"-), only he always pronounced the letter "T" as "D" & predictably the men of his battalion started joking about it, at one point during the attack phase a group of his men with leftist sympathies decided to defect, leaving behind a note mocking the aforementioned peculiarity of Pärmi by saying "duoda, duoda, nytten teillä kävi huono duuri, sillä vaihdoimme naapurin puolelle" ("vell vell, now you are unfortunate as we have decided to switch to the neighbor's side"), but unluckily for them the battalion received orders to attack that day & the defectors were caught, when the poor bastards were brought in front of him he said to them " "Duoda, Duoda nydden deillä vasda dodella huono duuri kävi..." ("vell vell, now you are especially unfortunate...")

One time a soldier on stag was smoking a cigarette against orders when Pärmi showed up & the soldier hastily hid the still lit cigarette in the pocket of his overcoat, Pärmi feigned ignorance to this infraction while he warned the soldier to remain alert, then as he was leaving he told the soldier to take care not to light his overcoat on fire.

While he was still a captain in the '30s he once got into an argument with a major, who told him that he would never make major, let alone lieutenant colonel & if such a ridiculous thing were to happen, he would eat a hatfull of shit, so naturally when major Pärmi was promoted to lieutenant colonel he tracked down the major in question & called him, when the major answered the phone Pärmi greeted him with "lieutenant colonel Pärmi speaking, do you have a hat?", reportedly the major hung up on him.

At one point during the war the commander of another unit was complaining how hard it was to get replacements for his unit, to which Pärmi replied "You just don't have the right connections, when ever I find myself in need of a platoonful of men I pick up my phone to call the Kakola prison in Turku & say "send the second floor here!""

One time during the attack phase of 1941 the enemy counter-attacked in his battalion's sector & some of his men routed, Pärmi called another unit in his rear and said to the lieutenant who answered the phone "parts of my battalion are fleeing towards you, try to stop them, also there are also ruskis headed in your way, try to stop them as well."

There are so many more stories about him from the war that I can't recount them all here, instead I shall end with an anecdote from soon after the war when he was a manager at a factory where some communist workers had put up a portrait of Stalin on a wall & when they refused to take it down, saying the portrait would stay exactly where it is, Pärmi responded "how do you figure that will be possible after tomorrow when a doorway will be made in that exact spot?", reportedly the doorway was indeed made there on the day in question.