Another nice score, yokota57!

Photos from long story.

LONG story... All of us collected our bags and were placed on a Greyhound bus to Fort Knox for Basic Training, a 10 week training period for young civilians to learn how to become soldiers.   And so it began.....   Arriving in Ft Knox, KY, we were “processed” through the usual steps recruits went through- first being a GI haircut, This was the first time I began to see some guy's macho facade begin to crumble. *One seemingly rough- looking type with long flowing hair actually broke down crying when his locks were shorn! After a medical inspection, we stripped down to our shorts, it was a long wait in line for the next step, (a wait in line would become a frequent pastime).   At the end of that long line were medics giving us shots for smallpox and other diseases. Again, some couldn't stand the sight of a needle and passed out on the ground. I began to get the idea that for many, their lives were simply a theater performance. In the military you get to find out just who people actually are, including yourself.   Finally, dressed only in our underwear, we filed past supply sergeants who took a look at us and, with their practiced eye, issued us our uniforms in the proper sizes. A couple of fatigue shirts, pants, and combat boots. Then we received a pistol belt, an entrenching tool, a gas mask, poncho, shelter half, and empty ammo pouches. The all- purpose pistol belt was a web belt that had a pattern of eyelets so that accessories such as those mentioned could be quickly fastened on by their wire clips.   Soon after our arrival we were given tests that were designed to access our aptitude for various military jobs, everything from mechanics to Morse code to clerical ability. I think these were called the ACBT and the scores were entered into our “201” personnel files. These files traveled with us where ever we went.   We were organized into companies and then platoons, and marched, stumbling along as best we could, to our barracks. There were four platoons in a company, and I was in the First Platoon. After stowing our gear in lockers (uniforms had to hang in order, all facing left) we donned our new fatigues and boots and fell out in front of our barracks. At that time, we were introduced to our platoon sergeant, a short, stocky middle-aged veteran who was half Italian and half American Indian!. He was a very good man and all of us respected him.   Second platoon's sergeant was a slim black man who was not well liked and somewhat inexperienced in a leadership role. I can't remember one thing about third platoon, but fourth platoon was led by a tall, rangy sergeant who had been in actual combat during the Korean War. We all looked up to him and when he spoke, we listened intently!   Being the tallest man in the first platoon, I was selected to be the guidon bearer. I carried our platoon pennant on a long pole, and quickly learned when to raise it up and when it would be carried straight ahead. We learned how to fall in in four ranks, learned to “dress right and cover down”. This meant to line up even with the man on your right and directly behind the man in front of you. Proper posture training was another thing we learned- standing at attention, standing at ease, how to salute, etc. Memorizing our General Orders was important, as we were frequently asked “What is your Fifth General Order, soldier?” You had better know all of them!   A day or two later we began to practice close-order drill-- marching. Some guys just couldn't catch the rhythm and get in step with the rest of the platoon. One man in the fourth platoon was particularly inept (or stubborn) so the sergeant marched along beside him counting cadence and shouting “Left, left, left”. Still he was out of step, so the exasperated sergeant took off his helmet liner and pounded it on the guy's helmet every time he shouted “left, left...”. He fell into step quickly with this unique encouragement!   The route to the rifle range and other training locations were always up hill. We routinely marched up “Misery Hill” and “Agony Hill”. Some men fell out of formation, exhausted and waited to be picked up in a jeep. This was looked down upon by everyone else in the platoon as malingering. The final travail was “Heartbreak”, so named because around every curve in the road you expected to reach the top.. but the road kept going up.   After we were issued our rifles, we learned to disassemble them and clean them thoroughly. These were WW II vintage M-1 Garand rifles. My memory tells me that they weighed 9.1 pounds and mine was serial number 223845, Woe unto the trainee who had a dirty rifle or forgot his rifle's serial number. The serial number was the only thing that identified his M-1 from a couple of million other M-1s.   We marched to the rifle range and were introduced to a new training system called “Trainfire”. Instead of aiming at fixed bulls-eye targets, we were shooting at plywood targets that popped up by remote control. It was a good system, you needed to scan the area in front of your position and when a target popped up, you fired your rifle. When hit, the silhouette went back down. If no hit was registered within a very short time, it went back down and a “miss” was registered. I scored reasonably well and earned a Sharpshooter badge. There was always some bozo who blamed his rifle or its sights for his inability to hit anything. The range officer or NCO in charge always listened to his complaint, then took his rifle and demonstrated that it was in perfect working order. His excuse was ridiculed by other shooters on the range.   The first time at the grenade range, we were lounging around, waiting for our turn at practicing how to throw hand grenades when a grenade exploded downrange, out of our sight. There was dead silence for a few seconds and then ”shinola!”, “What was THAT?”, etc. None of us had ever heard a grenade go off. The only thing that anyone knew was from the movies or playing with firecrackers. We suddenly realized that this was serious business.   Our turn on the range began with general instructions on how a grenade worked, how to hold one in our hand, pull the pin, and how to throw. Throwing a heavy grenade required a technique somewhere between a shot put and a baseball throw. Next was an important warning, “Observe the strike and then duck down”. This was in case you threw the grenade but it hit a tree limb and if it bounced back at your feet, you could take cover. Each of us were handed a grenade in turn, and successfully overcame our imagined enemy. I marveled at the courage of the range instructor who stood behind us while a nervous recruit with shaking hands held on to an explosive charge that could kill them both.   After we had been training for a number of weeks, we could get a weekend pass to go into town- Louisville. Those who drew KP or guard duty were simply SOL. On Monday morning, one man was missing at reveille. Corporal Rodriguez from headquarters was reported as AWOL, Absent With Out Leave. Later, we found out why he was absent- in town he was discovered with someone's wife and her husband shot him dead. There is a lesson there...   Our Basic Training “final exam” consisted of an overnight bivouac and navigating the Infiltration Course, a length of flat ground strewn with hazards such as low barbed wire barriers and shallow pits where quarter pound blocks of TNT were detonated by remote control. An added feature was a couple of Browning 30 caliber water- cooled machine guns that swept fire only about 36 inches above the ground. Of course there were those who “knew” that the guns were only shooting blanks.   Those skeptics were proven wrong in dramatic fashion when the range NCO placed a 5 gallon jug of water on a slight rise at the end of the infiltration course and fired his machine gun. Spitting out 10 bullets per second, it blew the jug to pieces in a spectacular demonstration. Needless to say, we crawled over the course, keeping as low as we could get. Under the barbed wire it was necessary to turn over on our backs to raise the barrier high enough to wriggle under.   Crawling by a pit on your stomach when the TNT charge was detonated, literally raised your chest an inch or so off the ground and a shower of dirt cascaded off your helmet and down the back of your neck. We were all relieved to finally crawl out the other end of the course.   Our overnight bivouac was in the Ft Knox woods. We snapped our shelter halfs together to make a pup tent and after chow in the rain (lean over as far forward as you can to keep the rain off your rations...but it was a lost cause. Rain drained off our helmets into the Franks & Beans C-Rations on our steel trays]. Nights were chilly, so we snuggled into our sleeping bags and were soon sound asleep. During the night, I was awakened by the sound of engines and creaking tracks from an armored unit having a night exercise. I sure hoped they knew that we were there and that they knew where they were! Once heard, the sounds of a moving tank is unforgettable.   One final note: somehow our platoon was selected to perform a “fire and cover advance” technique for a group of high ranking NATO officers who were visiting Ft Knox. Our platoon assumed a position behind whatever cover we could find- rocks, trees, etc and the NATO officers observed our actions closely. The weather was miserable, it was raining and there was mud everywhere so we wore our ponchos. This type of advance was based on one squad of men firing their rifles from behind cover to suppress enemy fire while the the second squad sprang up from behind their cover and dashed forward, then taking cover. Next, the first squad did the same thing.   The key to springing up quickly from behind cover was to cock your leg, ready to push up and forward at the command “advance”. We had practiced this many times and I was ready to demonstrate our proficiency to these visiting officers. I crouched down behind a big boulder, a coiled spring waiting for the right moment to stand and lunge forward. “Cover”...Then came the command “Advance”. I thrust my right leg forward and stood up... almost. My boot was firmly planted on a corner of my poncho, so in one swift motion, I fell face first into a large mud puddle!   I felt humiliated by my performance and I'm sure that underneath that coating of mud, my face was red. The NATO officers were too polite to laugh.   Neil Albaugh, Basic Training Fort Knox, KY Oct 1960     In basic training in Ft Knox, KY, we had one lazy recruit who was notorious about not cleaning his M-1 rifle. Our platoon suffered from this guy's dereliction in almost every inspection. We were rewarded with extra duty, KP, and other penalties as a result. One morning, we fell out for Reveille and an inspection in front of our barracks. The Company Commander proceeded down the ranks, inspecting each man and his rifle. Finally, it was the laggard's turn to be inspected. He came to Attention, went to Order Arms, and then, to Inspection Arms, where, with a left hand, the rifle bolt is slammed back to open the action for viewing.   When the bolt was slammed open, a roll of peppermint Lifesavers flew out! Someone had loaded the Lifesavers into the M-1s spring-loaded magazine the night before, knowing full well that this bozo would never check it. After that episode, we never had another problem with that guy.   Having passed our test, we attended a parade and listened to officers giving speeches drone on. Then came the command “Pass in review” and we marched back to our barracks, now we had been elevated to the rank of Private E-1 where before we had only been Recruits.   After graduation from Basic Training at Ft Knox, KY, most of my company were then assigned to AIT- Advanced Infantry Training. Since I had enlisted for a specialty course and had it in writing, I was sent by train to Ft Monmouth, NJ, to the US Army Signal School to begin classes in Nuclear Weapons Ordnance Electronics. This course was to be about 12 weeks long and covered basic electronics with a couple of extra weeks to include radar.   I joined my future classmates in modern brick barracks, unlike the old WW II wooden barracks at Ft Knox. We even had air conditioning! After an orientation that gave us a brief history of the Fort and its facilities, we unpacked our barracks bags and hung our uniforms in our steel lockers. Towels, skivvies, and shaving kits all went into our footlockers at the foot of our bunks.   We were all supposed to be in our bunks at “Lights Out” at 2100 hours. The military uses a 24 hour clock system; 2100 hrs in civilian time would be 9 PM. Reveille the next morning was at 0530 and we had only a short time to brush our teeth, shower, and shave before forming up for roll call outside. It was always a scramble in the morning in the latrine, with so many men in a hurry to get prepared for the day. Note: The “bathroom” was known in the military by a few other names- the Army term was the “Latrine” while the Navy called it the “Head”.   After we were dismissed from formation, we headed for the mess hall for breakfast. We lined up, took our trays and silverware, and passed through a line in front of the counter where cooks dished out what they had prepared for us. It is popular for civilians to think that army chow is just barely edible but that is not true at all. The breakfast was healthy, hardy, and nutritious, if not fancy. The policy was “Take all you want, but eat all you take”. No one ever went away hungry. I think some fellows received the first really good meals in their life there. Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs and ham or bacon or SOS. Hot oatmeal was also available. We had our choice of coffee or whole milk, as well as toast. Outside, we were formed into our classes and marched to the classrooms where we were issued loose leaf notebooks, pencils, and the day's class notes. Name tags were also issued and finally we were introduced to our instructors, who were experienced NCOs. Classroom instruction began and lasted until lunch when we returned to the mess hall. Afternoon classes picked up where we had left off and continued until just before retreat. At retreat, all troops outside came to attention facing the flag, while a bugler sounded “Retreat”. Then back to the mess hall and the whole routine was repeated the next day.   When I was attending the US Army Signal School in Ft Monmouth, NJ, an inspection was announced that would take place in a few days. This would include the barracks as well as personnel so it was vital that the barracks needed to be scrubbed clean in preparation. To prepare, the latrine was polished, waxed, and shined well into the late evening a day ahead of the inspection and a Sgt sealed the door with tape and a sign "Do not use". Our company then had to use an adjacent company's latrine.   In the morning, an inspection team of officers arrived and began to check things over very carefully. Finally, they walked down the hallway to the latrine where the tape had been removed only minutes before. The Sgt was confident that their prior preparation would impress the team. In walked the officers, and they surveyed the impeccably clean latrine, from the toilet seats all upturned to precisely the same angles, to the polished chrome bathroom fixtures, to the waxed and polished white floor tiles. Only one thing marred this display.   Right in the center of the pristine floor lay a large turd. The inspection team did an about face and quickly left the building. Apparently during the night someone had sneaked into the latrine, pinched a loaf, and left unobserved. I never heard anything about what happened later, or if anyone was punished for this, but I am relatively certain that there were some interesting tales told that evening at the Officers' Club.   Finally, after a few weeks, three of us received a pass to travel off-post to nearby New York City for one day. In the morning, we signed out and traveled to the City by train into Grand Central Station to see the usual tourist sights. I had visited NYC before with my college roommate, Mike Seife, so some of these places were familiar.   I should mention that we were required to wear our “Class-A” uniforms whenever we were off- post from Ft Monmouth, so it was quite obvious that we were soldiers. Unlike a few years later, in those days the uniform gained a measure of respect from the public. We found a USO Club a few blocks from the train station and took advantage of a few tours that they offered. In the late afternoon, there was a tour scheduled of the CBS TV studio on 54th St so we signed up for it.   The instructions for that tour were to be at the corner of such and such, and a bus would pick us up at 1800 hrs (6pm). Off we went to wait at the corner for the bus. ...and wait...and wait. This late in the Fall, it was getting dark and cold and a few flakes of snow were blowing in the wind. Still no bus! Finally, I found a pay phone and dialed the USO to report that we had been waiting in the cold for over an hour but no bus ever showed up. I was put on Hold and then told to wait where we were and a taxi would pick us up and take us to the TV studio.   After a short wait, sure enough, a Yellow Cab drove up and we piled in. Apparently someone had told the driver where we were going as he pulled to a stop directly in front of the CBS studio. A man ran out, opened the cab door for us, and handed the driver a handful of cash. He escorted us into the studio, past the tourists watching the TV production being videotaped, and placed us in the scene! We were members of the audience in a TV production about the trial of the notorious NY gangster, “Legs” Diamond.   It was interesting seeing how a TV show was produced. After a taped scene, the director would say “Cut” and then go over the next scene with the actors. Sometimes he would explain a reaction he wanted from the spectators (us), with “murmur among yourselves” or "whisper excitedly”. We responded as best we could. Apparently it never dawned on the TV people that our uniforms were not contemporary with the days of Prohibition.. or maybe they thought nobody would notice.   A friend recently researched this TV production and found that it had been broadcast as “The Trial” by CBS on December 15, 1961.   One of the young actresses had apparently seen our escorted studio entrance and was impressed enough to believe that we were somebody important! During breaks in the scenes, she made it a point to be very, very friendly to us and, in other circumstances might have led to something. As it was, we were due back to Ft Monmouth by midnight so we reluctantly bid her adieu and headed back to the train station and the Fort. Ah, what might have been!   Another week or two and I was directed to report to the school Commanding Officer...woa! What's going on? I reported and was escorted in to the Commander's presence. Of course, I stood at attention, mentally going over what I may have done to bring on whatever was about to happen. The officer looked at me seriously for a minute and then said “Albaugh, I've been looking over your records and have talked to your instructors- you know this stuff already!”. He went on to say that my staying to complete the class would be a waste of time and that he would have me just take the final exam, and if I passed, I would be sent on to my next assignment! Wow! That is NOT what I expected. I took the final exam and passed easily, so I was off then to Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, AL.   At Redstone, I was assigned to a then-new Raytheon Hawk anti-aircraft missile unit that was in the initial stages of being formed. Again, we had comfortable brick barracks, but our new unit so far only had a couple of officers and NCOs, and a half- dozen enlisted men. We had no equipment and not even any manuals that we could study. In short, there was nothing for us to do, so we wound up combing the area, picking up cigarette butts and going on guard duty and KP.   There was no word about when we would actually be activated, so I walked over the the Arsenal Personnel office and explained that I would like a transfer to another unit or to a school. After a couple of trips there to plead my case, a Major told me “I've been reviewing your file, and it is clear that you belong in a school”. He enrolled me in the Ordnance Guided Missile School, in a class for Corporal Ground Guidance Repair. The Army's Corporal guided missile was a liquid-fueled missile that was just under 45ft long with a range of 80 miles (unclassified) and could carry a nuclear warhead. It was the first American artillery guided missile.       This was a very complex system that used pulse radar, Doppler radar, and inertial guidance. This course of instruction was one of the longest in the military. Classes began and they were excellent- good instructors and the course material was challenging. One instructor had been assigned from a Nike Hercules anti-aircraft missile unit in White Sands Missile Range, NM. At this time, a western TV show starring Richard Boone, “Have Gun, Will Travel” was very popular on TV, so he made up business cards that he passed out as a gag. "Have Nike, Will Travel- Wire Enos, WSMR, NM"   Off- duty, I was invited on a trip to some nearby caves to explore,and this resulted in my interest in caving later on.   The students in my Corporal class were a mixed bag of enlisted men, mostly PFCs, who were from all over the US. Many were from Hawaii and had never visited the Mainland. We had an early morning snowfall soon after the New Year and the Hawaiians went silly, running around the parking lot in front of the barracks, catching snowflakes on their tongues. They had never seen snow in their entire lives!   I'll describe one more inspection incident. In Redstone Arsenal we had a Saturday morning inspection by a Junior Officer who was notorious for NOT being a nice guy. While we all stood at attention, he went through our footlockers, threw our mattresses over, and worked himself up to a rage. Nothing satisfied him.   Finally he strode down the hall and went into the latrine. Of course, it was not acceptable to him either. At the top of his voice he expressed his displeasure by shouting "This place looks like a shithouse!". Almost immediately he remembered where he was, his face turned beet red and he hastily left the company area while laughter was breaking out in the ranks.   On Armed Forces Day in Huntsville, a few friends and I were off duty from the Ordnance Guided Missile School (OGMS) and we were standing on the sidewalk downtown waiting for the parade to start. There was a big crowd lining the sidewalks and when the parade finally got underway, with an honor guard bearing the colors leading the way, one by one, each military service marched by.   Next a unit of the US Navy Reserve came by, resplendent in their dress whites. Some old Army NCO among the onlookers (who probably had a few beers) peered at these Navy Reservists going by in the parade and yelled out "Well, I'll be God dammed- they finally got them cooks to march!".   Finally, graduation day and I was handed my certificate and declared the Top Graduate of the class by a Brigadier General.   I was also informed that I and my friend and fellow graduate, David Brummett, were to be retained at OGMS as instructors in the class that we had just finished. Before assuming duties as in instructor, it was necessary to enroll in Instructor's School to learn how to teach effectively and avoid distractions and mannerisms that would impair our ability to relate effectively to a student. It was a valuable experience that has convinced me that teachers in the civilian world would benefit from similar classes, particularly among college professors. It is not enough to know your subject, it is necessary to have the student understand what you are trying to teach him.   Teaching was a rewarding experience and I found that I was pretty good at it. Later in my career, this experience came in handy when I presented technical seminars for my employer, the Burr-Brown Corporation and Texas Instruments.   After only a few months, I had enough leave accrued to visit my parents in Corpus Christi, TX where my Dad had assumed command of a large Army aircraft overhaul facility in the middle of the huge Navy base there.   I drove Mother & Dad's 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk while visiting them. To enter the Navy base, a windshield sticker was required and a Marine guard checked each vehicle as it entered. An officer's sticker was a large blue decal placed in the left upper portion of the front windshield. I drove on base often enough that the Marine recognized me but he still looked at the blue sticker. Finally, on my last day there, I was in uniform as I approached the main gate and, with the driver's window down, I slid my elbow out far enough to show my PFC stripe on the sleeve. The Marine was NOT happy as he had been saluting me as an officer every other time.   While visiting, I received a telegram, informing me that Dave Brummett and I were to be suddenly transferred to Germany. I found out later that the Soviets had begun building the Berlin Wall and things were tense. Our defenses needed to be upgraded NOW and there was no time to wait for new missile graduates so we were cannibalized from OGMS to fill the needed slots in the 157th Ordnance Detachment, They were a direct support unit that was attached ti the 1st Missile Battalion, 38th Artillery, a part of V Corps. I did find it strange that with the urgent need for us, we were transported to Germany by ship rather than much faster by air.   On that troop ship, I found out why you never take the bottom bunk. We left from NY and sailed into the North Atlantic on the heels of a hurricane. It was so rough that the screws would regularly come out of the water as the ship pitched forward. Our bunks were directly aft and the rolling and pitching was violent. Sure enough, everyone retired to their rack and when they became seasick, no one could make it to the head, so they just hurled over the edge of their bunk. The poor guy in the bottom bunk was splattered by 4 guys above him on both sides!   Dave and I reported to the new Detachment Commander, Captain Jack I Hamilton. The Executive Officer was CWO Robert B Love. He had a habit of hearing someone's opinion and, if it was something that he wished he had said, he would simply repeat it. Our First Sergeant was a tall, older man and I confess that I can't remember his name. The shop sergeant was SSGT Roberto Garcia, whose nickname was “Pancho”. It didn't bother him but he asked to be called SGT Garcia around outsiders. SP5 Charles B Carroll was the Ground Guidance Section Chief, and the last was Sgt XXX, he was in charge of the arms room. He was a slender Black man from the island of St James and spoke with a heavy Caribbean accent. It was a good group and I was proud to be a part of it.   While our troop ship had been plowing across the North Atlantic, my 201 file had arrived in Babenhausen by air so they already had read it and knew everything about me. When I arrived, I found everyone somewhat stand-offish, which puzzled me for a while. Finally, I found out why- when they had pored over my records, they formed an opinion that I was a phony, a planted CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) agent sent to access their security measures. They believed that when my phony 201 file was created, someone over inflated my qualifications to guarantee that I would be accepted. After a short time, I was finally accepted for who I truly was, and the only thing I ever heard about it later was someone who asked “Is your father really a Colonel?”, and SP5 Carroll's comment to me “There's my replacement”.   As a Direct Support Detachment, it was our job to go into the field with the Battalion on Alerts and if something broke, to fix it.   On the day before Christmas 1961 in Babenhausen, a small town south of Frankfurt, I had drawn "CQ"- Charge of Quarters. At noon I went on duty in our Corporal missile detachment's orderly room, so now I was in charge of everything, including signing out everyone who was going off- post for visiting, partying, or Christmas shopping. One by one they came in that afternoon to sign out, most going into town but some going as far as Aschaffenburg or even Frankfurt, but everyone was required to sign back in by ten o'clock that evening.   I turned on the radio in the orderly room to listen to AFN Frankfurt playing Christmas carols. This was a big Zenith Trans-Oceanic radio that we all had clustered around to listen to live broadcasts of Project Mercury rocket launches. Being guided missile men we felt a special kinship to those at Cape Canaveral. Throughout the day on the hour AFN would announce "It is now Christmas in Guam" or wherever, advancing around the globe toward us in Germany.   Soon the sky was dark and as the evening wore on it became colder. In central Europe the climate in winter is cold and damp- the kind of cold that even my field jacket didn't keep out. Our unit shop area was an old World War One German cavalry building and the heating system was provided by a steam boiler, but the German maintenance man went off duty early, and without more coal, the heat dwindled slowly away to nothing. I wished I had zipped in my field jacket liner but it was too late, that was back in my locker in our barracks.   Slowly the men began to straggle back to sign in. A few staggered in, a bit worse for wear from Michaelsbrau, the local brew. By ten o'clock everyone had returned, signed in, and headed for the barracks and a warm bed. All over the kaserne things began to quiet down. No sound except the radio playing softly. Sitting at the First Sergeant's desk, I tried to stay awake. Sleeping on CQ duty is a serious offense but I also had to be alert enough to pick up the phone promptly if a call came in.   Sure enough, the phone rang "157th Ordnance Detachment, Spec 4 Albaugh speaking", and the response was "This is an Alert, authenticate xxxxxxx". I guess someone up the chain of command was making sure that even on Christmas Eve we were ready to go to war. Our mission was to defend the Fulda Gap, named for a small town located on the East-West German border where a Soviet armored attack would probably pass through. At that time the Fulda Gap was the most dangerous place in the world; both East and West had an untold number of nuclear weapons trained on Fulda. Fortunately, the call was only a communications exercise- no real alert so I could hang up the phone and relax.   The time slowly passed, sitting there behind the desk in the semi-darkness trying to stay warm and awake. My feet were cold so I got up and walked into the workshop area where we had our 5-ton operations van X-15, Captain Hamilton's jeep, and the arms room where our M14 rifles and a stock of fragmentation grenades were kept. We also were issued thermite grenades that even burned steel. If we fired all of our missiles, we would destroy everything and be used as riflemen.   I walked to the orderly room door and opened it to get a breath of fresh air to help stay awake. It had begun to snow! Big soft flakes of snow fell onto the rounded cobblestones outside and slowly melted, the wet stones reflecting the white light of a star that had been placed on the kaserne's water tower. There was no sound at all, everything was perfectly quiet as the snow fell. As I stood there alone in the doorway I thought of my family, thousands of miles away, probably still sleeping soundly in their warm beds, safe and sound. I prayed that it would always be so.   I turned to close the door and glanced at my watch. It was just past 12 midnight. It was Christmas, the loneliest one I ever experienced.   In 1962, we received a new man (FNG) and our company clerk discovered that he had been assigned to our unit by mistake- two numbers in his MOS had been miss-typed and transposed. SP4 Bill Dolan was sent to us as a Radar Repairman but his actual MOS was a Small Arms Repairman! Bill didn't know a thing about electronics, much less radar, so there was a problem finding him something to do while this mistake was being straightened out. We soon learned that Bill had a remarkable background. He had prior service in the USMC and had even attended Recondo School. He was also hysterically funny and never forgot a joke. He was also a very talented artist.   To pass time, Bill started drawing a comic strip about the US Cavalry in Southern Arizona in the post- Civil War years, He worked diligently on it, even creating color panels for a Sunday newspaper edition, but he eventually tired of it, stopped his work, and drifted off to something else. Bill was throwing his drawings away but I asked to have them and they were my treasure until they were lost in a move to a new house years later. One day I had retrieved some photos of our unit on a field exercise that I had taken to the e PX for processing and made the mistake of forgetting them in our barracks day room. Bill found my photos and proceeded to add captions. In the late Sixties, he drew cartoons for the Army newspaper in Viet Nam, the Stars & Stripes- his cartoon series was called “Up Country” by SFC Bill Dolan. I often wonder what happened to Bill and the other guys in my unit.   In the spring of 1962, I was made Ground Guidance Section Chief and I received a promotion to SP5 E5. To reach the rank of E5, it was necessary to appear before a promotion board, consisting of senior NCOs who quizzed me on the usual military things as well as on my specialty- missile guidance. For some critical MOS (Military Occupational Specialty, e.g. job description) the government had authorized “proficiency pay” of three grades- P1, P2, & P3. This granted an addition to base pay in order to retain highly qualified specialists. P3 was only theoretical as that highest grade had never been funded. I was awarded P2 and on the same Special Order, my friend, Dave Brummett was awarded P1.   Most people have never heard of the Fulda Gap. Fulda is a tiny town in Germany, located on the border of West Germany and East Germany, in a gap through the Vogelsberg Mountains. This flat plain would have been the invasion route of Soviet armored forces as their tanks rolled into West Germany and across Western Europe.   The Berlin Wall had been hastily erected around West Berlin so that refugees fleeing Communist East Germany and other Soviet satellite countries would be stopped. Tension was high in Berlin, especially- at one point, Soviet and American tanks faced each other at Checkpoint Charlie, ready to fire. Fortunately, JFK's senior advisor, Gen Lucius Clay, backed down the Soviets and their tanks withdrew.   Our battalion had, as it's primary fire mission, the defense of the Fulda Gap. Given an Alert phone call (and proper code confirmation), we all scrambled to assemble the entire unit out into the German woods. Shortly thereafter we would be given map coordinates to move into a firing position and prepare a missile for launch into the Soviet armor in the Fulda Gap. Wherever they went, we went. If something in the missile guidance system was not working, we fixed it.   The Corporal Type IIB was the most advanced of its type at that time- 44 ft 10in long, carrying a nuclear warhead. The ground guidance electronics system that directed it to its target was complex. This was before transistors came to replace the vacuum tubes that were the foundation of Corporal system.   We all now know that the Soviets did not attempt an invasion of Western Europe through the Fulda Gap or anywhere else but in those early days of 1961 to 1963 we were on the razor edge of war. I remember one Alert when we did not know if an attack was real- explosive charges were placed around our kaserne to destroy unneeded equipment. We were relieved to hear later that it had been another readiness exercise.   By February 1962, I had been in Germany for four months, long enough to feel accustomed to my new surroundings, to get to know the other men in our guided missile unit, and to buy a new car. VW had introduced a new series that was to eventually replace the ever- popular Beetle. This was the “VW 1500”, a four- place car that was more conventional-looking than the Beetle. My car was the “Notchback” version in “Anthracite”, a non-nondescript gray color.   It was a nice little car and in the first week I owned it, I walked over to the Babenhausen Snack Bar to get a cup of coffee early one morning. As I was going in the front door, I noticed a car just like mine in the parking lot. Suddenly the realization struck me “You dumb s---, that IS yours. I had driven over there the afternoon before, parked it, and went in. When I came out I was so used to walking back to our barracks that that's what I did- forgetting all about now owning a car! One of my more dopey stunts. I blamed it on “force of habit” but deep down inside I knew that it was a case of “brain fade”.   I wanted to travel to Berlin sometime while in Germany, so I made it a point to find out what the requirements were for an American enlisted man to travel there. It was surprisingly straightforward. First you had to have some accrued leave and second you needed your CO's (Commanding Officer's) approval. Some of my fellow GIs were interested in going to Berlin as well, so we planned our trip and submitted our request for written orders- also a requirement. Three fellows in my Section would go with me in my new car. It was February and it was bitter cold when we departed from the Babenhausen Kaserne, the little VW loaded with four GIs and our meager “luggage”.   My friend and former fellow instructor at the Guided Missile School in Redstone Arsenal, AL , Dave Brummett, was the first to sign up for this adventure but he bowed out early. The three who finally accompanied me were Terry “Oz” Nelson, Jim Nakamoto, and John Light. We headed out of the kaserne into the deteriorating weather and drove north toward Frankfurt.   The skies were dark and it was spitting freezing rain as I swung onto the Autobahn toward Kassel. As we droned on, it became clear that VW had improved some things in their new car but had overlooked the heater. The poor thing was operating full blast but hardly a BTU was in evidence- there was ice forming on the inside of the windshield! To make matters worse, the headlights were getting dimmer and dimmer. It was clear that we could not continue without finding out what was wrong.   At the first available Restplatz I pulled in, stopped, and we piled out to see why the headlights were so dim. The headlights themselves were working fine, they were simply covered by a thick layer of ice! After some time in the still air the heat from the lights melted the ice, restoring them to full brilliance and we were off again. We resigned ourselves to wiping the inside of the windshield with our gloved hands, and every so often pulling over to check the headlights. There was nothing we could do to improve the measly little VW heater.   In the early morning light we saw the town of Helmstedt ahead. It is a small town just southeast of Wolfsburg where my car and every other VW had been made. Helmstedt would probably not be of great importance except for the fact of its being the first stop on the main highway route to Berlin. From this border crossing point you are driving through East Germany until you reach the other end- West Berlin. In true military jargon, this first Helmstedt checkpoint was “Checkpoint Alpha”; the next at the entrance to Berlin was “Checkpoint Bravo”. I think you can see how Checkpoint Charlie got its name.   I pulled up to a small white building with a large sign that identified it as the “Allied Checkpoint” This checkpoint was manned by military police (MPs) from the USA, Great Britain, and France. We went in and presented our military ID cards and our written orders. After checking our paperwork carefully were given an “orientation briefing” as to what to expect further on. Since we would be driving through the Soviet controlled portion of East Germany, we devoted our full attention to what we were being told.   First, the barrier by this building would be raised and my car would be waved through. From this point we would be in the East! We were told that a hundred meters or so down the road there would be another checkpoint but told NOT to stop even if we were directed to stop! If we were forced to stop the car, demand to speak to a Soviet officer. It seemed that the East Germans had installed this checkpoint in violation of the Potsdam Four Party Agreement and since its existence was illegal, we (the Allies) did not recognize it as legitimate.   We were instructed to stop at the next one, a Soviet checkpoint, and go inside and present our papers. After that we would be allowed to continue on toward our destination- West Berlin. I, as the driver was cautioned that there was an unreasonably low speed limit (50 Km/h) on this East German autobahn and our departure time from Helmstedt would be recorded and likewise our arrival time in Berlin. If we arrived too soon I would get a speeding ticket and if we were seriously overdue, an armed patrol would be dispatched to find us. This was serious business.   After this briefing was over we got back in the car and were waved through. The Soviet checkpoint looked similar to the one where we had our briefing, at least on the outside. Inside, there was no furniture, only an empty room with a picture of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin on its stark whitewashed walls. In the opposite wall there was a small sliding panel, about a foot square. All four of us entered and I knocked on the panel as previously instructed and after a minute the panel slid open and a hand presented itself, presumably he was demanding (in Russian) to see our paperwork. We all surrendered our documents, the panel slid shut, and we waited.   We had been warned that the Soviet authorities used the most trivial excuse to inconvenience and annoy Allied forces- to the point that if your ID card read “John H Jones” but your orders were written as “John H. Jones”, you would be refused passage on to Berlin. They were as nit picky as that but our paperwork was all correct so after fifteen minutes or so, the panel slid open again and the hand returned them to us. A surly Soviet soldier raised the barrier and we were off to Berlin- finally! The Autobahn through East Germany was poorly maintained and it required attention to driving to avoid the pot holes in the “Peoples Paradise”. The slow 50 Km/h speed made the drive even more excruciating. Occasionally something we encountered gave us something to laugh about, such as a crudely lettered banner hung above an autobahn overpass that read “Ami Go Home”. As we were to find out in the next few days, the Communists were big proponents of propaganda posters and slogans.   After a while, we came to a Restplatz and I turned into it and stopped. We were all ready for a smoke break anyway, so we walked around, stretching our legs. Someone- I forget who- had the bright idea of gaming the system as far as the speed limit was concerned. We could drive at a faster, more reasonable speed and then pull into a Restplatz and kill some time. Brilliant! Armed with this new approach and feeling smug about our defying Communist authority, we motored on.   Seeing no VOPO (Volkspolizei- “Peoples' Police”) cars on this part of the Autobahn, I sped on down the road for a while and then turned into another Restplatz to kill time and smoke. I pulled up and parked behind a heavy truck bearing East German license plates. Maybe I should mention that my car bore the license plates that were issued to us in West Germany; those read “US Forces” across the bottom and clearly identified us as Americans. Of course, being in uniform only further identified us to the Germans.   While we waited for time to pass, the truck driver walked back to my car, perhaps intrigued by my license plate, and greeted us in German. We answered in a version of German that probably amused him but he was too polite to show it. I offered him one of my Viceroy cigarettes ($2 a carton in the PX) and he eagerly accepted an American cigarette. I have always been surprised at how many foreigners were aware of the high quality of “Virginia tobacco” in our cigarettes. North Carolina tobacco was also held in high regard.   We managed to speak in fractured German. The truck driver was interested in my new car and looked it over very carefully. “What car is this?” he asked. A “Volkswagen- VW” I answered. He thought about that and then asked “Where was it made?” Questions like this revealed how little people who lived in the East Zone were allowed to know about the outside world. “ Bundesrepublik (West Germany)” I replied. More deep thought. Those questions were followed by more- how fast would it go? How much did it cost? Suddenly he looked far down the road at an approaching car, said quickly in German “The police are coming!” and hurried back to his truck and unlatched a built-in tool box on the side of his truck. Taking out a couple of large wrenches he acted like he had stopped to repair a problem. We watched as a VOPO patrol car drove slowly by, eyeing us all suspiciously. I guess we didn't look too sinister or up to no good so they continued on their way down the Autobahn.   As soon as the VOPOs were out of sight, the truck driver put away his wrenches, shut his tool box, and walked back. We continued talking for a while until I thought we had burned up enough time and we wished the driver “gute Fahrt” (I know, it sounds funny but it means “Have a good trip”) As we left, I gave the driver the rest of the pack of Viceroys. The remainder of the drive across East Germany was uneventful. We did a quick calculation of the distance and the times that would be recorded for us and it showed that we had driven within the speed limit (!) so we would be safe.   Checkpoint Bravo , the entrance to West Berlin was larger than the one in Helmstedt and there were lots of commercial vehicles as well as cars passing through in and out of Berlin. This was a busy checkpoint but the procedure was the same as before, only performed in reverse. At the final Allied checkpoint we were time checked, cleared, and asked if we had observed any military vehicles or troop convoys along our route.   We had not, so the barrier was lifted and we drove into West Berlin- into the American Sector.   As a result of the Potsdam Four Powers Agreement mentioned earlier, the once-great city of Berlin, Germany's former capital, had been divided into four parts, administrated by each of the signatories- the USA, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. In the Western part of Berlin there was free travel between the US, British, and French sectors. Aside from a sign indicating a sector boundary, there were no dramatic differences between sectors such as those seen in the Soviet sector. Below the surface there were perceptible differences between Allied sectors, however. The most prosperous and vibrant sector was the American, followed by the British and then the French. Still, even in those places the damage inflicted by the War had been or was in the process of being rebuilt.   Following our map I drove across the city to find a hotel where we planned to stay, the “Hotel am Zoo”. I think we saw it mentioned in a magazine somewhere. We found the hotel, a nice looking building located near where the once-famous Berlin Zoo had been before the war. At the end of the war, things were so desperate that Berliners were reduced to eating the Zoo animals to stay alive. Thankfully, those days lay 16 years in the past.   We walked into a modern, well appointed lobby and inquired about available rooms. Yes, rooms were available for us at a rate of DM xxx. I forget what it was but it was out of our league as enlisted men so we left and continued our search. Later I learned that Hotel am Zoo was a well-known lodging place for movie people and celebrities when they were in Berlin. Oh, well. We found lodging in a very large old house in Spandau. It offered private rooms and was both quiet and inexpensive...perfect.   Although the weather had improved some, it was still cold and a little snow still covered parts of the city. We wasted no time in driving around to see the sights- the Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of Berlin , the old Reichstag building, the Soviet War Memorial built in West Berlin by the Soviets as a memorial to themselves. This memorial featured the first T-34 tanks to enter Berlin (alleged); this memorial was guarded by Soviet soldiers who marched back and forth in front. Amusingly, out in front of a barbed wire barrier, British soldiers walked guard for the Soviets inside the barrier.   The infamous Berlin Wall had been erected in the early Fall of 1961 but things had changed dramatically since then. In fact, at Checkpoint Charlie in October, Soviet and American tanks faced each other at virtual gunpoint, loaded with live ammunition. The slightest misstep might have resulted in WW III but the Soviets eventually backed down and withdrew, thanks to the resolute Berlin commander General Lucius Clay, a tough, no-nonsense American officer. Of course we had to visit this famous site.   We made it a point to travel around the West side of as much of the new Berlin Wall as we could. I wanted to take pictures of what it looked like in various places for the wall had been has erected hastily and with different materials (it was not the neat high concrete wall of later years). In fact much of the “wall” consisted of only a barbed wire barrier. Wooden guard towers and observation posts were placed at intervals along this barrier and armed Soviet troops patrolled regularly. I took lots of pictures with my old Canon 35mm camera.   The following day we drove to Checkpoint Charlie, the main East-West crossing point and presented our ID cards and orders to the MPs stationed there. Since we were in uniform and possessed the proper documents, we were permitted to proceed into the East. Along the “no-man's land” strip between the US checkpoint and the Soviet Checkpoint there were horizontal steel barriers that would be raised, allowing a vehicle to pass and also traffic barriers forcing a vehicle to zig-zag through. Armed guards were everywhere, always on alert for suspicious activity.   I learned later why some of these precautions had been put in place. It seems that a young man from West Berlin had a fiance who was trapped in the East when the Wall went up overnight. Being rather clever, he surreptitiously measured the height of the horizontal steel barriers as he walked through on his way to visit her. Now knowing what would fit under, he researched his possibilities and found that a British Austin-Healy Sprite, a tiny two-seat sports car, would just barely fit under the barrier if its windshield was folded down flat. Fortunately there was a car rental agency in West Berlin that had a Sprite. He rented the car and, possessing the necessary paperwork, drove East through the checkpoint without incident. Once in East Berlin, he picked up the girl, folded the windshield down, and headed back to the crossing point. For some reason, the guards did not notice that the windshield had been lowered, or perhaps they did not imagine the implications of what had been done, but they were allowed to pass through the first stages of the Soviet checkpoint. Once clear, he rocketed forward, ran under the steel barrier and was in the West before any guard could react!   Of course, such a stunt was widely covered by the press, news that would embarrass the Soviets and East Germans. Incredibly, the next week another young man rented the exact same car and pulled the very same stunt on the red-faced officials. This was too much egg on their faces, so the barriers that I described above were added to this vital crossing point.   As an aside, if any reader is interested in what Checkpoint Charlie was really like, I'll point you to the opening scene of the excellent film “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold”, starring Richard Burton. This is the most authentic representation that I have ever seen, as is the whole movie's depiction of the drab, colorless life in the East. See it!   Driving in East Berlin required vigilance. A violation of the law could bring serious consequences whether intended or not. I was careful at stop signs (“Halt”), speed limits, parking regulations, etc. I carefully drove over to the Garden of Remembrance, a beautiful park-like area with a huge round base and a giant statue of a female figure with a sword, holding a dying soldier. The translation was “Mother Russia Grieving For Her Lost Sons”, a reference to the millions lost fighting the Germans on the Eastern Front in WW II. Inside the large monument base was a ceiling made of stained glass, illuminated and impressive.   We walked back to the parking lot and at the car, encountered a boy of about nine or ten. He had seen us and knew we were Americans. “Haben sie Shokolade?” (Do you have chocolate?) he asked tentatively. I had brought a bag of candy from the PX along for snacks so I opened the car door and grabbed a couple of candy bars for him. He looked around ( I began to recognize a pattern among East Germans- they had to be careful of who was watching them) and saw a man wearing an overcoat standing across the street. “Nein, nein..” (“No, no...”) he said quietly, followed by “He will come with the police” in German. I understood and did not hand him the candy bars until that man walked on down the street out of sight. The boy then gladly accepted the treasures. This was yet another example of how fear was such a big part of living in a Communist system; they were always watched and could be reported by informants.   It was a peculiar situation. We were American soldiers, ostensibly their “enemy”, or so they were told, yet the East Germans were not afraid of us, they were afraid of their own government. One thing I thought of that might help explain their attitude, at least a little. It was the existence of a first class radio network in Germany and in Berlin. AFN, the American Forces Network, had been set up in Europe after the end of WW II to bring news and entertainment to the troops stationed there. Since the AFN programming was so appealing, particularly the music, a large following developed among the local people as well. Those who spoke English could also hear news from around the world on their radios.   Totalitarian governments such as the Soviets did not want their people to hear anything but the “party line” so they invested a lot of resources in trying to jam the AFN broadcasts as well as international short wave stations. The jamming results were spotty, sometimes they were effective in blotting out everything, but at other times the radio signals came through and people in the East were able to hear news from “the other side”. These broadcasts helped others to practice their English while many just listened to the music- a new, exciting style, in sharp contrast to what they were used to hearing on State-run radio.   In East Berlin, there was one modern-looking street that was used as a location for Communist propaganda films- “Stalin Allee”. Later, when Stalin fell out of favor, it was changed to “Karl Marx Allee”. Just behind this modern-looking thoroughfare, the skeletons of bombed\out buildings still stood. Work parties of “Volunteer” labor were engaged in clean up crews. This one, all girls, were more interested in us than in working. They were scolded by their party supervisor.   We had exchanged some of our Deutschmarks at a bank in West Berlin for Ost (East) Marks, the currency of East Germany and East Berlin, as we had anticipated doing some shopping while we were there. The exchange rate then was eight East Marks for one West Mark. I had hoped to buy a nice Praktica 35mm camera or perhaps a good pair of Zeiss binoculars. East Germany still had a reputation for producing high quality optical products even though things had changed since the War. Zeiss, for example had now become two separate companies that still used the same names, one was in West Germany while the other was in East Germany! There was Carl Zeiss in Wetzlar and Carl Zeiss in Jena. I soon found that this was moot.   The largest department store in East Berlin was the state-run Centrum on Alexanderplatz. We prowled its aisles, looking for treasures and souvenirs to take home. I picked out a nice pair of binoculars and gave the clerk behind the counter the cash in Ostmarks. She excused herself for a minute and returned with a supervisor who spoke to me in English. “The government requires a receipt from an East Berlin bank showing that you exchanged your Marks at an exchange rate of one-to-one.” This was crazy- no one in their right mind would do that when you could get eight times that much in the West. That was it, no receipt, no binoculars, so we left the Centrum disappointed and empty-handed.   We did, however find a few other souvenirs. In an electronics shop, I bought a Neumann condenser microphone without currency exchange problems. In a State-run bookstore, I bought a few Soviet made LP records of songs by Paul Robeson, a turn-coat American opera singer who left the US to live in the USSR. Also, I found a beautifully printed coffee table book of oil paintings that hung in a museum in Leipzig (a gift for my Mother), and a small book called “Panzer der NATO”. This little book gave information on NATO tanks and armored vehicles, including drawings of vulnerable places in their armor! When I tried to pay the cashier, there was a BIG problem. Not over currency exchange, but it was whether I could purchase the small book. Managers were consulted, and phone calls were hurriedly placed. Eventually, someone made a final decision- I could buy everything.   By then it was just past noon and we drove around, scouting for a reasonable-looking restaurant for lunch. I noticed a promising- looking restaurant with an intriguing name- “The Bucharest”. None of us knew anything about Romanian food but it was worth a try, so I parked and we went in. Just inside there was a short entrance way where the Maitre D' stood, beyond there it opened up into a large dining room, where noon diners were busy eating and talking. I held up four fingers indicating that we were a party of four, his expression was one of uncertainty and visible distress but his professionalism triumphed and he escorted us into the dining room.   This is the picture of what happened- a room full of people busy enjoying their lunch and in walk four American soldiers in full Class-A uniform. The effect was surreal, suddenly the room was deathly quiet and everyone in the room was studying his plate in front of him. Not one person looked up. It reminded me of a scene from an old Western movie where the bad guy walks through the swinging doors of a saloon, the piano stops and everything gets quiet. It was that dramatic! We were led to a table that was already occupied by one man but, as was the European custom, we were seated at his table.   I had never seen a person so frightened; his face literally turned white and he never looked up again at any of us. His hands shook so badly that he could hardly hold his coffee cup and when he set it back in his saucer, it rattled like castanets. I felt sorry for this fellow who was so scared to be seen close to Americans. How could people live like this? He quickly finished his meal, bolted away from the table and disappeared. In the meantime a waiter had appeared to take our order and we each selected something on the menu that sounded promising. By sign language he inquired as to what we wanted to drink. On the menu there was a Soviet beer listed and, since we had never had a chance to try one, we ordered it. Again a distressed look and he indicated that they did not have it at that time. I asked for his recommendation for a good beer and he suggested a brand of Romanian beer. This was also something new to try so we each ordered one beer with our lunch.   After a short time lunch was served along with a bottle of beer and a glass. We inspected the label carefully, never having seen a Romanian beer before, much less tasted one. Someone spotted “alcohol inhalt 18%” (contains 18% alcohol). Good grief! We had never even heard of such a thing but here it was in front of us. The taste turned out to be similar to a fine German brew but at 18% we were sure we were not going to have more than one... and be damned careful at that. Getting drunk in East Berlin was something you didn't even want to think about. We finished and gave tips for the waiter that probably matched his whole month's salary and left the silent folks to resume their interrupted lunch.   After lunch we felt like walking a bit, so we strolled along the sidewalk, looking at the displays in the store windows. Here I noticed another peculiarly German characteristic. When we would stop to look in a store window, others would stop to see what we were looking at. Soon there would be a good sized crowd standing behind us. These people, like other East Berliners, did not want to be seen looking directly at us so they would look at our reflection in the glass window. Another manifestation of fear.   At one point on our walk, I heard people behind me speaking in a language that certainly was not German. I looked and saw that it was a group of Soviet soldiers who were checking out our uniforms and us as well. They discussed this and that but when one discovered our unit crest on our shoulders, he excitedly pointed them out to his comrades. The pitch of their voices betrayed excitement and perhaps a measure of concern. Our crest was an enameled brass emblem showing a rocket surrounded by an atom symbol. This represented our guided missile, a Corporal Type IIB, and its nuclear warhead. Heavy stuff, indeed. They looked at us with renewed interest and an air of something... a bit of respect, maybe. In any case they eventually drifted off down the street still talking. It was one time that I wished I had been able to speak Russian so I could understand what they had been saying.   All too soon our leave was ending and we had to retrace our route back to Helmstedt via the Autobahn, using the same ruse as before and passing all the checkpoints in reverse order. On our return the better weather made the trip much more pleasant and eventually I turned into our Kaserne gate in Babenhausen. Our trip was over but we had certainly had an experience we would never forget- a look at what was over there in the darkness. A grim, forbidding place without joy or happiness. A prison. I took my film to the PX to be processed and a few days later I saw the slides, all very dark. To my dismay, I found that my camera's shutter had been stuck on 1/200th of a second- far too fast for a good exposure. Oh, well- that meant I had to go back to Berlin again when I got the chance.   On March 15, 1962, Joe Pinto, a fellow GI in my missile detachment, received an emergency message to report to the Red Cross office in Aschaffenburg, about 25 km from our kaserne in Babenhausen. Our shop Sergeant, SSGT Roberto Garcia, assigned Joe a jeep and told me to accompany him there. It was a cold winter and there had been only a few warm days so far that year. It was still early in the morning when we started out from the motor pool in the jeep, an M38A1 model, with Joe driving and me riding as a passenger. Out of the Kaserne main gate we turned right on Route 26, the road toward Aschaffenburg. It was cold and the canvas top of the jeep provided little protection against the bitter wind blast as we drove on.   At a point where the road entered the forest, the pavement was in the shadow of the trees. No sunshine had yet warmed the roadway so it was a shock when the jeep suddenly spun to the left. Joe turned the steering wheel quickly but then it spun back and repeated this maneuver again. It was "black ice", a perfectly clear, invisible coating of ice. We slid sideways toward the edge of the shoulder and I could see trees fast approaching my side of the jeep. I had a vision of a fatal impact with a tree just before things totally blanked out. It's strange how a person's mind can erase a moment of panic, probably as a way of protecting one's self.   The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back, under the overturned jeep; it had hit the dirt going sideways and had literally rolled around me. I was lying between the bottom seat cushion and the flattened canvas top, squashed down on the frozen ground below. Had it not been for the spare tire mounted on the back and a large radio above the right rear fender holding up the jeep just far enough, I would not have survived. My right foot was trapped between the flattened windshield, cowl and the frozen ground so I could not escape and gas was starting to leak out of the fuel tank.   I looked for Joe and saw that he was in far worse shape than I was. He was lying on his back, face up with the jeep's cowl lying on his head! I thought he must be dead as he was lying perfectly still and not breathing. I struggled to free my boot without success. Suddenly, two faces appeared under the jeep, speaking German. Another car had seen the accident and had managed to stop and came to our aid. Then two American GIs in a "Duce-and-a-Half" (a 2 1/2 ton Army truck) also stopped to help. One of the GIs grabbed a mattock from his truck and dug the frozen ground from under my boot and I scrambled out from under. Together we all lifted the jeep up and one of the Germans dragged Joe from under the jeep. His face was crushed in and he was bleeding back down into his lungs, filling them with blood.   Joe Pinto owes his life to this unknown German who knew that under these circumstances, a patient must be turned up on his side rather than lying on his back so the blood only goes into one lung instead of both. I assume this must have been something he learned during the War. It had been only seventeen years after the end of WW II and here was a German who was saving the life of an American, a truly kind act on his part. Somehow an ambulance was dispatched from Babenhausen and it slid a hundred feet to a stop on the ice. Joe was quickly taken back to the Kaserne dispensary where a doctor performed an emergency tracheotomy and he was flown by helicopter to the 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt. He was treated and pulled through, although his injuries required a long recovery. I was lucky, I walked with crutches for long enough to grow to hate them but otherwise I was OK. If a Soothsayer ever tells you "Beware the Ides of March"... believe him!         “Zum Hanauer Tor” was my favorite place in Babenhausen to while away off-duty hours in 1962. This was a quiet neighborhood gasthaus which was within walking distance from our Kaserne and where the clientele were mostly locals. Other bars in town such as “The Glass Haus” catered to American GIs but they were loud, overcrowded and had little attraction for me. There was a group of older German men who frequently gathered there in the Zum Hanauer Tor in the evening. After some time, I discovered that they were veterans of the Afrika Korps from WW II. I struck up a conversation with my fractured German and a few spoke some English.  They were an interesting group and accepted me as just another soldier- no rancor or bitterness. It was a unique experience.       In 1962 we were expecting to be sent to Ft Bliss in Texas as usual for our annual missile firing practice & qualification but word came down that we would not be returning from Germany to the United States that year. Instead, we would be flown to a British Royal Artillery range in the Outer Hebrides Islands. This news was disappointing as we were all looking forward to a trip to "The Land of the Big PX" but it did send us scrambling to a map to see just where the Outer Hebrides were located.   We found that it was a group of small islands located off the northwest coast of Scotland, out in the Atlantic. We were to transport all of our equipment to the range in the Hebrides, unlike previous training in Ft Bliss, where we used their existing guided missile range installation facilities such as radar, computer, etc. This change required the Air Force to fly us and tons of vehicles and electronic equipment from Germany to the Island. We loaded everything aboard huge USAF cargo planes at Rhine-Main Air Force Base and took off. It was an uneventful flight if you don't consider the anxiety of sitting in a canvas seat right alongside a 5- ton van chained down to a cargo track. As the plane flew through turbulence, the chains rattled and strained but they held. The scariest part of the flight was the landing at the Benbecula Aerodrome, a fairly short runway constructed by the British on the main island of the Outer Hebrides. The AF pilots did a skillful job of landing on this runway- brakes on, reverse props, and use the whole available length of the airfield!   We were billeted in a British Army barracks and were served by the British mess hall during most of our stay there. Mutton for breakfast, mutton for lunch. mutton.... I managed to exist by supplementing this diet with Cadbury chocolate bars from the NAAFI store. There was a mobile snack bar truck that ran up and down the island every once in a while so I checked out what they had to eat aboard and found pies! I bought one and carried it back to the barracks, eagerly anticipating the nice fruit pie. I bit into it and immediately spit it out- Blood Pudding! Arrrggghhh! We were glad when the USAF flew us in some C-rations. We successfully launched our first Corporal Missile and the British radar station on the small rock island of St Kilda scored it as a hit.   Off duty there was little to do on the islands (the three Outer Hebrides Islands were North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist). The population was small and the principal occupation was in raising sheep and selling wonderful hand-made woolen fabrics. These folks were known as "crofters". Some days we tried fishing.   One afternoon I stopped at a crofter (McGillivray & Croy) to see his wares and maybe buy some woolen goods. I found a great heavy wool cloth with a tartan of "Hunting Frazier". I still have the shirt I had made of it. To walk back to our barracks, I saw that I could take a shortcut across a field to save time so I set off across it. As I walked along the ground became wet and slushy so I thought I would keep my shoes from getting too wet If I ran across. Bad idea- it turned out to be a peat bog! Of course I fell in up to my waist and the British troops had great fun when I walked back up the company street. "Haw Haw- the Yank fell in a bog!!" Oh, well. Later I had a laugh at some drunk British troopers who were trying to get their mate to into a bathtub (the British had tubs instead of showers) but he was cursing, fighting and proclaiming at the top of his lungs that "I am not about to bathe in the bloomin' shark-infested waters!"   Our next to last missile was a night launch but it misfired on its launcher. When the “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” countdown reached "Zero", nothing happened except a huge cloud of orange- the count continued alphabetically up to about "J" and the launch was stopped. We later found that a burst diaphragm in the fuel line to the combustion chamber had not fractured which allowed only oxidizer to enter the rocket motor and blow out the exit nozzle. The oxidizer was Red Fuming Nitric Acid (RFNA) which was highly corrosive and it created a repair nightmare. To inert the missile, a sergeant was sent up to the nose of the missile to remove a set of batteries. While he was thus occupied, a very strong gust of wind blew the extended arm of the cherry picker hard enough to shear a pin and the arm swung around full circle with the sergeant clutching the basket, and it hit the fueled missile with a loud "clang". The missile rocked back and forth on its launcher as we all held our breath. Fortunately it settled back and a major disaster was averted.   My crew and I worked all through the night repairing the damage caused by the acid and when we finally finished a launch was attempted again. This time it fired, rose majestically into the air passing through a few low thin clouds and the disappeared in a flash and a distant "boom". All that hard work and it blew up! Later we heard the whole story- the British Range Safety Officer switched on his transmitter and the "destruct " switch was "On" accidentally and when the tubes in his transmitter warmed up, a destruct signal was transmitted to the missile and it was destroyed. Later we were informed that the radar on St Kilda had been tracking it and since it was on the proper trajectory, we were awarded a "hit". We were all elated and on the way home we tied upturned brooms to the vertical exhaust pipes of our trucks like the WWII submariners did, signifying "A Clean Sweep". We were the best missile unit in the whole world!   In the spring of 1963, I drove to Berlin again and took 35MM color slides with a new camera That I purchased at the PX. I retraced some of my earlier trip around the Berlin Wall. At one place, I noticed a young German man with his arm bandaged and in a sling. He was accompanied by a young woman. So I asked if I could take their picture. In conversation, the girl told me that she was the young man's cousin and she had taken him out of the hospital that morning where he has been recovering from two bullet wounds .   The story is now somewhat well known, Wolfgang Engels was a 19 year old East German soldier whose Grandmother lived in the West. Wolfgang was unhappy being separated from her and hatched a plan to escape to the West. A new East German unit moved into the area where he was stationed, equipped with new Soviet 9 ton armored cars.   Engels owned an East German version of a pre-war BMW and drove it to work one morning, The armored car crew came over to look at his car, and in turn, showed him their armored car, complete with a demonstration of how to start it and shift the transmission. When the crew left for lunch, Wolfgang jumped in, started it, and drove away! At intersections, East German police even changed traffic lights for him as he drove across the city toward the Wall. Along the way, he spotted a group of teenagers, stopped, and yelled “I'm going to the West, who wants to come?” They all thought it was a trick and refused.   As he neared the wall, he floored the throttle and hit a small concrete barrier at full speed, then continued on to crash into the wall. Due to that small barrier's scrubbing off a little speed. the armored car only went part way through the Wall. Wolfgang opened the driver's door, clambered up on the hood to climb over, when he was shot twice by an East German border guard. As he was hanging in the barbed wire on top of the wall, West Germans in a nearby bar, hearing the gunfire, went outside to investigate. They immediately pulled Wolfgang over into the West Zone and carried him into the bar, where he was laid out on a table, unconscious. When he awoke, he said that he looked around, saw the labels on the liquor bottles and then knew that he had made it into the west!  He was rushed to a hospital, needing immediate surgery. Here was a small miracle... a prominent thoracic surgeon had come in that evening to have his broken leg treated and he took Wolfgang into the OR and saved his life!   In 2012, I found him on the internet and I sent him a message about meeting him and his cousin at the wall in 1963, along with the photo that I has taken that morning. I received a very nice reply and he invited my wife and I to visit him at his home in Soltau to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of his escape. We were there in April 2023, met him and his wife Doris, and a handful of close friends. It was a very moving experience.   In mid-1963, our artillery unit was deactivated, as it was being replaced by a new, solid fuel missile that was more mobile and far simpler. Some of us were transferred to Fliegerhorst Kaserne in Hanau to the 172nd Direct Support Detachment, a rout-step outfit that was commanded by a First Lieutenant. I was there when President Kennedy visited and saw him review the troops from his Lincoln Continental. Set up on the field were many tanks and two of our Corporal missiles their transporters. From Fliegerhorst, he flew to West Berlin, where he delivered his famous speech “Ich bin ein Berliner” Unfortunately, including the word “ein” changed the whole meaning of that declaration to “I am a doughnut”.   When, at the end of July, my ETS (End Term of Service) was imminent, I flew back to the US for discharge. My career in electronics after my military service was largely due to the training and experience that I received while in the US Army. As I look back on that time long ago, I am proud of the part that I and my men played in keeping the peace there.      

That’s always been the most likely scenario IMO, simply because I’ve never been able to find any other examples with that star.  Thanks so much for the Reply! 

At least this one part I don't have to worry about 🤭 While my jeep has been equipped in the field with a black-out light on the fender and a trailer socket, it never had a jerrycan holder fitted.         'Some assembly required' 😇    

That’s always been the most likely scenario IMO, simply because I’ve never been able to find any other examples with that star.  Thanks so much for the Reply!

I’m grateful for his favor finally haha (I usually take it in the you know where…) 

The only thing I know is that the dealer that has the knife and sold me the jumper is from the Seattle area. Roberts was in Seattle and Bremerton at some point in his Navy career according to the muster rolls.

yellowhammer history   The one you have on the early 80s BDU is just a 70s variant, these like the 50s-60s full color ones came in a couple or more variants. You can go through this topic to see the different variants that have ben posted to get an idea.

Thank you kindly Dave. I dont know for sure but Ive read several times now from several different sources that Armed Forces pilots wore them as a private purchase item. Pre war and early war....? until that standard model came out.  I cant swear to it but thats what Ive been reading. And I cant find anything definitive, like a photo or anything. But AZ did find quite a bit about the goggles maker... It is a decent M4. I was drawn to it by the condition and the price. Cheers! Dave   Heres a description of a pair that sold at auction... Courtesy of AZNATIONs provided link.   WWII US ARMY/ NAVY PILOTS GOGGLES H.B. INC. WW2 [ Translate ] These H.B. Inc goggles are an early pre War set of aviator goggles. They were commonly used by the US Army / USN pilots before the AN-6530 came along. They are made up of a black composite frame marked "H.B.Inc Pat Pend". They additionally have rubber padding and plastic shaded lenses. The elastic strap in back is in good condition still with a lot of elasticity. Overall a nice set of goggles with only really minor age and wear.