The picture of Elvis is presented because he was also in the US Army in Germany, like yours truly. He was stationed in Bad Nauheim, north of Frankfurt. Here is a good website: http://www.elvis-presley-verein.de/

I wore this when I worked at V Corps HQ in Frankfurt, in the Abrams Building. We used to joke:      'It will get done' We would also joke that we worked for Chrysler Corporation; could ya blame us?

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Vietnam was linked indirectly to Germany (although Germany was BY NO MEANS equal to the experience on the other side of the world). Both were seen as a part of a worldwide containment policy, formulated by George Kennan and promulgated by George Marshall (of the Marshall Plan), luminaries at the State Department during the onset of what came to be called the Cold War. The book 'Present at the Creation', by Dean Acheson tells it well, as our National Security State came into being, and the US rose to eventual unparalleled military power.

Earlier antagonism against the Soviet Union (we didn't even recognize them diplomatically until 1933) was submerged in a larger fight against Hitler during World War II. (The USSR cleverly jumped into the war on Japan only in the last few days, so they could grab some islands). After VE Day, the erstwhile World War II allies split, and Communist parties in Europe started to gain traction in that shattered continent. There was true concern in the early going that all of Europe could tip toward the Communist camp, at least on the part of some of the decision makers in Washington. This is why the occupation of Germany turned into a NATO-based partnership with Germany (the Western part) against an aggressive and territorially successful adversary with a view of the state and society that was anathema to most people. It was common for the older Germans to sometimes call us the 'Besatzungstruppe' (occupation troops) as a joking reminder about this about face of the late 40's.

Part of the containment of the USSR was deterrence - affecting the opponent's decision-making by providing evidence of readiness, through good logistics and training exercises. As far as the European command, the biggest of these was the annual ReForGer, or 'Return of Forces to Germany' exercise, where stateside units were flown to Germany to take part in the war games. In an actual war, strategy and positioning could only do so much; over the long haul, logistics are always crucial, so we had to prove our determination and ability to move troops from Stateside to Europe. Pre-positioned weapons and shipped weapons were both deployed. Here we were, with these Abrams Tanks trundling across farms and meadows, through towns, sometimes clipping the corners of buildings in the narrow streets of villages; for this a G5/S5 Maneuver Damage unit reimbursed the aggrieved townsfolk, part of the Status of Forces agreement (SOFA), I suppose.

The Cold War had moments of heightened tension, such as during the Berlin Airlift crisis, and the crisis of confidence in East Germany which caused thousands to flee Westward, and forced the East Germans to build a wall to prevent people from going to West Berlin, causing the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) to bleed to death. West Berlin was an island of capitalism in the midst of a Communist 'paradise'. If one could get there, one had arrived in West Germany, or the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD).

As a good troop, I got to go from my unit (32nd Signal Battalion at the time) on a Berlin 'Orientation Tour', a freebie multi-day excursion that started in the Frankfurt train station. According to the restrictions imposed by the DDR, we could not travel through their country during the day, so we traveled during the night. We were given a bus tour of West and East Berlin; when we crossed the border into the East, they came on and checked everyone's face against their photo ID. We were told that any discrepancy between that ID and your current haircut/facial hair/scar status (tattoos were not prevalent in those days) would result in your being detained and causing a hassle. Their point was that someone you met in East Berlin might swap with you for the return trip, and take that photo ID. When we came back, they did the same thing, as well as scanning the underside and top of the bus for 'fellow travelers'. (By the way, I don't recall what exactly the displaced soldier would do, since he or she would be left behind; don't know if they brought it up in the orientation lecture).

We had a couple of hours to wander around in East Berlin. I have photos of some of us mugging near some monument that had East German soldiers, and walking aimlessly through a vast store (high ceilings too) in a vain attempt to find something, ANYthing of value or of interest, for a souvenir. I bought a can opener that was made of steel, and weighed satisfactorily in my hand, and some other minor item. I mean, really, there was nothing other than household necessities in that store. It was this consumer poverty, in the sheer face of the obvious West German prosperity and acclaimed 'Economic Miracle', that helped to bring down that reviled, life-taking Berlin Wall in 1989. The Checkpoint Charlie museum covers this history so well. For example, guards in the watch towers always had families that they would leave behind if they themselves ever dared dream of escaping, and they were always stationed in those towers with a stranger. Some parts of the Wall were topped off with a log shaped piece that would roll when you tried to get a grip on it to pull yourself over (if you were lucky enough to get that far in the first place, given the presence in some sectors of mines, dogs, and machine guns.) We even heard that the East Germans had briefly required the services of their Olympic pole vault team to 'product test' the proposed height of sections of the Wall, as the Germans had proven quite ingenious in their escape methods, covered in the Checkpoint Charlie museum.

The proximity of hundreds of thousands of opposing troops within a couple of hours drive of one another, the essentially indefensible US garrison in Berlin (serving a 'broken pane' type mission, as in Korea), the massive armed presence of some of the Soviet weapons, helicopters especially, the limited size of the physical space, the presence within theatre of nuclear weapons, the political tension within NATO, the diplomatic tension between blocs---all made the situation grim. And yet, and yet, nothing happened on that front, to the relief of all.

I interviewed my way into V Corps HQ, in the Abrams building, the second largest military headquarters building in the world, after the Pentagon. There I worked as a Sergeant in G3 Plans, under two LTC's, one an avuncular type who was nonetheless in charge, first name was 'Howard', I believe, then a ramrod of a man from one of the ACR's along the border. I worked with an E7 named Warren Johnson, who had seen enough action in Vietnam to last a lifetime, and another senior NCO (E8) named Wales Davis, who loved to tell war stories and make us laugh. I learned a lot from them, especially Johnson, as I worked with him longer, and was his direct report. I was in charge of documents for G3 Plans, and had to do period spot inspections to make sure that every document could be accounted for, as they had to be signed out. There was a series of energetic and bright Majors who came through that office, and actually did most of the work of writing and revising plans, of various types: defense plan, ops plan, evacuation plan, etc. It was interesting.

Like most of the troops in Germany, I took part in a number of large military exercises. The most important was REFORGER ("REturn of FORces to GERmany"). In this exercise, troops from the US would fly over and take part in maneuvers through the German countryside. Due to the SOFA we had with Germany, we could use certain fields and towns to practice moving forces through an area. There were occasional instances of a tank clipping an old building's corner, for example, for which you had a function in your S5 or G5 to compensate the local citizen. Although expensive, such operations to my mind were necessary at the time given the looming and heavily muscled Warsaw Pact forces arrayed no more than a few hours drive time from any place in West Germany. Defense in depth was a scarce commodity so better never to have a war, for central Europe and good portions of western Europe would be a wasteland.

You see, by exercising annually and on a large scale, and effectively, you prove your readiness in a very public way. Such a show of strength, resources and resolve served the aim of peace by exercising a deterrent influence on the Soviet nemesis, and its Warsaw Pact alliance which included every Communist/Socialist country behind the Iron Curtain but renegade Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia, held together by the power of Tito, and to disintegrate shortly after his death, permitted its citizens to travel, one result being that a lot of waiters I came to know during my six years overseas were Yugoslavians; actually did a week there on vacation (Croatia, near Split).

From there, I interviewed for and got a job as a driver, clerk and translator for the V Corps Liaison team to Central Army Group (CENTAG). My German proficiency, which I had assiduously cultivated, paid off, as that was a big factor in my getting that plum job.

We were stationed in Mannheim-Seckenheim, meaning 'the Seckenheim suburb (township?) of Mannheim', a town with some majestic architecture, near Heidelberg. Heidelberg has a huge castle looming over the old town, is on a lovely bend of yet another lovely German river. It is the university town that was the setting for the Operetta "The Student Prince". Got to visit there a lot, as one could take the tram there easily. It was good duty there in that small Kaserne, as we shared a space with a German contingent, so I spoke German daily. We could have conversed in English, but why not practice a second, or third, language, when immersed in that culture?

In the war exercises we would drive toward the French border (defense in depth again, so the further from the Fulda Gap, the better, plus mountains gave a more useful location for a bunker). Near the border was a small town, and a large interior space carved out of a mountain. There were the various functions needed by an army at war, ops, intelligence, logistics, the whole nine. I had one LTC and one S7, who was German-born. We were largely a liaison, so I didn't do much more than drive and wait around, on occasion typing some stuff. During this time, I had been involved in a Master's program from USC, who along with several other universities, sent faculty over to teach. It was a great way to expand and learn, and hang out with intelligent people. I took several 'class trips' tied to credit courses, which meant that I went to Rome twice, Garmisch, and Brussels for multi-day conferences. Between the courses and the conventions, I was treated to a very interesting detailed perusal of topics such as arms control, deterrence theory, dependencia theory, European integration, multi-nationals, etc.

After my European separation, I remained in Germany, as I was engaged to a German woman at the time. That did not work out, but I stayed for a year longer, as I was employed as a civilian at the local Civilian Personnel Office. There I worked with career civil servants, local hires (German, English, Indian) dependents of military and others in a busy office environment. I got into computers during this civilian stint, with a Wang VS system that used COBOL, as opposed to the coding sheets I had transmitted at first to a set of keypunch operators, who would then pass the deck of cards to a person in a white coat behind a counter that would schedule your run on the mainframe. The next day, you got back results and error listings. Just to get an error message the SAME DAY, now completely expected and routine, would have been a revelation to us back then. Lots of change in that industry, and I've been able to surf along with it now for over three decades.

I never had a car the whole time I lived in Germany. I could essentially, when in Frankfurt, walk out my door, take a bus that eventually (through transfers to other modes of transportation) took me to the main train station in Frankfurt (near the Gutleut Kaserne). This 'Hauptbahnhof' was one of the biggest, most active, and best connected train stations in Europe, and therefore in the world. From there one could go anywhere in Western Europe. Or twenty minutes on the train takes one to the airport (Flughafen, 'hafen' being like 'harbor'). This airport, like its terrestially-constrained counterpart, takes you anywhere in the world. Very 'connected', and took advantage of it, visiting 14 countries all told. The trip to Spain, and thence to Morocco, was enabled through the excellent "Space A" (space available) flights going out of Rhein Main airbase, again also very busy. The Iranian hostages came back home through Frankfurt and its nearby hospital.

Rather than leading to a 'Hot War', the Cold War ended in 1989 culminating with the videotaped hunting and killing of Nicolau Caeucescu, the chilling dictator of Romania, on Christmas Day. The insufficiencies of the Socialist system caused that looming giant threat to just fade away over the course of a couple of momentous years. The combination of internal contradictions surfaced by Gorbachev's Glasnost (read Lenin's Tomb for explanation of how that opened up society), the lack of opportunity, the cronyism, and sinfully massive environmental degradation dealt a fatal blow to the Soviet Union and its client states, and millions in Captive Nations of the Baltics and Eastern Europe were able to pursue lives of more possibility again. Even then, there was suffering, as the poor Babuschkas who had suffered so much already were in many cases thrown on the streets, to beg and peddle for their existence. As always, the little people pay the price for wrenching change.

Yeah, Soviet emigre/raconteur Jakov Smirnov made a good living out of the transition out of the Cold War. As someone who was in a NATO headquarters, I can't say "Thank God" too often that the cold war stayed cold. One of the themes in a discussion of nuclear war was how many times one could "make the rubble bounce". In light of that benchmark, our current circumstances are worrisome but not automatically existential.

The end of the Cold War was for me one of the most inspiring episodes in history, as I actually witnessed the tension that the Cold War inspired close up, pondered the likelihood of a ground war in Europe involving hundreds of thousands of combatants, then saw with wonder how the Domino Theory actually worked in our favor. One regret about that part of world history: I never got over there in the late 80's and early 90's, but have been back since a couple of times. (If you are a fan of the era of the end of the Cold War, may I suggest with enthusiasm and deep affection the German comedy 'Goodbye Lenin'.) While couched in the history of that momentous time in world history, it is just as importantly, the story of how a son loved his mother. I therefore end this history with a reference to the enduring qualities of human life, parental and filial love, that help us keep a balance between war and peace, and I hope will always win in the end.

Respectfully,
Lucky Vet

Here are other archival pages of that time in my life.