Chapter Two
Life Number Two
(1946-1955)
A New Life
My
life number two is a direct result of the historical events that took
place during my life number one. That is, the end of World War II,
which Nazi Germany lost, and the subsequent expulsion from our home.
In the long run it was a boon to my generation - a new beginning in a
free society and opportunities that often are only available on a
large scale after disastrous events such as a war. As Germany was
rebuilding, the population was able to rebuild their lives.
Similarly, the people expelled from their homelands were able to
build on their previous experience and achievements and many became
prosperous in their new environment. Little by little they adjusted
to the new culture. This was not always easy, given the reticence of
the native population.
Dachau
My
life number two began in a locale where a dialect was spoken that was
strange to us. We had to learn to communicate. The more exposure to
the new dialect one had, the quicker one learned to communicate. We,
the children, had the edge. Our local playmates made no attempt to
speak "High German" for our sakes, but spoke their Bavarian
dialect as they had learned it from their families. That forced us to
learn their dialect in order to understand them. Needless to say, our
parents were slower in improving their Bavarian language skills than
we children were. The dialect spoken in Dachau proved particularly
difficult because of Dachau's provincial character.
Until
1933 Dachau
was an idyllic little town in which many artists found peace and
quiet in which to work, away from the hustle and bustle of the much
larger city of Munich, less than ten miles away. In 1933 the Hitler
regime built the first large-scale concentration camp in Dachau,
thereby ruining the town's reputation forever.
When
we arrived in Dachau, the concentration camp had been closed for over
a year; however, its guard towers, formerly electrified barbed wire
fences, the crematorium, and some of the barracks that housed the
inmates were still there. It was later turned into a memorial which
can still be visited today. Why Dachau was chosen to receive a
concentration camp is unknown to me. It was not strictly speaking an
extermination camp, but more than 30,000 people reportedly died there
during its existence. Everybody knew that it was there, but most
people didn't talk about it readily - at least not in the years right
after the war. When the subject came up, some people claimed not to
have known what went on inside, others tried to play down what went
on inside, and still others claimed that the inmates were all
criminals who deserved to be there.
What
went on in the camp or who the inmates were (I learned later that
among them were Jews, Gypsies, opponents to the regime, including
intellectuals and clerics, and some criminals) was not publicly
discussed, at least not at my level. Consequently, I did not realize
the full extent of the Nazi regime's terror as it was practiced in
concentration camps and elsewhere until I came to the United States.
It is not that people in the United States confronted me with facts
or accused me in any way, but just by absorbing information that came
from independent sources did I learn the full scope of the
atrocities. I can remember that even without concrete information
about what went on there, while I lived in Dachau, the remnant of the
concentration camp was a mysterious place surrounded by an aura of
death.
Occupation
When
we arrived in Dachau, the occupation of Germany was just over a year
old and some initial restrictions on the population still existed. As
can be expected, when the Allied forces first moved into Germany
toward the end of the war, there was a great deal of fear among the
German population. Horrendous stories of rapes, looting, and
abductions that occurred in the east where Russian forces forged into
German territory had spread throughout Germany. Although there was
some hope that the Western Allies would be more civil in carrying out
their occupation, a degree of trepidation remained. Much to many
people's surprise, the Western Allies, and particularly the Americans
came more as liberators than as occupiers.
Certainly,
some unpopular occupation measures were taken. Many homes, public
buildings, and facilities were confiscated for use by the occupation
forces. For a time there was a curfew when no German was allowed on
the streets during the hours of darkness without a special permit.
Any kind of fraternization was forbidden. After a relatively short
time the occupation restrictions were loosened. The curfew was
lifted, non-fraternization was canceled, in fact, friendships were
encouraged officially when German-American clubs were formed under
General Lucius D. Clay in 1947. Every effort was made to bring
Germany back into the fold of civilized nations.
In
our area the Americans set up food kitchens where people, especially
children, could get something to eat. American soldiers riding in
open jeeps threw candy and fruit to us children as we stood by the
side of the road. As soon as we heard the sound of an engine we ran
to the street and wave (there were very few German vehicles on the
road at that time). The American soldiers were always friendly and
often gave us rides in their jeeps. Some kids had their favorite
American who brought them chocolate and maybe cigarettes for their
parents. Perhaps that particular soldier had a child or sibling of a
similar age back home whom he missed.
New Lives
were built
Times
were hard for the German population for several years to come.
Germans who lived through the end of the war as adults call that time
the “Hour Zero,” the total collapse of the Third Reich. It also
meant the collapse of their lives. Germany lay in ruins, public
services ceased to exist, people were left to their own devices. As
men came trickling back from the war they found themselves confronted
with the need to earn a living. The most readily available sources of
jobs were the occupation forces. Many returning German soldiers were
happy to get a job with their former enemies.
Not
too long after the total collapse of Germany the occupation forces
saw to it that the basic necessities were provided. Soon local
administrations were set up which governed in conjunction with the
occupation forces. Gas and electricity started flowing again, first
for limited periods of time during the day (at meal times), then all
the time. Other services followed. Newspapers began to appear under
licensing by the Allies. The cleaning up of the rubble left by the
war and the construction of new homes and public buildings provided
major sources of employment. Thus, lives started to be rebuilt. The
refugees who fled the ravages of war and the evacuees like us who
were technically not refugees, but expelled forcibly, started to put
the skills they had honed over the years to good use and engaged in
their occupations once more. With many Germans who had built Germany
into an industrial power during the 1920s and 1930s eliminated or
handicapped by the war, the refugees filled an important void in the
reconstruction effort.
An
example of this resurrection of a former life is the father of my
friend, Peter Schmid. Peter's father had been a successful
businessman in the Sudetenland and very soon after arriving in Dachau
started to recreate the business he had had previously. His business
had been to supply butchers with the required supplies such as
spices, sausage casings, tools, etc. He started to do this from a
rented garage. Barrels of various aromatic spices were stacked in the
garage along with boxes of other supplies. Herr Schmid first used a
bicycle to visit the butchers and farmers in the area who did their
own butchering, then progressed to a motorcycle and eventually to a
car. These progressively more powerful means of transportation
allowed him to canvas an ever increasing radius of potential
customers. He eventually opened a store in town and, because his
reputation had been established, he no longer had to seek out his
customers, they came to him. Although this is only one example of how
postwar Germany managed to recover from total devastation to
eventually become an industrial power again, it is representative of
how many of the people pulled themselves up by their “bootstraps”
and re-constructed their damaged lives under new circumstances.
Slowly
consumer goods started to appear. I can remember, before my father
died in 1948, standing with him in front of a store window that had
some tubes of glue on display, nothing else. When I asked what that
was, my father told me that there hadn't been any glue available for
several years as the war had consumed all the materials needed to
make glue and now it was available again. The appearance of tubes of
"Uhu" (a brand of all-purpose glue) was a sign of a new
beginning. Soon everyone who could afford it bought a tube of Uhu
because just about every household had many items that needed mending
after the many years of war.
A new
Nation
After
the new German constitution was adopted and the Federal Republic of
Germany was formed in 1949, progress was rapid. The first craving the
people sought to satisfy was that for food. Food started to become
available and to eat well at least once per week became top priority.
Then came the clothing wave. After people had enough to eat they
started looking for other things they had missed for so long and one
of them were new and stylish clothes. By this time the new German
government began to reimburse people who had lost property or who
were driven from their homes because of the war. My mother received a
very modest sum. I can remember standing in front of a clothing store
with her and dreaming with her about the new clothes she would buy
for me when she got the money. Next came the travel wave. In the mid
1950's, almost 10 years after the end of the war, Germans started to
travel in large numbers to foreign countries again. The favorite was
Italy. Travel was done by rail or bus, later with personal cars. I
did not experience the travel wave, we didn't have the means.
A new
Beginning
When
we first arrived in Dachau in the spring of 1946, my family and
several hundred other people, were put up in a large hall (perhaps a
ballroom or beer hall) of a farm with its own restaurant, also known
as a “Landgasthof.” There were bunk beds placed in the hall and
each family had as many beds as they needed to accommodate them.
Between the beds the families hung blankets or sheets, if they had
extras, to form crude cubicles for some privacy. The hall was crowded
and real privacy did not exist. In the evenings when the lights were
turned off my sister entertained the people in the nearby cubicles by
softly playing her harmonica.
There
were many children in this make-shift facility. We played in the
barnyard or in the nearby fields, because the farm was well outside
of the town itself. I
can recall an abandoned brick factory (maybe just abandoned
temporarily at the end of the war because of lack of workmen) where
we played with the broken bricks that lay around. And there was an
abandoned anti-aircraft site within walking distance. The guns along
with technical or dangerous equipment had been removed, but the
mechanism used for turning the guns in all directions was still
there. This consisted of two seats on a circular rail. By turning the
hand cranks the whole assembly, including the seats, turned in a
circle just like a merry-go-round. Great fun for us kids, except that
one of the older boys told us younger ones that this “merry-go-round”
could attract enemy airplanes who would then bomb the
“merry-go-round.” He may have heard that during the war
anti-aircraft batteries were prime targets for attacking airplanes
and tried to impress us with his knowledge. The consequence was that
I was dreadfully afraid to go near the turning seats and when I did,
I kept a wary eye on the sky, even though the war had ended over a
year before.
Getting
Settled
In
1946, Dachau,
as was the case with many other towns in the Western zones of
occupation in post-war Germany, was forced to take on people who fled
or were expelled from their homelands in the east. Dachau's
population
increased by 30-40%. Therefore, there was a severe housing shortage.
Some weeks or months after arriving, families began to be assigned
housing. Because of the large influx of people like us, the local
residents were not altogether happy. They were forced to make any
spare room or rooms available to the new inhabitants. Housing was
assigned according to the sizes of the family.
We
were four in our family and we were assigned two rooms in a house
with two apartments. Each apartment consisted of a
kitchen/living room, and two bedrooms. The downstairs apartment was
rented by a family who had been there quite a while. Although they
were originally from another area in southern Germany they were
practically natives. They got to keep all their rooms. The lady who
owned the house had the upstairs apartment, but since she lived
alone, she had to give up one of her bedrooms and a small room in the
attic. The room which formerly was a bedroom became our kitchen and
living room in addition to being bedroom for my mother, my father,
and myself. My sister, by this time 19 years old, got the room in the
attic as a bedroom. To get to it one had to go up a flight of stairs
and cross an unfinished, drafty part of the attic.
In
our combination kitchen-living-bedroom a coal-fired kitchen stove was
installed. Its exhaust pipe was run through the wall, across the
hallway and into the bathroom where it connected into the chimney of
the house. Water had to be obtained from the bathroom across the
hall. There was no heat in the room in the attic, there was no heat
in any of the bedrooms in this house. There was no running hot water.
If we wanted hot water we had to heat a pot of water on the kitchen
stove. In the bathroom there was a bathtub (progressive for the times
in which the house was built) with a water heater. Before we could
take a bath we had to start a fire in the water heater and then wait
an hour or two until a sufficient amount of water was warm enough.
Needless to say, we didn't take a bath every day. When we did, the
water used by the previous person was used by the next family member,
perhaps with some new warm water added.
The
landlady turned out to be very nice after some initial skepticism on
her part. She was a seamstress like my mother, and just like my
mother, she had traveled around, sewing in people's homes. She was a
shy woman with a small birth defect, a deformed foot, and walked with
a limp. My mother believed that this defect was the reason she never
married. She apparently worked hard, saved her money, and was able to
have this house built in the 1930's. She was retired but still did
some sewing in her home. Later, after my father had passed away, the
landlady's mother came to visit her for a few weeks at a time. She
was around 90 years old and went to church every day. In the evenings
she came and sat with my mother and chatted about the old days. Oma
Metz, as we called her, had lived in a small village on a farm all
her life. Among other things, she had never been to a movie theater.
In
the late 1940s movie theaters started to appear again in Germany. At
the same time, as the economy started to pick up after the war,
manufacturers started to advertise their wares. This was especially
true of household articles such as soaps and detergents. The
manufacturers put on free movies, usually some short black and white
features such as “Laurel and Hardy” or other short comedy films,
but before the feature started you had to sit through a long series
of advertisements. One day my mother and I decided that we would show
Oma Metz how interesting and exciting movies were and took her along
to one of these free shows. But rather than being impressed, much to
our dismay, she kept looking at the floor saying: “When are the
lights going to come back on?” We stayed ten or fifteen minutes and
then went home with Oma Metz.
Staying
Warm
Houses
that had central heat were very rare. The rooms in most of the houses
in Germany at that time, if they were heated at all, were heated by
individual wood or coal stoves. Since firewood or coal were in short
supply, people gathered up and saved any burnable materials they ran
across. When any of us walked down the street and saw a piece of wood
or a board laying in the street, perhaps fallen from a truck, we ran
to pick it up and carry it home, regardless of how far we had to
carry it. To make matters worse, the first few winters after the war
were brutally cold. In addition to the extreme winters, and because
of the lack of fuel, every building was cooled down so that a few
hours of heat didn't raise the temperature much overall. Public
buildings and schools were closed when it became too cold in the
buildings. This situation caused some people to resort to almost
criminal means. Coal was a sought-after commodity. People walked
along the railroad tracks gathering up pieces of coal that had fallen
off railroad cars, or people jumped unto parked or slowly moving
railroad cars and throw coal down to accomplices who then carried it
away, often in their pockets. It was even forbidden to gather wood in
the forests, which were town property, because it was feared that
people would not only pick up dead branches from the ground, but
would also cut down healthy branches and even trees. Occasionally the
town designated a day on which the citizens were allowed to gather
fallen wood in the public forests. Even with the official limitation
on gathering wood, the forests were free from fallen wood.
This
reminds me of an anecdote in connection with the gathering of fallen
wood. One day my father
brought home some instant coffee. My father knew what it was, but
instant coffee was generally unknown in Germany at that time.
Although my mother had learned from my father that it was coffee, she
didn't know that you didn't prepare coffee with it the way you did
with ground coffee beans, that is, she used as many heaping spoonfuls
of the instant coffee as she would have with regular coffee. The
result was an extremely strong coffee. The day after my father had
brought home the first instant coffee was a day on which the town
forest had been declared open for people to gather firewood. My
parents had decided to also go into the forest and had borrowed a
couple of small wagons - carts with four wheels, pulled by a handle.
To be able to gather anything worth taking home one had to get an
early start before the forest was picked clean. Therefore, my parents
got me up early and my mother made her first pot of coffee with the
newly acquired instant coffee. Since it was early in the morning she
made the coffee extra strong. I had some of the coffee, albeit with
lots of milk, my father had his share of the coffee, both of us
without any ill effects. However, my mother became terribly ill. She
had to lay down, her heart apparently was racing so badly that my
father went for the doctor. When the doctor came and was informed
that the only thing my mother had had that morning was some of the
instant coffee, he immediately realized what her problem was: It was
an overdose of caffeine. He compared the instant coffee to rat
poison, if it was consumed in sufficient quantity. After some hours
the effects of the coffee wore off and my mother was well again;
however, we had missed the opportunity to be in the forest early and
my parents canceled the trip, much to my disappointment because I had
looked forward for days to ride in one of the wagons.
Hard
Times
Adjacent
to the concentration camp in Dachau was a compound where the SS
guards and other administrative people that ran the concentration
camp worked and lived. After the concentration camp was liberated by
the US Army in April of 1945, the US Army took this area over and
established a camp, Camp Dachau, where US Army soldiers were
stationed as part of the occupation of Germany. Soon after we arrived
in Dachau my father was able to get a job at Camp Dachau as a cook in
the kitchen of the Military Police mess hall (dining facility). This
was a blessing because not only was my father able to feed himself,
but he was able to bring some small amounts of food home to his
family.
Because
of the shortages, the black market flourished. Cigarettes were a
valuable commodity because most men and quite a few women smoked.
Therefore, cigarettes became a valuable bartering item. Cigarettes
were treated like money, in fact, cigarettes could buy more than
money. Other rare commodities such as coffee, tea, nylon stockings,
or almost any kind of food were valuable trade items. To restore
order and confidence in the economy, the occupation forces tried to
suppress the black market whenever possible. Therefore, it was
against the law to possess any items that were obtained illegally
from the occupation forces and the occupation forces were not allowed
to give or sell items to the local population. Civilian employees
were regularly searched when they passed through the gate to
the camp on their way home.
Although
bringing anything out of the camp was strictly forbidden, my
father was ingenious in finding ways to smuggle
small amounts of food out. He was not a dishonest man, but the
well-being of his family was dear to his heart. In his eyes, much was
wasted in the US Army kitchen where he worked. For instance, one day
he assisted in preparing a meal that required the fat to be trimmed
from a side of bacon. The American Army cooks cut off and threw away
more of the fat than my father thought was necessary. As he was
leaving work for that day, he retrieved the slab of fat which still
had the skin on one side, wrapped it in paper and stuck it under his
shirt on his back. As he went through the gate on his way out, and
after having looked in the bag that my father carried, the guard
slapped him on the back and said: “OK Pop,” not realizing that he
had just slapped a piece of bacon rather than my father's back.
Getting
By
Because
times were hard for the German population and the massive economic
aid that was provided by the USA later was a few years off yet;
people even searched the garbage for edible items. But since my
father knew what was being thrown away from the kitchen in which he
worked, he was able to salvage many edible items. One day he observed
as a box full of salami sausages was thrown away because they were
moldy on the outside. He knew that if the mold were carefully removed
by scraping or by cutting off a thin layer of the outside, the
problem would be solved. He found out where the kitchen's trash was
dumped. Luckily, this was not too far from where we lived. So, that
evening we went to the dump and sure enough, there were all the
sticks of salami, just waiting to be carried away. I don't know how
much of the salami we ate ourselves, but I am sure that some of it
was used in bartering for other items.
At
this mess hall where my father worked I had my first experience with
chewing gum. For some reason my father took me along to work one day.
I remember sitting in a jeep outside the mess hall, waiting for my
father. I don't know why I was sitting in the jeep, maybe one of the
soldiers put me in it. A young soldier was walking up and down in
front of the mess hall (possibly on guard duty). Suddenly he stopped
and handed me this strip of something wrapped in tinfoil. I don't
know what I thought it was, but I assumed that it was something to
eat. I chewed and chewed, but the wad wouldn't get smaller. Another
soldier then gave me a slice of an orange, something also unknown to
me at that time. With the orange I finally was able to get the wad I
had been chewing on down. When I told my father about my dilemma in
getting the first gift down, he laughed and explained to me that I
had been given chewing gum, which is not meant to be swallowed.
A
Devastating Blow
My
father was 52 years old in 1947, the American soldiers mostly were in
their late teens or early twenties; therefore, they called him “Pop.”
Apparently, most were very kind to my father, a fact that may have
contributed to his death in early 1948. Aside from slipping him
cigarettes now and then, they also gave him rides home from the mess
hall. The ride was in an open jeep. In late 1947 he became
increasingly ill. He had had a cough for many years which he
attributed to smoking. He didn't know that he had tuberculosis. But,
what finally was fatal was the ride in the open jeep in the cold
without adequate clothing after having spent a day working in a hot
kitchen. He developed pleurisy, an inflammation of the skin
surrounding the lungs which is often a result of pneumonia or
tuberculosis. Maybe he had contracted pneumonia from the cold jeep
rides in addition to his tuberculosis. When he finally went to the
doctor, the doctor immediately recognized my father's complicated
medical condition and admitted him to a hospital.
Before
my father died, he spent some weeks in a hospital for patients with
tuberculosis. My mother went to visit him several times a week. She
had to take a train for about an hour and then walk another half hour
from the train station to the hospital which was out in the
countryside, presumably for the clean air. My
mother brought my father what he second-most missed, coffee. She
carry a thermos filled with coffee all this way, apparently because
coffee was in short supply at the hospital. One day she slipped on
the icy path from the train to the hospital and fell. She didn't know
that the thermos had broken during the fall until she reached the
hospital and saw the trail of coffee behind her in the snow and on
the steps of the hospital. My father was very disappointed that he
didn't get his coffee that day. What he missed most, however, were
his cigarettes. For obvious reasons, smoking was forbidden in the
sanatorium. I remember my mother telling me that he had bad dreams of
cigarettes marching up his chest as he lay in bed.
Children
were not allowed in the sanatorium because of the danger of catching
tuberculosis. The only time I can remember seeing my father in the
sanatorium was when my sister and an American friend of hers who had
a car took me there. I stood outside as my father waved to me from an
upstairs window. After my father died our kitchen-living-bedroom was
fumigated and sealed for a few days so that the fumes stayed inside.
(To this day I react positively to the test for tuberculosis because
I have been exposed to it through my father.) My father was buried on
a freezing cold February day in 1948 in the cemetery in Dachau.
Making
Friends
Soon
after we had moved into our assigned apartment my father made friends
with the two ladies downstairs, Frau Geiger and her daughter, Frau
Daumer. Frau Geiger was the widow of a schoolteacher and her daughter
was a secretary. The two ladies were avid card players, as was my
father. Frau Geiger also had a son who had been an officer in
the German Army and was reported to have been killed on the Russian
front. However, Frau Geiger was hoping against all odds that the news
of her son's death was a mistake. Until the last German prisoners of
war returned from the Soviet Union in 1955, the German Red Cross
regularly broadcast the names of German soldiers who had been
repatriated and who had lost track of their families during the war
and the turbulent times shortly thereafter. Or who, for some reason,
had been missing and turned up years after the war had ended and who
were looking for their relatives. Frau
Geiger always listened to the list of names, hoping that by some
miracle her son's name would be among them. It never was.
Armin
Frau
Geiger's daughter, Frau Daumer, had a son named Armin who was three
years younger than I was. Naturally, I became friends with Armin. We
played in the yard and in the evenings in his or our kitchen (if
someone had a living room it was rather formal and not used much,
especially not by children). Armin and I played a form of Parcheesi
called “Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht” and other board games. My
mother sat and watched. When Armin got the advantage, or if I lost,
she got all excited and her cheeks became red. But she wouldn't say
anything. When Armin had the advantage and he could displace one of
my figures he often not only pushed my figure aside, but knocked it
clean across the room. That's when my mother got really excited and
it happened that she made him go home at that point. However, when I
could, I would do the same to him. My mother didn't find that good
either. Nevertheless, five minutes later Armin and I were friends
again. He became one of my lifelong friends, even though as children
we had many fights and arguments.
There
was no television and for a long time no radio, and most of my toys
were left behind in our old home, so I did what all the other
children did: I went to play in the street. I soon made the
acquaintance of other kids in the neighborhood.
Peps
One
of these was a boy named Josef (known then as Pepperl, now as Peps),
who lived across the street in a farmhouse (they were locals who
rented two rooms in the upstairs of the farmhouse). Peps was two
years younger than I and became the other lifelong friend, besides
Armin. The three of us were inseparable, especially in the early
days, even though at times two ganged up on the third. Usually Armin,
being the youngest, was the one running home to his grandmother,
crying. His grandmother and mother never interfered with our quarrels
because they knew that soon we would be best friends
again. It
isn't that we beat Armin
up, but since he was smaller and somewhat more immature, he
frequently got pushed or even slapped on the cheek by one of us.
Furthermore,
Armin lacked some judgment, probably because he was younger and
wanted to be part of the group. He did things that got him into
trouble. One time he climbed up the vertical side of a huge haystack.
When he was almost at the top the hay gave way and he fell off
backwards, landing on his face on the cement floor of the barn.
Another time we were playing around a mowing machine that had a
sharp, unprotected blade sticking up. Peps and I realized the danger
and didn't touch the blade, but Armin grabbed hold of it to pull
himself unto the mower and promptly slit all of his fingers on one
hand open so that the blood came pouring out in streams. Another time
I was on my bicycle (some years later when I finally got a bicycle)
and Armin tried to block my way by standing in the middle of the
street. Our street was unpaved, made up of hard-packed gravel. I went
especially fast to try to get around him, but he managed to grab hold
of the back of the bicycle. The force of my weight on the speeding
bicycle pulled Armin off his feet and he skidded on his face and
stomach several feet on the gravel road. His face, arms and legs were
covered with cuts and scrapes. Fortunately, none of these and other
mishaps caused any permanent damage.
Peter
Armin
and Peps were my closest friends, but a special friendship connected
me with Peter Schmid. I considered
Peter my best friend although we saw each other infrequently because
of the distance we lived apart. But, because he was older and seemed
to be more sophisticated, and maybe because we saw each other only
infrequently, I considered him my best friend.
From
the time we were reunited with my father until we were evacuated in
1946, we lived in Mährisch Schönberg. There we met (it may have
been through my sister) a family by the name of Schmid. The Schmids
had a daughter about my sister's age and a son who was a year or two
older than I was. My parents and the Schmids became acquainted and I
made friends with their son Peter. The Schmids and my family were on
the same transport and we ended up in Dachau together. There the
Schmids visited us occasionally although they lived in a little
village on the other side of Dachau, requiring them to walk for
nearly an hour. Right after the war no private person had a car and
public transportation in our town was nonexistent. (There also were
no telephones in private homes. If a doctor was needed, someone would
have to run to the doctor's office.)
After
my father died, the Schmid family continued to visit my mother and
me. My sister usually was not home, pursuing her dancing career. The
Schmids' daughter, Christel, who was also older, did not come along,
but I always looked forward to Peter's coming. We were both
fascinated with the American Wild West as depicted in books and
magazines. Movies came later. Peter read a lot and had a vivid
imagination which allowed him to tell stories, partly read about,
partly made up, that kept me spellbound. Peter eventually went to a
higher school which required him to commute to Munich by train every
day. Sometimes I met him at the train station and we walked to his
house where we played Cowboys and Indians, perhaps re-enacting a
movie we had recently seen. Peter's family was originally quartered
in a farmhouse, but soon rented a house with an old barn. This was an
ideal place for us to act out our Wild West scenarios.
Thomas
Sometime
during the last couple of years in Dachau I became friends with one
of my classmates, Thomas Hartmann. Thomas' family owned a pig farm
outside of town, but eventually opened a butcher shop in our
neighborhood. After the butcher shop and the adjoining slaughter
house were built, Thomas and his family moved into an apartment
upstairs from the butcher shop. That is when we became closer
friends, unfortunately we lost contact after I went to the US.
We
hung around the yard adjacent to the slaughter house and became aware
of some of what went on in a slaughter house in those days. Thomas'
father and the two or three butchers he had working for him were more
concerned with us getting in the way than in shielding us from seeing
what went on in the slaughter house. I won't go into details, but I
am hopeful that today's methods for providing meat for the table are
more humane. I will also say that most animals seemed to know what
they were there for and acted accordingly.
A
more pleasant memory I have concerns Thomas' pig farm. It was on a
large lot with a long barn where the pigs where kept in pens,
separated by age or whatever. In addition there was a large barn with
straw and hay in it and a smaller barn where horses had been kept,
which was empty at the time, except for a small room in which Thomas'
grandfather lived. When the Hartmanns moved into the house with the
butcher shop and all the adult members of the family worked either in
the slaughter house or in the butcher shop, Thomas' grandfather moved
into the small room to take care of the pigs. The big house on the
pig farm was rented out, that is why the grandfather had to live in
the room that once may have been a tack room. He stayed there during
the week, on weekends he went home, which was in a small village
somewhere. During the weekends Thomas' family took care of the pigs.
That chore many times fell on Thomas, I helped him several times.
There
couldn't have been too many pigs because one person could easily feed
them in a couple of hours. The more labor intensive part of the care
was the removal of the manure and cleaning the sties. Luckily, I was
never asked to participate in that. There were two rows of pigsties
with a walkway in between. The troughs ran along the walkway so that
the pigs could be fed easily. The feeding ritual consisted of first
making a fire, using chopped wood, under a large boiler filled with
water which was used to produce steam. While the boiler was doing its
job, the food for the pigs was prepared. This consisted of filling a
barrel about the size of a 55 gallon drum with the leftover from
brewing beer, that is, mash. To that a couple of scoops of some
powdery substance were added, presumably vitamins or such - who
knows. Then, when the boiler was putting out sufficient steam, a hose
attached to the steam pipe from the boiler was stuck into the barrel
and a valve was turned on allowing the steam to bubble through the
strong, but not entirely unpleasant, smelling mass. When it was
deemed that the meal for the "guests" in the pens was
sufficiently warmed, bucketfuls were carried out to the troughs where
the grunting and jostling pigs stuck their flat noses through the
bars as far into the trough as possible, many times getting the hot
mash poured over their snouts.
Thomas'
grandfather, I'm sure, did a lot more than what Thomas and I did. He
must have cleaned the pens daily and tended to the pigs in other
ways. But, whenever we went to visit him during the week (it was
usually in the evening when the chores had been done), he could sit
on a bench in front of his little room - no TV, no radio, no
telephone and smoked a pipe that hung down to his chest and had a
metal cover over the pot, drinking his evening beer. He had a long
beard, gnarled hands from laboring in the fields and he seemed to
enjoy our company during our short visits with him. Thomas told me
that his grandfather had a big scar on his back and one day asked him
to tell us how he got the scar. He told us that when he was in the
German army during the First World War he was part of a gun crew in
the artillery. It was during the battle of Verdun, when the action
was hot and heavy and he and the rest of the crew were intent on
loading and firing their canon, when the French sneaked up behind
them and attacked them from behind. A French soldier bayoneted the
grandfather in the back, but at precisely that moment, before the
attacker could thrust his bayonet in further, he himself was shot and
let go of his rifle which was sticking in the grandfather's back. The
heavy rifle, as it fell, tore a large chunk of the grandfather's back
out, creating a big hole. That is why the grandfather had a big scar
on his back. That encounter may have saved his life because he
probably spent some months away from the fighting and perhaps never
had to return to the front again.
Because
Thomas' parents owned the piggery and the butcher shop, he was more
affluent than the rest of us. One of the exotic fruits that started
to appear on the German market a few years after the war was
coconuts. Most people could only afford to buy a slice of the meat of
the coconut, or that same amount grated. Very few people bought whole
coconuts. I never acquired a real taste for coconuts, but because it
was fashionable and a rarity, I did buy a slice once or twice. Since
Thomas could afford it, he one day bought a whole coconut. I helped
him crack it open, but first we took a nail and punctured the shell
and drained all the coconut milk out. We drank the milk, although
there wasn't a whole lot. Then we took an ax to the nut, splitting it
into pieces, from which we proceeded to eat the meat. I don't know
about Thomas, but I became “sicker than a dog,” as the saying
goes. The richness of the coconut milk in combination with the few
chunks of the insides was enough to cause such great discomfort that
I can barely stand the smell of the insides of a coconut to this day.
My Sister Ingeborg, later known as Sylvia
Making
the Best of a Difficult Situation
Soon
after we arrived in Dachau
my
sister put her ballet training in Vienna to good use and at the same
time made her lifelong dream of becoming a dancer come true. However,
performances of classical ballet had become rare at the end of the
war, what was needed instead was entertainment for the thousands of
occupation troops in Germany. So, my sister created a dance act,
sewed herself some costumes and made up a stage name, Sylviana. A
shortened, less exotic version of that name later became the name she
was thereafter known by, Sylvia. Her act included such dances as a
Hawaiian hula number and a Hungarian gypsy dance. I never saw any of
the performances, but I remember untwisting some pieces of bast. The
flattened strips of bast were made into the skirt for the hula dance.
Sylvia
traveled around occupied Germany with a group of fellow entertainers
who were hired by the American forces to entertain the troops in the
various US Army clubs. She returned home periodically, providing us
with money and other useful items. Because my father was a heavy
smoker and cigarettes were hard to come by, my sister took up smoking
so that she could bring home partially smoked cigarettes to my
father. At first she only pretended to be smoking. When offered a
cigarette, she took a few puffs, put the cigarette out and stuck it
in her pocket. But soon she began actually smoking the cigarette, but
she still put it out soon after lighting it to take it home. My
father stripped the tobacco out of the used cigarettes, cut the edge
off the newspaper where there was no printing into strips and rolled
his own cigarettes with the tobacco. Later on he could buy regular
cigarette paper, but tobacco was still rare then.
Fleeting
Encounters
At
this time there was a lot of confusion and chaos in occupied Germany.
Millions of people had lost their loved ones, millions had been
killed or been wounded, and millions had lost their homes and had
been displaced. Some had no place to go back to and some could not go
back because they had perhaps been on the wrong side and were fearing
reprisals, which frequently was the case in the newly emerging
communist countries. These people were referred to as Displaced
Persons. Most of the traveling in the early days after the war was
done on foot or by train and the train stations were always crowded
with people waiting for trains (which were always crowded), or with
Displaced Persons who had no place to go. My sister Sylvia always had
a heart for the needy. More than once did she bring home destitute
persons, my mother gave them something to eat and they were on their
way again.
However,
there were two times when these chance encounters had a lasting
effect. One day, as my sister was returning home, she passed through
the train station in Munich where a young American soldier was
sitting looking lonely and forgotten. My sister brought the soldier
home, my mother fed him, and he talked to my father for some time and
then he left. A few days later, this same soldier showed up, I
believe in a car or jeep this time, and brought us a complete set of
dishes with soup plates, dinner plates, saucers, etc., a radio, and I
do not know what else. He had apparently noticed that we were short
on dishes, that we didn't have a radio and whatever else he brought.
He was thankful for the kindness shown him, but we never saw him
again. I remember that he said people called him “Buddy.”
A lasting
Encounter
The
other occasion resulted in a much longer relationship. Same scene:
destitute-looking person at the train station, sister brings him
home, mother feeds him, and father has conversation. The difference
was, this person stayed and became a lifelong friend of the family.
He was from Hungary, had served in the Hungarian army, but for some
reason he had ended up in occupied Germany. He came from a prominent
family, his father was a doctor, but he did not want to go back to
Hungary because the communists had taken over the government. I do
not know if he had anything to fear or if he just didn't want to live
under a communist regime. His name was Andreas Bálint. He and my
father seemed to like each other, Andreas was an excellent
conversationalist and the most polite person I have ever known. When
he came to visit he always kissed my mother's hand, which embarrassed
her to no end, that is why she asked him to stop doing it. Andreas
also liked to smoke and he and my father rolled their cigarettes with
the newspaper strips.
Because
he had nowhere else to go, Andreas stayed on in Dachau. He first
lived in the bedroom in the attic because my sister was away most of
the time, then he found a room somewhere and started to work. He had
studied art at a Hungarian university and considered himself an
artist, which he was. But the first job he got was as a set painter
at the local theater, which was again starting to put on plays. He
painted background scenes for various productions. Then he advanced
to the position of store window decorator. Stores were starting to
open up as consumer goods started to become available again. He
worked for a clothing store, arranging the items of clothing in the
show windows and decorating everything artistically. Andreas
impressed us with his talents. For instance, he painted some small
pictures depicting scenes with the seven dwarfs from the cartoon film
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” using a child's water color
set, he helped me build the model of a clock which I was supposed to
bring to school when we were learning how to tell time, and he amused
me and my friends with pictures drawn with a few simple strokes of
the pencil.
When
my father was still alive, Andreas came by regularly to talk about
politics and other things with my father. After my father died,
Andreas became like a grown son to my mother and a big brother to me,
whom we could call upon to help with heavy or difficult chores.
Andreas was a broad shouldered
man, he looked strong, but he was no macho. One day, one of the
families in our house somehow acquired a live chicken. The chicken
had to be killed. None of the women dared to do it, so Andreas was
selected for the task. When he finally had a firm grip on the
squirming, flapping chicken and picked up the hatchet with which to
decapitate it, he could not do it. Somebody then went and got the
teenage son from the farm across the street who finished the job
without any qualms.
A
Fateful Encounter
In
1950 or 1951, my sister met a young US Army First Lieutenant by the
name of David Reynolds. David was stationed in Augsburg, about an
hour and a half drive away from Dachau. David had seen Sylvia dance,
presumably at the Officers Club, and managed to meet her. Soon
thereafter Sylvia brought David home. I was immediately impressed by
his good looks, his uniform, and his pleasant manner. My mother liked
him too, but because she was always concerned that everyone had
enough to eat, remarked that his wrists were too thin and that he
needed to eat more.
He
also had, for those days and our circumstances, a fancy car. It was a
1949 Oldsmobile convertible, black with red leather seats and a white
steering wheel. When David came to our house the small street in
front of our house suddenly became filled with kids and adults
admiring the car. My friends and I immediately got some rags and
polished the car, hoping to be able go for a ride or at least to get
to sit in it. Naturally, I got to ride in the car more than my
friends because Sylvia and David took me along to Camp Dachau
to go to the American movie theater or to Munich to do some shopping.
At
this time Sylvia had several offers to broaden her career, one was a
contract as a model in advertisements that were starting to
experience a boom, the other was a movie contract. Sylvia rejected
both because the possibility of marrying David was becoming more and
more realistic. As a matter of fact, it became a reality in September
of 1952 when David and Sylvia were married in a civil ceremony in
Dachau. David and Sylvia departed for the United Sates in June of
1953.
More
Difficulty
At
about the time my sister met David, my mother became ill. She had
some kind of a tumor and was hospitalized first in Munich, then in
the local hospital in Dachau. That left me all alone at home. My
sister tried to take care of me as best she could, but she still had
her career as a dancer, which kept her away from home for days at a
time. She cooked meals, even though she had no experience doing it.
But mainly, I was taken care of and fed first by Armin's grandmother,
then by Peps' family. I went to school in the morning, ate at
Armin's at noon (we only went to school half days), visited my mother
in the hospital, did my homework at home and ate supper at
Armin's. His mother was gone all day at her job as a secretary,
but his grandmother was home all day. Contrary to what one might
think, I gained a lot of weight during that time. After I ate at
Armin's I went to the hospital where my mother always saved some of
her food for me because she was concerned that I might not get enough
to eat at Armin's. I generally had what amounted to two whole meals
at noon.
For
some reason my sister changed this arrangement, perhaps because she
had to be away for a longer period of time, and I went to live full
time with Peps and his family. I assume that Sylvia paid them for
their services. Peps' father was a welder by trade and had been an
amateur bicycle racer. It was a hardship on them, but a boon for me
because while I was with them I got to experience a family life with
more than one child in the family (Peps had a younger sister)
and a father, something I hadn't had for three or four years. It was
a hardship for them because they only had two rooms, a live-in
kitchen and a bedroom on the first floor of the farm across the
street.
In
the live-in kitchen, the seat for us kids was a couch on one side of
the dining table. The adults sat on chairs on two other sides. We
ate, played, did our homework and listened to Pep's father read to us
about the Wild West as written about by Karl May, while sitting on
the couch. There was a sink with cold water in the hallway where we
could wash and brush our teeth and there was a toilet on the same
floor, but no bathtubs in the whole house. Water got heated on the
coal-fired kitchen stove. But worst of all (looking back now) for the
family was that we all had to sleep in the single bedroom. Peps
and his sister had bunk beds. Peps' sister had to give up her bed for
me and she slept in bed with her parents. Peps' sister, Helga, was
three or four years old at the time. We looked forward to the long
evenings when Pep' father, Herr Scharf, read to us, or when we all
played cards, or other games. Eventually my mother got better and
came home permanently.
Growing up in Post-War Germany
In
the early 1950s Germany was starting to recover from the war. Luxury
items such as radios and televisions became available. When the
first television sets started to appear in stores there was one
channel and programming consisted of three to four hours of
broadcasting in the evenings. Only special events such as major
soccer games were broadcast during the day. No one I knew could
afford one, but some restaurants or pubs invested in a TV set in
order to attract people. I remember watching a major soccer game at a
restaurant which belonged to Thomas Hartmann's uncle. The picture was
so snowy that we could hardly see where the ball was, but everyone
was fascinated by the new technology. As advertisement, some stores
that sold TV sets turned on a set in their show window when a major
event was broadcast. Then large groups of people (my friends and I
among them) gathered outside the window and tried to get a glimpse of
the screen - without hearing the sound.
School
Going
to school in post-war Germany was an experience that youngsters of
today probably cannot even imagine. When I started school in 1947 the
war had been over for just two years. The influx of refugees had not
only swelled the general population tremendously, but also the school
population, leading to a shortage of classrooms; furthermore, many of
the teachers either were killed during the war or were still being
held prisoners of war. The classes were huge, 60 or more boys per
class. Classes were held in two shifts, one in the morning, the other
in the afternoon. Girls had their own school, and Dachau being in a
predominantly Catholic area, were instructed by nuns. I don't know
the specifics of their class sizes and if they went to school in
shifts, but conditions must have been similar, except that perhaps
more nuns were available to teach.
Physical
punishment in school was an accepted practice. No parents that I ever
heard of went to the school or to other authorities to complain about
punishment meted out to their child. In general, one seldom mentioned
at home the fact that one was punished in school because one could
expect to be reprimanded by one's parents for being unruly or
otherwise derelict in school. My mother never punished me physically,
but she had a way to let me know that she was displeased, to say the
least. Understandably, discipline was an important factor in classes
of this size. We were assigned seats by the teacher according to our
scholastic ability coupled with our general behavior. That is,
slow-learners and those with a potential for inattention were seated
in the front rows so that the teacher could keep an eye on them,
whereas the more reliable students were placed further to the back of
the room. The teacher placed a reliable student at a desk next to the
door who opened the door when there was a knock. When our teacher or
some other school official entered the room we had to jump up from
our seats and shout: “Guten Morgen, Herr Lehrer!” or “Guten
Tag, Herr Lehrer!” or whatever title the person entering had. It
often happened that the whole procedure had to be repeated several
times until it was done satisfactorily. The seats of the benches
flipped up when we stood up, but they all had to flip up with one big
bang and not at random. “They have to make a sound like a cannon
and not like a machine gun,” was the admonishment by the teacher.
During
my eight years of school in Dachau I had four different teachers,
each for two years. They taught everything except religion. For that
a priest came once per week. All dealt out physical punishment and
humiliation, even the priests. One teacher regularly threw pieces of
chalk when he was at the blackboard, or his bundle of keys when he
sat at his desk, to gain the attention of some daydreaming or
otherwise non-attentive student. Furthermore, every classroom had a
meter-long bamboo rod in the closet. Several strikes with the bamboo
rod across the inside of the hand (called "Tatzen"),
or several swats across the seat of the pants, with pants pulled
tight for extra effect, were common occurrences. Often the boy to be
punished in this way had to get the rod out of the closet himself,
adding insult to injury. On one occasion a boy bolted out the door
when he was ordered to fetch the rod and was not seen for several
days.
When
the rod was not used, we received slaps on the cheeks (called
"Watschen"). One
teacher I had pinched one of your cheeks with one hand to hold you
still and then slap your other cheek one or more times with his other
hand. "Tatzen" and
"Watschen" were
dished out mainly for non-attention and talking. With 60 boys in a
class this was a frequent occurrence. Strokes across the pants were
given for more serious offenses such as skipping school or not doing
homework. I cannot remember ever getting hit on the bottom, but
"Tatzen" and
"Watschen" I
received many times for talking or not paying attention in class.
One
particular case deserves mentioning. During one of our weekly
religious instructions the priest was dissatisfied with the behavior
of one of the students. Therefore, the student received several
lashes - the number varied between three and twelve, depending on the
offense - across the bottom. The priest pulled the boy across a desk,
pulled his pants tight until the bare skin poked up through an about
50-cent-sized hole in the boy's pants. The priest concentrated his
lashes on that spot. Most of us wore leather pants ("Lederhosen")
that diminished the force of the blows unless they were pulled
extremely tight and some kids did not wear underwear under the
Lederhosen.
Eventually
the classes became smaller because more schools were built and
teachers returned from the war. As we got older and the classes
became smaller, the physical punishment lessened (the teacher who
held one cheek while slapping the other was our teacher for the last
two years when we were 13 and 14 years old), but a certain amount of
humiliation remained. For instance, it was almost a daily occurrence
that a student (many times it was the same one or two students) was
embarrassed in front of the whole class because of his appearance,
lack of preparation, or behavior. Notwithstanding, we still respected
and to a certain degree even loved our teachers so that on special
occasions the members of the class collected money to buy the teacher
a small present, such as a book, as I recall from my eighth grade.
For
the first six years I had to walk about thirty minutes to get to
school. The last two years when a new school was built nearer to
where we lived it was only ten to fifteen minutes, depending on how
much we dawdled on the way. As is normal with kids, they can be
enticed to linger and watch anything that catches their eye. On one
occasion I can recall watching the police and a butcher retrieve an
ox from the river where the poor animal had sought refuge after
escaping from the slaughter house and where he was shot by the police
because they could not coax him out of the water. Another more
delightful event occurred when the word spread among the group of
third or fourth graders that a new butcher shop had opened on our
route home and that they were giving away free samples. A sizable
group, including me anonymously situated in the middle of the bunch,
entered the shop. Each of us received a slice of baloney in the hope
that our parents would frequent the shop, which was out of the
question for my mother since we lived quite a distance away and we
had a butcher shop right around the corner. Bakeries, butcher shops,
and other small shops could be found in every neighborhood, the day
of supermarkets was far in the future.
The
schools did not have cafeterias. We went to school half days and went
home at noon. In seventh and eighth grade, in the new school, we had
activities in the afternoon twice a week. The only thing I remember
about the afternoons is that we had physical education at least one
day a week. We went home for lunch and then returned to school a
couple of hours later. That shows that we all must have lived within
walking distance to the school. There was one break during
mid-morning, maybe 20 to 30 minutes long when we went outside and
milled around in the schoolyard. Some kids brought sandwiches which
they ate during the break. Others were able to buy rolls or pretzels
from the school's janitor. His job was more than cleaning the school,
he lived there with his family and unlocked and locked the doors and
made repairs to the building as necessary. In addition, he sold the
rolls and pretzels, nothing more, as I recall.
We
didn't know any different then, but looking back now it appears to me
that school was a lot of hard work. We had to do a lot of
memorization. Several lengthy poems from famous German poets like
Goethe, Schiller, etc., had to be committed to memory. One could be
called upon at any time by the teacher to recite something. One year,
first thing every Monday morning the teacher gave us some arithmetic
calculations to do in our heads while we were standing up. The
calculations were simple chains of additions, subtraction,
multiplications and divisions, but shot at us quite rapidly. I
usually lost track near the front of the series and thereby lost all
hope of coming up with the right answer. What was most humiliating
was that everyone had to state what they had gotten for an answer.
The teacher then entered whether the answer was right or wrong in his
book of grades. I was not bad in mathematics, but needed (and still
do) to see the numbers on paper or on the board and to do the
calculations at my own pace.
We
had "homework books" which were lined notebooks in which
the homework had to be done. These books were handed in periodically
and corrected and graded by the teacher. To enhance the optical
attractiveness of the books we drew elaborate borders around the
pages, hoping that this would impress the teacher. I don't know if
this practice was dictated by the teachers, but it was universally
practiced in all classes. In retrospect, I feel that many of these
measures were probably meant to instill discipline in us.
This
is not to say that we didn't have any pleasant experiences in school.
One of the highlights was a visit by the “Sound-Film Man.” This
was a man who worked for the school system and drove an old VW bus
loaded with projector, screen, cables, loudspeaker, and films. When
someone saw that bus pull into the schoolyard, word spread like
wildfire and general excitement followed, because it meant that for
the next couple of hours the regular schedule was abandoned and we
were shown several films. Not silent films, but films with sound. The
preparations were elaborate. In the old school building some of us
were designated to get the blinds from the attic. These were
rectangular frames made out of wooden slats covered with black paper
(I suspect that they were left over from the days when blacking out
the windows could be an almost daily requirement). These blinds were
placed over the windows, each blind was marked according to which
window it fit. In the new school there were Venetian blinds that made
darkening the room easier. The Sound Film Man set up his 16 mm
projector, a portable screen and the loudspeaker box in one of the
classrooms. Then all the other classes crowded in for a couple of
hours of documentaries suitable for children. It was not really
entertainment, but it brought relief from the school routine for a
few hours.
When
I started seventh grade, those of us who lived in the new school's
district moved to the new school. The school consisted of two
parallel buildings connected by two glass corridors. The peculiar
thing was that these parallel buildings were divided into two
sections. One could not go directly from one section to the other
without going outside. The front parts of the two buildings were for
boys, the back parts for girls. We were segregated even during breaks
in the school yard. One time, I can remember, a class of girls our
age came into our classroom for an official visit, how long they
stayed I don't remember, I just remember that it was an awkward
situation for all of us.
The
school was brand new and modern for those times - the pride of the
school system. Each classroom had a cloak room, a small room adjacent
to the classroom where the students hung their coats. Everybody had
to bring a cloth bag of a specified size and a pair of house slippers
from home. The house slippers were kept in the bag when not in use.
Because the floors in the classrooms were considered so precious and
had to be protected from scuff marks, we had to take off our street
shoes and put on our slippers whenever we entered the classroom. I
did this for two years.
One
more unusual observation about the new school is that it had a large
shower room in the basement. There was a sort of pool, only waist
deep and empty, with a number of shower heads above it. We stood in
the pool and got wet from the top. The curious thing was that we were
all boys, but had to wear bathing suits, which tells something about
the prudery practiced then.
I
finished eighth grade in the summer of 1955. This was the end of the
elementary education. Most boys from my class started an
apprenticeship. To go on to higher education at this point was not
possible. One would have had to go to a higher-level school
("Gymnasium") starting at the fourth grade which was out of
the question for me because of the cost involved. Because we didn't
know how much longer the visa process would take (Sylvia had hired a
lawyer in the US to see if he could speed it up), my teacher
suggested that I attend, voluntarily, classes at a vocational school.
Each apprentice had to attend classes that were geared to his
vocation, one day a week. Since I didn't have an apprenticeship
(because I was leaving the country soon) it was suggested that I
attend two days a week, just to get some experience and not waste the
time by doing nothing. I chose the courses for what basically was
office work.
I
attended classes in typing, shorthand, bookkeeping, arithmetic, and I
don't remember what else. The shorthand lessons were interesting at
first, but soon became labor intensive (you had to practice a lot).
The typing was done to music, also amusing at first, but too much
like work later. And so it went with all other subjects until I
finally convinced my mother that I didn't need all that and I
dis-enrolled myself and quit going. I had only gone to that school
for a couple of months and luckily shortly thereafter our visas came
through.
Teachers
As
I said before, I had four teachers in all, one for every two of the
eight years. The first one was an older man who apparently had not
gone off to war. I don't remember much of him except that my mother
liked him. I don't remember anything about the second teacher. The
third teacher, by that time we were 10 years old, had recently
returned from the war, probably as a prisoner of war. He was an avid
mountain climber and, when in the mood, talked about climbing some,
in our estimation, huge mountains. He also was a paratrooper during
the war and served in North Africa. He told us that it was so hot in
North Africa that the soldiers were able to fry eggs on the metal
parts of tanks and trucks (after they scraped off some paint). He
also told us about a pastime they had in North Africa which involved
scorpions (of which there apparently were plenty). They caught a
scorpion, dug a circular trench a few inches deep and a couple of
feet in diameter, put the scorpion in the middle of this circle,
poured gasoline in the trench, and set it afire. The scorpion tried
to get out of the ring of fire in all direction. But when he realized
that there was no way out past the flames, he extended his stinger
over his back and sting himself in the neck, thereby committing
suicide. As boys of about ten years of age, we were fascinated by his
stories. The last teacher I had sticks in my mind for another reason.
The Hitler regime was never an official subject, but now and then one
of the kids naively asked a question that had something to do with
Germany's recent past. I don't remember the context, but I recall the
teacher saying that Hitler wasn't all that bad, he just had bad
advisers. He also was the teacher who pinched one cheek before
slapping the other.
Cigarettes
After
the war, times were bleak - mainly for grownups. We children, who had
not known the times before the war, were satisfied that we had a
family and had enough to eat. We didn't know any better. Grownups,
however, had to do without many of the luxuries they enjoyed in
earlier times. One of these luxuries were cigarettes. Slowly, German
cigarettes started showing up in stores; although lower in quality,
they satisfied the average smoker. Nevertheless, German cigarettes
were expensive so that many people could not afford to buy a whole
pack at a time. Instead, cigarettes could be bought singly. Parents
sent one of their children to buy one or two cigarettes for them.
This made it easy for us as teenagers to buy cigarettes - provided we
had the money - we simply pretended that we were buying them for our
parents. Sometimes two or three of us chipped in whatever few coins
we had and one of us then bought one or two cigarettes, which we then
smoked out in the fields or behind the barn. Several times one of us
got sick just from taking one or two “healthy” puffs. One of my
classmates was caught smoking and as punishment his father made him
light two or three cigarettes at once and inhale strongly until he
got sick and then his father made him sit on the manure pile while
throwing up. I never indulged in smoking to excess, but did have to
hide a cigarette in the hollow handlebars of my bicycle a couple of
times when I saw an adult approaching.
Pastimes
Three
things were essential while growing up in Dachau and to this day I am
grateful that I learned them: swimming, ice skating, and bicycle
riding. I do not recall any classmate, friend or acquaintance who
could not swim. None of us took lessons, we just learned it by doing.
Almost every decent day during the summer vacation found us at the
“Schwimmbad.” The
Schwimmbad wasn't a pool with
clean, clear water, but an arm of the Amper, the river that flows
through Dachau. The arm was the old part of the river that was almost
stagnant since the main flow had been diverted to an electric power
plant. The water flowed slowly through the old river bed which had
been sectioned off into four “pools” by docks from which one
could dive into them. These pools had different depths, one was
shallow for small children, one a little deeper for beginning
swimmers, one deep for good swimmers, and one with diving boards.
There were no lifeguards, just a “Bademeister”
who was in charge of the whole Schwimmbad.
When
we weren't in the water we dried off on the large grassy area. Older
boys and men played a game called “Faustball”
there. It was played with a soccer ball which was hit with the fist,
very similar to volleyball, except there was no net and the ball was
hit with the closed fist. It was not something for younger kids
because you had to have considerable strength to propel the ball any
distance. Some of the older boys trird to impress girls by diving off
the one meter and the three meter diving boards – with varying
degrees of success. Until perhaps the last two summers I spent there,
my friends and I weren't interested in girls.
In
the wintertime the popular pastime was ice skating. The town put up a
rectangle made up of boards about a foot high on the fairgrounds near
our school. The boards were set on edge, fastened to the ground with
spikes, and then the interior of the rectangle was filled with water.
This, of course, could only be done when the air temperature was low
enough to freeze the water before it all escaped through the cracks
between the boards. This ice skating rink was surrounded by a fence
with a ticket booth at an opening. For a small amount of money one
could skate all day long. There was a shed with a potbellied stove
where we could put on and take off our skates and where one could go
in between to warm up. Everyone always skated in one direction,
counterclockwise, that is why I can only do left-hand turns on skates
well to this day. The skates we had did not have shoes attached.
Instead, you used your street shoes (preferably high-topped, heavy
shoes) and clamped the skates unto them. The skates had vice-like
jaws that were opened and closed with a special key that caused a
worm gear to close them on the heel and the sole of the shoe. It was
not infrequent that a heel or a sole or both were pulled off by the
skate which then made its way independently across the ice, leaving
the skater to skip and slide on one skate and a heel-less or
sole-less shoe. Someone in the ticket booth sold refreshments, but
who had time or money for that? We skated until it got dark and it
was time to go home. When it got dark, colorful lights illuminated
the rink and older people danced on skates to the music that
loudspeakers over the ticket booth blared out.
To
be able to ride a bicycle was more important to me than to be able to
swim or ice skate because the bicycle was usable in any season
(except when the snow was ankle deep) and meant freedom to travel
greater distances. The first mode of transportation people acquired
when they became available after the war was bicycles. My friend
Peps' father was a welder and made a small bicycle for Peps. Because
of lack of rubber for inner tubes and casings, this bicycle had solid
rubber tires made out of numerous solid rubber disks cut from old
tires. The rubber disks were strung together on a wire like pearls on
a string. This collection of rubber disks was then fastened around
the rim of the wheel. Furthermore, this bicycle did not have neutral,
that is, the gear on the rear wheel was welded on and as long as the
wheel was turning, the pedals rotated. It also had no brakes, slowing
the turning of the pedals by force or dragging your feet were the
brakes. I pride myself in the fact that after learning to ride that
bicycle, I can ride any bicycle.
But,
for years I did not have my own bicycle. I frequently asked kids who
were fortunate enough to have a bicycle if I could take theirs “for
a spin.” I rode around the block once or twice, cherishing every
moment of this rare experience. Finally, my sister bought a bicycle
for me. It was my pride and joy. It was not the raciest or fanciest,
but it was all mine. As I said earlier, because my mother and I were
destined to join her in the United States soon, my sister shipped my
bicycle with her household goods, leaving me again without a bicycle.
One
experience, the memory of which disturbed me for quite some time
afterward, occurred while riding my bicycle. I must have been 12 or
13 years old and for some reason was riding on a narrow path between
some heavy bushes along the river, quite some distance outside of
town. The path was narrow and winding and I could not see what was
around the next bend. As I came around one of the bends, suddenly in
front of me was a naked man. He was walking in the same direction as
I was going, but when he heard the screeching of my brakes or the
sound of my bell (which was and still is required on bicycles in
Germany), he stopped and turned around. I had to stop because the
path was not wide enough for both of us and right and left were
thick, high bushes. He said something like: “What are you doing
here,” a question I had in my mind also. I probably stammered
something to the effect that I was just riding my bicycle. I seemed
be have surprised him, although I later came to the conclusion that
he may have been there for the purpose of surprising someone in this
state of nudity. He then tried to grab my hand and said, “Touch
me,” (I could tell that he wasn't from around our area because he
didn't speak the local dialect) but I managed to pull my hand away.
Then the man started to reach for the knife that I had in the pocket
provided for it in my “Lederhosen.”
It was customary for men, and boys from about age ten on, to have a
stiletto with a bone handle in their Lederhosen.
I quickly put my hand over the handle of the knife, not as a
threat, for that I was much too scared, but to protect the knife
which was a priced possession and a sign of (almost) manhood to us
boys. At that the man slapped my face and told me to get away. I
quickly turned my bicycle around and high-tailed it back in the
direction from which I had come, always afraid that I would encounter
another nudist around the next bend.
I
told almost no one about this encounter, not my mother, nor Armin,
nor Peps, but only Thomas Hartmann, the classmate I had been friends
with lately. I don't know why I told him and he promptly told the
story at home where the husband of an older sister heard about it.
Thomas then relayed to me that his brother-in-law, who worked in the
equivalent of the District Attorney's office, had said that they were
looking for people like me to testify against people like the nudist
that I encountered - if they had a suspect. Now I was more terrified
than in my encounter with the naked man, because I was afraid
everybody, including my mother, would find out about it. Not that I
had to fear any reprisals from my mother, after all I hadn't done
anything wrong, but I felt certain that my mother would not let me
out of her sight from then on, she was already protective enough. For
a long time I lived in fear that Thomas' brother-in-law would summon
me to his office. But, nothing further happened, my fear of having to
testify subsided, but I never forgot that encounter on the path.
Circuses
As
far as I can remember, circuses were the first form of mass
entertainment, before movies in post-war Germany. As soon as
transportation was available after the war, circuses started to
travel throughout Germany. There was great excitement when a circus
came to town. Exotic animals were paraded down the main street of
the town, “whetting everyone's appetite” for the circus show. The
tents were always crowded; after all, it had been a long time since
the population had experienced such entertainment. During the war
there was a lack of gasoline for the circus vehicles, many of the
performers were off to war and toward the end of the war the fear of
air raids discouraged large gatherings.
The
circus fascinated us because of the exotic flair, the animals and the
(then seemingly) spectacular stunts. So, we decided to create our own
circus. We hung a sheet over a clothes line in someone's backyard,
that was the curtain, charged admission (the crowd usually consisted
of three or four neighborhood kids) and improvised some acts. Once we
saw an act with a knife thrower who encircled a brave young lady with
a dozen knives which he threw so precisely that they just barely
missed her body. We didn't have that many knives, actually just one,
and we didn't have a brave young lady. My friend Peter was to be the
thrower (it was his knife) and the most anyone was willing to risk
was an outstretched arm held against an upturned picnic table. But,
the act was a great success. The knife stuck sufficiently far from
the arm, but for us and the audience the illusion was there. The
crowd applauded. Some other less hazardous acts followed. I did a
cowboy's rope-twirling number with a piece of clothes line that had a
ring that was free to rotate fastened to the end so that I could
twirl the rope and not get it all tangled up. We considered the show
a success and retreated to bask in our glory.
Movies
As
the war years moved further into the background, we children were
able to start enjoying a form of entertainments that was not
available before - movies. From the movies, which we attended as
regularly as Sunday Mass (our teacher was in the church taking note
of who was present), we learned about America, Africa, Arabia, etc.
The movies were mostly American movies dubbed in German. We favored
Westerns, but if no Western was playing at one of the four movie
theaters in town, we went to whatever the second choice was. Not
going to the movies at 3 O’clock on Sunday afternoon was not a
choice. Then, when daylight permitted, we acted out our version of
the movie in one of our backyards. We took on the various roles
played by John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Richard Whitmark, Stewart
Granger, etc. The bad guy usually looked like Dan Duryea. Later on
came the monumental wide screen spectaculars with Charlton Heston,
Victor Mature, gladiators, lions, and Christians.
The
movie seats were classified into Third Class, Second Class, First
Class, Balcony, and Box. Needless to say, Third Class seats were the
cheapest, the first few rows down front, for 55 Pfennig. The other
classes increased in price as the distance from the screen increased.
The Box seats were little cubicles (open to the screen) with five or
six seats for those who wanted privacy and could afford to pay the
price. It is my recollection that they were usually empty. Popcorn
was not known in Germany at that time, but you could buy ice cream on
a stick or a candy bar. Peps sometimes met his grandfather (Peps was
the only one of us three who still had one) who gave him a few coins
so that he could buy something at the movie theater or elsewhere and
made Armin's and my mouth water as he gleefully devoured the treat.
The movies started and ended on schedule. That is, there was no
sitting through it again or something like a double feature. The
doors opened a few minutes before the show started and everybody had
to leave when it was over. At the beginning there were a few
advertisements, some previews, then a newsreel, and if we were lucky
there was a Walt Disney cartoon, and then the feature film. When the
lights came on there was a rush for the exits and the fresh air
because the movie theaters were neither air conditioned in the summer
nor heated in the winter and the mass of humanity in the theater made
the air moist and sometimes pungent. In my mind's eyes I vividly see
us making our way through the rows of seats to the exit, excitedly
discussing our favorite scenes of the film.
Sunglasses
Suddenly,
sunglasses came into vogue. All young men who had jobs and earned
money bought sunglasses. A pair cost about 10 D-Marks, then a sum
well outside my reach when my mother could barely spare the 55
Pfennig for my Sunday movie. My best friends were a little better
off, but 10 D-Marks for a pair of sunglasses was out of the question
for them too. Therefore, we decided to hold a raffle to obtain some
money. Everybody donated something to be raffled off. Of course we
didn't really intend to part with the items we offered, they were
much too valuable to us. I had a holster with two pistols with Roy
Rogers on the belt, a gift from my sister. This was the bait. None of
the raffle tickets had this holster on them. What was on the tickets
were some useless items, like a used comb or the like. Looking back
now I find the whole thing despicable and even then I felt a little
bad. The target of the raffle was the son of a local dentist who
always flashed his money around. We were jealous and wanted to
relieve him of some of his extra money. We never thought of stealing
it from him, but a little slight of hand? He fell for it, but when he
didn't win anything worthwhile he lost interest and none of us ever
got any sunglasses.
Summers
The
German school system had several vacations built into it. There was
Christmas vacation, Easter vacation, a vacation in the fall called
“potato vacation,” and of course a summer vacation. The “potato
vacation” was a carryover from the days when children had to help
with the harvesting. The summer vacation was what we looked forward
to the most. It was only about six weeks long, from the middle of
July to the beginning of September, but it felt like an eternity. I
can only remember warm days with daylight until 10 P. M. We all ran
barefoot all summer. The only time we wore shoes was to go to church
and to the movies. Some kids who were worse off than my friends and I
went to school barefoot starting in May to save wear and tear on
their shoes. An old saying stated that one should not go barefoot
during any month that has an “r” in its name, presumably because
the ground could be too cold. Therefore, May, June, July, and August
were fair game. The school allowed this, you just didn't go to church
without shoes, and those kids probably didn't even have the few
pennies it took to buy a movie ticket.
Depending
on at what stage of our lives we were, we spent our summer days
playing in the yard, in the street, in the farmyard across the
street, went to the fields with the farmers, rode our bicycles (when
we had some), went swimming, and went exploring in the woods and
along the river. My friend Peter had some pretty wild ideas,
fortunately, most never worked out so that no harm was done, they
just ended up as disappointments. For instance, one day I mentioned
to him that I saw an unattended kayak in some bushes along the river
bank. He wanted to get it, even if it belonged to someone. I had
misgivings all the way, but went along. Much to my delight (which I
concealed) and to Peter's disappointment we did not find any kayak
and returned empty handed. Another
time Peter suggested that we use wire loops to try and snag some fish
in one of the side arms of the river. Early-on during the occupation
of Germany only the occupation forces were allowed to fish. Later on
one could get a license to fish but it was very expensive and to fish
without a license was illegal. I don't remember during which time it
was that Peter came up with the idea of catching fish, in any case it
would have been illegal. In addition, after catching a fish he wanted
to build a fire out in the woods and roast the fish - another no, no.
There were some pretty large fish, mainly pike, that just seemed to
be standing still in the water waiting to be snared. Lucky for me we
never caught one. They were too fast even if we could get near
enough to deploy the snare. I didn't look forward to having to eat
what I imagined to be a half raw, half cremated fish with its head
still on. Instead, we slept in Peter's backyard in a tent where we
got little sleep because it was uncomfortable and mosquitoes bothered
us all night. Finally Peter's father called from the house for us to
be quiet and we settled down. In the morning we made coffee by
throwing some ground coffee beans into a pot of lukewarm water which
we had tried to bring to a boil over a fire. It was awful tasting.
Neither one of us knew how to make coffee, we had mothers who did
that. We finally went into the house and Peter's mother made us
breakfast.
GYA
Soon
after the war ended, the Americans initiated several programs to help
the population. One of these was a program to provide healthy
pastimes for German youth. It was called German Youth Association or
GYA. As far as I remember, it resembled the YMCA which I experienced
later, and provided after school activities. There were workshops,
sports activities, etc. The GYA house in our neighborhood was run by
a somewhat rotund, sergeant. There was a woodworking shop in the
basement where we were able to use jig saws on plywood to cut out
little designs. What was most interesting, however, was that there
was plexiglass which we could also cut up. None of us had ever seen
Plexiglas, some older kids told us that it was used for windows in
airplanes. Wow, just to be able to handle something that was used for
parts of an airplane was an experience in itself. One could check out
sports equipment - American - with which we had no experience. The
baseball gloves, bats, and balls were used only out of curiosity. The
basketballs were equally as strange, large and heavy in our hands,
with the letters GYA burned into the leather.
At
Christmas time the GYA put on a Christmas party for all children who
wanted to come. It was held in the theater located on the castle
grounds. On the stage was a huge Christmas tree with bright, colorful
electric lights, lots of ornaments, lots of tensile, garlands, and
lots of wisps of cotton to make the tree look snow covered. This was
in stark contrast to traditional German Christmas trees. Our
Christmas tree at home was so small that it was set on the kitchen
table. The candles were real and white, there were a few ornaments,
some strands of tensile, but no snow. Our mouths were agape when we
saw the American Christmas tree. There was some kind of play and
maybe some speeches - I don't remember because I could hardly wait to
get home to open the small gift box we each had received. As Germany
recovered, the GYA was replaced by local organizations that provided
pastimes for children.
Kites
One
of our favorite pastimes in the fall, after the fields had been
harvested, was to go out into the fields to fly the kites we each
made. After times improved, one could buy rods of balsa wood, light
wrapping paper, string, and glue. With that we built kites of various
sizes and shapes that, with sufficient amount of string, could go
quite high and far away. Some kids had 1000 meters of string and let
their kites soar until all the string was used up. The problem with
that was that if the wind let up, with that much string to reel in,
the kite often fell to the ground far away before one could pull it
in. One felt lucky if one got most of the string back, usually the
kite was ruined anyhow. One day I had a square kite way up in the sky
and it was sitting out there nicely without fluctuating much when
some older boys came by and asked if they could feel how much the
kite pulled, often a sign of admiration. I was proud of my kite and
how far out I had it and how taught the string was, so I let them
feel the pull on the string. Much to my horror, one of them had a
knife hidden in his hand and cut the string, sending my kite tumbling
to the ground more than a kilometer away. The boys went on their way
laughing and left me heartbroken.
The Farm
Across the Street
Across
the street from where we lived there was a farm. The
farm consisted of a large two-storied house with an attached barn for
the animals, another barn for hay and machinery standing separately,
and some chicken coops and storage sheds behind the free-standing
barn. There was a large yard with the obligatory manure pile and some
small pine trees near the fence along the street where we lived. In
the barn which was attached to the house one could walk from the
house directly into the barn, which was always nice and warm in the
winter. To pull the wagons and to plow the fields, at first there
were two oxen, then a horse and an ox, then two horses, and finally a
tractor. The father of the family had been drafted into the army
during the war and was a prisoner of war in Russia. His father, an
old man, his teenage son, and the farmer's wife ran the farm. I don't
remember much of the old man because he was killed in an accident
soon after we moved in. One of the oxen leaned against him in his
stall and pinned him to the wall so severely that it crushed the old
man's ribs. From then on the teenage son (his name was Jakob but
everybody called him Bubi) and his mother ran the farm. Bubi was only
about ten years older than I was, but he ran the farm, he even told
his mother what to do.
We
spent much of our time in the farm yard. Peps lived upstairs in the
farm house. We played around the hay and machinery barn or near the
pines along the fence. Because we spent all summer running barefoot,
we often hurt our feet. One time we were climbing over and around a
pile of old boards when I stepped on a rusty nail that punctured the
bottom of one of my feet. I ran home, my mother washed the wound out,
and bandaged it with a strip of some kind of cloth. I was soon back
outside, still barefoot, with one bandaged foot. We weren't finished
playing around the pile of boards and I rejoined my friends. Soon
thereafter, as luck would have it, I stepped on another nail, this
time with the other foot and was bandaged similarly by my mother. I
think then we quit playing around the boards (maybe at the stern
request of my Mother).
As
I became a little older I sometimes spent time with Bubi. Although he
seldom carried on a conversation, it seemed that Bubi didn't mind me
tagging along because I could do little jobs for him like fetching a
tool or some water, etc. I went to the fields with him and watched
the cows while he went and got something to eat, or I held the reins
(by that time they had two horses) while he hitched or unhitched the
horses. One time, Bubi and I were out on one of their meadows with an
empty hay wagon when Bubi decided to ride one of the horses while
they pulled the wagon. I sat in the back of the hay wagon while Bubi
climbed from the front of the wagon unto the back of one of the
horses. This apparently startled the horse, although Bubi had done
this before (even I had ridden one of the horses while it was hitched
to a wagon), and the horse bucked and jumped. This startled the other
horse and both of them took off at a gallop with Bubi barely on top
of one horse and me in the back of the wooden wagon. The horses ran
off the meadow unto a road, but did not allow for the ditch alongside
the road. The horses bolted across the ditch with the wagon flying
over the ditch with me in back hanging on for dear life. I remember
that I was flung into the air several times, but must have had an
iron grip on the planks of the wagon because I always landed back in
the wagon. Luckily the wagon didn't turn over. Meanwhile Bubi was
struggling with the reins and cursing the animals until they finally
calmed down and stopped. As soon as we came to a halt I jumped from
the wagon and ran home as fast as I could. That experience, however,
didn't deter me thereafter from riding in a wagon with Bubi from time
to time. Later on when they had a tractor and I was about twelve or
thirteen years old I rode along on the tractor and on several
occasions was allowed to drive the tractor all by myself.
Another
time I hung around the farm when Bubi pumped out the septic tank
where the sewage from the stable was collected. It had to be pumped
out periodically and the content was spread as fertilizer on the
fields. It was all done manually. There was a pump on two wheels
which one person could pull. One hose was let into the septic tank,
another one was hung into a long barrel laying on its side on the
back of a horse drawn wagon. The pump had a long handle with which a
person pumped as if pumping water out of a well. When the
barrel was sufficiently filled, Bubi drove out to one of his fields.
Opening a valve on a pipe at the back of the barrel allowed the
spreading of the smelly substance over a strip several yards wide as
Bubi drove the wagon the length of the field. The trip to the fields
had to be repeated several times because the septic tank held much
more than fit into one barrel. Ideally, when opening the valve the
wagon had to be moving, otherwise much of the content of the barrel
ended up on one spot. This is where Bubi had a problem when he was
alone while doing this chore: He could not open the valve at the back
of the wagon and at the same time lead the horses and make them move.
This is where Bubi appreciated my help. I drove to the fields with
him, sitting on top of the big barrel. This alone was a treat. As we
arrived at the field to be fertilized, I got off the wagon because I
was delegated to open the valve in back at the same time that Bubi
set the animals and the wagon in motion. I did a good job opening the
valve just as Bubi gave the command to open it and the wagon started
to move. Unfortunately, I was standing directly behind the pipe from
which the liquid came out in a force which I had not expected. The
stream caught me right across the chest, almost knocking me over
backwards. The wagon moved on, Bubi was delighted that the spreading
had started so fluently. I don't remember how I got home, but
needless to say, my mother was beside herself about my stroke of
genius. I think Bubi had a good laugh, but had to revert to
fertilizing the fields without me.
The
collection of animals on the farm consisted of chickens that ran free
in the yard and geese that sometimes roamed the yard, but not always,
because the gate had to be closed when they were in the yard. They
apparently did not have the loyalty to the farm that the chickens had
and tended to wander off the property and down the street. We stayed
away from the geese because they were very aggressive if you came too
near to them. Sometimes pigs were let out to stretch their legs,
again an unpleasant time for us to be in the yard because the pigs'
droppings were unpleasant if you stepped on them with bare feet.
There also were six or eight cows and a ferocious-looking bull with a
ring through the nose. The bull had the first berth in the stall with
the cows. He did nothing but eat, sleep, and snort when you got too
close to him. He was secured with a heavy chain that was bolted into
the wall in front of him and which ended on a wide leather collar
around his muscular neck. I often wondered what good he was, he
wasn't milked like the cows. I must have asked Bubi why the bull
wasn't milked because once I was watching him milk the cows when, as
a joke, he pretended that he was going to milk the bull by placing
his milking stool next to the bull. The bull turned his head and gave
Bubi a look with his big eyes that seemed to be shooting daggers,
gave a snort and Bubi quickly grabbed his stool and pail and moved a
safe distance away, laughing. Bubi also squirted milk at us kids if
we came close enough. That is, as he was milking the cow he turned
one of the nipples toward us and gave it a firm squeeze which shot a
thin stream of milk eight or ten feet. Who said you can't have fun on
a farm.
But
by far the greatest excitement took place when Bubi brought the bull
out for some exercise (at least that's what we kids were told). Bubi
led the bull with a heavy pole which was about a meter long and had a
heavy iron latch at the end. The latch hooked onto the ring in the
bull's nose - Bubi literally lead the bull around by his nose. At
times it took all of Bubi's strength (he was the most muscular
teenager I knew) and it required digging his heals in to control the
bull. But, the pain produced by the pull on the nose ring made the
bull obey, albeit reluctantly. We didn't seem to wonder a lot why the
bull was taken out for exercise behind the large barn whenever
another farmer showed up with a cow. They all disappeared behind the
barn with the cow and the bull where a V-shaped framework was
constructed. When we roamed around the farmyard we wondered what
purpose this contraption had. Once when we dared a peek behind the
barn when the bull and a cow had been led there we saw the cow
head-first in the V-shaped contraption and the bull climbing up her
back. The farmers saw us and shooed us away telling us that the bull
was doing some gymnastics. As I ran home my mother was standing in
the street talking to a neighbor and I told them that the bull was
doing gymnastics behind the barn, they broke out in laughter, such as
I rarely saw from my mother. I wondered what was so funny and
returned to the farm to watch the more exciting part when Bubi led
the bull back into the stable.
When
Bubi's father came home from the prisoner of war camp there was a big
celebration and a pig was slaughtered. However, the harmony was short
lived. As was the case in many families where the fathers had been
gone for many years because of the war and a young son had been
responsible for the rest of the family, Bubi and his father didn't
get along very well. They had different ideas about how to run the
farm; however, until we left for the United States they worked side
by side, but spoke very little to each other. I don't know how they
made out later.
Another Ending and Another Beginning
Another
Ending
I
had always been an “America fan” from my earliest encounters with
occupation soldiers to my experiences with David. My picture of
America had been shaped by the Wild West stories I had heard, read
about, seen in the movies, and by innumerable comic books that my
sister brought for me over the years. Through them I even developed a
rudimentary understanding of written English. My fate, so to speak,
was sealed when upon being asked by David if Sylvia would marry him,
she stipulated that if she went to the United States with him, my
mother and I would have to come along (she always felt responsible
for us after our father died). David agreed without hesitation to her
stipulation and the path for my going to the United States was set.
From that day on my life in Germany was only a temporary station on
the way to America.
David
and Sylvia left for the United States in the summer of 1953. My
mother and I were to follow as soon as our visas had been obtained.
Because obtaining the visas was considered a small matter, David
shipped some of our things in his shipment of household goods so that
we would have them when we arrived. Unfortunately, obtaining a visa
took longer than expected, about two and a half years, which made our
wait a little frustrating because we were primed to go. The worst, as
I remember, however, was that David had shipped my bicycle which he
and Sylvia had bought for me not too long before they left. Having a
bicycle at that time was as important to me as owning a car was later
as a sixteen or seventeen year old. I ended up borrowing someone's
mother's old bicycle because all my friends had bicycles and I would
have been left out without one. The years went by. Sylvia wrote
regularly and always included at least $20. That was a lot of money
to my mother and me and it meant that on Sunday I could go to the
movies with Peps and Armin. We finally obtained our visas in the Fall
of 1955.
In
November of 1955 my mother gave away (I can't imagine that we had
anything worth selling) whatever she couldn't carry. We left Dachau
by train to Bremerhaven on the 15th of November and sailed on a ship
called the MS Berlin for New York City via Halifax, Canada, on the
17th. We
boarded the ship a few hours before departure; therefore, I had some
time to explore the ship while my mother was getting settled in our
cabin. I walked up and down stairways and through hallways. I must
have gone to every deck until I came to the stairs leading to the
bridge. These were roped off and I could go no further, so I started
to go back to our cabin. However, the way I had come was not always
available on the way back. When the passengers boarded, the entire
ship was open so that everyone could get to their cabins as quickly
as possible. But close to departure, the classes were separated by
locked doors or blocked stairs. The magnificent staircase I had come
up on no longer took me back to tourist class where I belonged. I had
to ask a crew member and was then ushered through some hallways to
the lower decks.
Our
cabin was the size of a large broom closet with two bunk beds, a wash
basin, a table with two chairs, and a small closet. We were inboard,
so we didn't have a window. The toilets and showers were across the
narrow hallway. Showers were new to us and it was explained to us by
a steward that most people in America took showers rather than baths.
All the hallways had hand rails, the reason for which soon became
clear as we left the coast and entered the open ocean.
My
mother was seasick the entire voyage. She even went to the ship's
doctor who could only try to comfort her by telling her that what
would cure her seasickness was the solid earth under her feet. After
some initial discomfort I was OK. For meals all passengers were
assigned to specific places at designated tables. My mother went
once, I believe, and then could not endure the smell of food. What
especially turned her off on the first day was a wiggly, green
dessert which later became my favorite: Jello. I don't remember if I
went to the meals by myself, but my mother was brought some food into
the cabin by our steward (sour herring, among other things). Many
people apparently were seasick, but not that it was annoying,
probably because everybody suffered quietly. Even the steward
confided that for the first year he was on the ship he was constantly
seasick. Then there was a German lady whom we met on one of the rare
occasions when my mother dared to go on deck. The lady was standing
by the railing and told us that she had traveled all over the world,
but she always got seasick and much to her horror she had just gotten
sick over the side and in the process had lost her dentures
overboard!
Although
my mother stayed in the cabin most of the time, but I spent a lot of
my time on deck or in the lounge. There a band played most of the day
and evenings and I could buy a glass of lemonade at the bar for 10
cents. I felt very grown-up in the lounge. There I overheard some
Germans, who lived in the United States and who were returning to the
US, extol the greatness of the United States as compared to their
former homeland. This, of course, heightened my anticipation.
My
mother, in her desire to always have enough to eat around, had
brought along one or two German salamis. Shortly before reaching the
coast of North America, instructions about what could be brought into
the country and what had to be declared were issued. Naturally, to
bring in meat products was strictly forbidden, as it is today. The
fish off Nova Scotia had a feast of salami and probably other edibles
from other passengers that day.
Another
Beginning
We
reached Halifax, Nova
Scotia, Canada,
during the night between the 3rd
and 4th of December. Some
passengers left the ship there, then we sailed on to New York.
We arrived in New York City about
midday on the 5th of December 1955.
Thus
ended life number two!
Footnote
Chapter Three
Life Number Three
(1955-1961)
In
1952, when the decision that my mother and I would join my sister in
the United States was made, the difficult post-war years had not yet
been overcome in Germany. Economic conditions were getting better,
but it wasn't yet clear what opportunities would reveal themselves
for someone my age, especially in view of the fact that my father had
passed away in 1948, leaving my mother as the lone parent. My sister
felt responsible for my mother and me ever since my father had died.
So it was only natural that she felt that my mother and I, but
especially I, would face a brighter future in the United States.
A New Beginning in the New World
By
the time our visas were finally obtained in 1955, the economic
situation in Germany had improved considerably and my future in
Germany looked brighter, but the decision had been made and there was
no turning back, especially since I had not made any attempt at
starting a career after finishing eighth grade. My mother's future
also played a role. If I ever left home she would have been isolated
in Dachau with no relatives nearby. Therefore,
we happily sought another new beginning.
Our
ship, the MS Berlin, arrived in New York City about midday on
the 5th of December 1955. Customs and immigration authorities came on
board and performed the various passport and customs inspections.
With over a thousand passengers on the ship, this took a while. When
we were finally able to leave the ship and walked down the gangway
unto US soil, it seemed to me that I was dreaming. After all the
years of waiting and hoping, the promise of a new life in America
finally was reality. At times in the past, while waiting for our
visas, it seemed like we were only engaging in wishful thinking. But
there on the pier behind a small picket fence stood a small crowd of
people, among them my sister Sylvia and her husband David. We had
finally arrived at a destination that I had dreamed about for the
last three years.
It
was a brisk December day, there was no snow on the ground. By the
time we disembarked it was late afternoon and the sun barely reached
down into the canyons between New York City's skyscrapers. David had
borrowed his mother's four-door 1953 Buick which was roomier and more
comfortable than his 1949 Oldsmobile convertible which was getting on
in years. The walk to the car, the drive through New York City, and
the drive along Route 95 to Connecticut are a blur in my memory.
Everything was new and exciting. Two things I do remember distinctly
from when we drove through the city were the many TV antennas on the
mostly flat-roofed buildings and the width of the highway, three and
four lanes wide, with cars passing in all lanes.
We
arrived at Chapman Avenue in Waterford, Connecticut, in the evening
when it was already dark. The first thing David did when we arrived
and had unloaded the car was to return the Buick to his mother and
stepfather who lived just around the corner. He asked me to come
along, which I gladly did because I was eager to see and experience
everything I could about my new and exciting surroundings. I received
a sincerely warm and hearty welcome from David's mother and
stepfather, Ethel and Abram Stevens. They immediately asked me to
call them Nana and Papa (what children in Connecticut call their
grandparents) as if I were one of their grandchildren. Nana and Papa
were wonderful people who accepted Sylvia, my mother, and me into
their family as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The
language problems that cropped up from time to time, especially in
the early days, did not faze them in their kindness. Nana Stevens had
a wealth of information about New England cooking and Papa Stevens
was always ready to help whenever and wherever he could. My mother
and I enjoyed the same ready acceptance as did Sylvia. My mother was
henceforth called “Mutti” by everyone and I was “Fred.”
The House
on Chapman Avenue
The
town of Waterford is made up of several small communities, one of
which is called Cohanzie. David's and Sylvia's house was in Cohanzie.
David's parents had bought a large lot on Chapman Avenue, just around
the corner from where they lived. The property was roughly L-shaped
because it bordered a pond on two sides. They gave this property to
their two sons, Lynwood (known as “Woody”) and David. Woody, who
wanted to keep horses, took the back half and David got the front
half which bordered on Chapman Avenue. Since Woody's house lay quite
some distance back from Chapman Avenue he had a long driveway
alongside David's lot.
Woody
built a ranch-style house with a barn and a corral for his horse. He
named the property “Indian Rock Ranch” because next to the house
on a little hill were several granite rocks, partially exposed, which
had a couple of flat places that looked like seats. The legend was
that Indians used to hold tribal meetings around the rocks and the
elders sat on the seats on the rock. The thing that impressed me the
most was that Woody's house was never locked. In fact there was no
lock on the front door, not even a door handle. The door was opened
and closed with an old-fashioned latch as seen on barn doors. One
could open the top of the door while the bottom part stayed closed
and vice versa. The interior was Western-style too, among other
things there was a flagstone fireplace with an old rifle over the
mantle piece. Woody had a boxer named Koko who quickly became my, and
particularly my mother's, friend because she always slipped him a
treat. He showed up at our back door in the morning and stayed most
of the day, when he wasn't fighting off another dog. If another dog
walked by on the other side of the street, Koko let him pass. But if
the dog was on our side of the street Koko charged and knock him
clear across the street with his broad chest. Then he let the other
dog go. As soon as Koko heard Woody's car drive up the driveway he
was be off to meet his master at his house.
When
Sylvia and David arrived from Germany in 1953, Woody already had his
house for several years. David started by clearing his land and then
built his house mostly by himself. By the time my mother and I
arrived in late 1955, the house was complete except for some
finishing touches such as the lawn, the front porch, the front walk,
the driveway and some back steps. The house was furnished so that my
mother and I could move right in. We each had our own room, something
that neither one of us had the luxury to have ever had. There was a
black and white (that is all there was, then) television set in the
living room of which I made ample use. Sometime later, Papa Stevens
bought an old television set for me to put in my room because I
constantly wanted to watch TV, this way the rest of the family didn't
have to watch TV when I watched.
There
was no town water or sewer. David had a septic tank put in and a well
drilled. In order to be sure that the water was safe to drink a
sample had to be sent for analysis to the University of Connecticut.
Until the results came back we went to Woody's house and filled
several big jars with water in his kitchen and carried them back down
the driveway. This seemed to go on for a long time. The task of
getting water was often delegated to me, which I accomplished with
the sour face expected from a teenager. That is, the task was a chore
until I managed to get permission to drive David's Oldsmobile up the
driveway to get the water, then the chore became a pleasure.
Sometimes I made several trips just to be able to drive the car.
Eventually the results came back from the University and we were able
to drink our well water.
Making
Friends
The
day we arrived, the pond next to David and Sylvia's house was frozen
solid. Although there was little snow on the ground, it had been cold
for some time. The next day, the first thing David did was take me
downtown New London to the local Benny's store to buy a pair of
hockey skates for me. I had ice skated before in Germany, but with
ice skates that were fastened unto street shoes with adjustable
clamps that occasionally tore the soles or heels off shoes if the
shoes were not robust enough. A pair of hockey skates already was a
dream come true. When we returned from the store, a boy was skating
on the pond. David spoke a few words with him and then told me to put
on my skates and to join the boy on the pond. I joined the boy on the
pond and found out that his name was Dennis. We didn't communicate
much at first since I did not understand what Dennis was so
diligently searching for at the edge of the pond. I heard him say
that he was looking for a “rock.” I just pretended that I knew
what he was looking for until he found one. Had he said that he was
looking for a “stone” then I might have understood, but the word
rock was new to me. I finally realized what he was doing when he
picked up a stick (it might have been a genuine hockey stick, I don't
remember) and started using the rock as a hockey puck.
During
the remaining days before Christmas, David took me along to where he
worked just to keep me occupied. He worked for his cousin George
Hewitt who owned a wood working shop. They made Early American
furniture. David let me use one of his black metal lunch boxes with a
rounded top which held a small thermos bottle. Sylvia made peanut
butter sandwiches and filled the thermos with milk. The peanut
butter, milk, and the soft white bread were all new to me, but
typically American. I did some sanding and other small jobs and
listened to Gene Autry singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”
English
Language
I
have to confess, I don't remember how much English I spoke at this
point. It could not have been much because most of my knowledge of
English came from comic books and from one formal course in British
English which had met once a week for about three or four weeks. All
I learned in that course was that the British call an eraser
“rub-gum” and the melody and some of the words to the song, “It's
a Long Way to Tipperary.” Besides that, I had had short
conversations with David. Sylvia up to this point had always spoken
German with my mother and me. However, everyone I met was very
accommodating and helpful and once I started to go to school it took
no time at all for me to learn the language.
Exciting
and New
One
of the first days in Connecticut, Sylvia took me along when she went
downtown New London. I had absorbed some of the impressions about my
immediate surroundings, but every time I went away from the house new
impressions hit me. Everything was so different and exciting. It
seemed that Sylvia was a celebrity everywhere we went. From the
parking lot attendant (in those days there were parking lot
attendants who parked your car and who got it out for you) to the
sales persons in the stores, everybody seemed to know Sylvia. Even
later on when I went somewhere without Sylvia, chances were that when
I mentioned that I was Sylvia Reynolds' brother that that elicited
admiring remarks. At first I basked in Sylvia's popularity, but later
I decided to avoid mentioning her if possible because I wanted to be
known for myself.
The
Sylvia Reynolds School of the Dance
Sylvia
had started her own ballet school called “The Sylvia Reynolds
School of the Dance,” soon after she arrived in America. She gave
lessons in several YMCA's in the area, she gave private lessons, but
mostly she taught at the clubhouse of the local women's club, the
Cohanzie Community Club, which she rented for her dance classes. I
sometimes accompanied her to the lessons in the local area and did
odd jobs at the studio in the clubhouse.
The
Cohanzie Community Club building looked like a little red school
house. The building consisted of a medium sized hall, a kitchen, some
toilets and a shed. There was no running water and the toilets were
very primitive. There was a hand pump in the kitchen and one always
had to leave a little water in a jar to prime the pump. If the last
person to use the pump for the day forgot to leave some water in the
jar, the next person who wanted to use the pump had to drive home to
get some water for the pump. The ladies had one meeting per week in
the clubhouse. I was hired to put up the folding chairs that were
kept in the shed for this occasion. After the meeting I took down the
chairs again so Sylvia could use the hall as her dance studio. For
this I got paid and monthly had to present Mrs. Allen, the treasurer,
my bill. This is how I got to know Mr. and Mrs. Allen. An
acquaintanceship that paid off later.
Growing up in the United States in the 1950's
Clark
Lane Junior High School
Shortly
after our arrival in Connecticut, David took me to the Clark Lane
Junior High School to enroll me. He had already spoken with the
principal, Miss Looby, who had rented a room in his parents' house
when she was starting out as a young teacher. They had decided that,
although I was almost 15 years old and had already finished eight
grades of school, it would be best if I repeated the remaining part
of eighth grade (this being December) rather than jumping into the
second half of the first year of high school, where I belonged
age-wise. This was wise in view of the fact that I needed to improve
my English language skills. In addition, at that point high school
students from Waterford were bussed to New London, which up to this
time had the only high school in the area. Once enrolled there I
would have had to go there for four years even though Waterford was
building its own high school which was to be opened the next fall.
This way I attended the second half of eighth grade at Clark Lane
Junior High School, made many friends, and with them I was part of
the first class of students to go through Waterford High School, from
freshmen to senior year. Since it was close to Christmas vacation I
didn't start school until after the first of January 1956.
On
my first day of school I was met by a teacher and a room full of boys
and girls (I had never been in a class with girls before) that had
been well prepared for my arrival. I was welcomed with open arms and
placed between two of the best students in the class. They were to
help me to become accustomed to the new surroundings and to help me
if I needed any help with the language, the procedures, etc. Dick
White sat on one side and Bob Burgess on the other. Dick was an avid
science fiction fan, an excellent student and later a star player on
the Waterford High basketball team. Bob Burgess was a good student
and an amiable guy who liked to write stories. Dick helped me with
the academics and Bob showed me the ropes when it came to the meal
tickets (poison tickets he called them), the lunch room, and the
procedures there. Bob also was the one who introduced me to after
school activities. Everyone had to have an after school activity and
since I didn't know one activity from the other, Bob suggested that I
join him in the “Creative Writing” activity. That sounded good to
me because I thought this had something to do with riding horses, so
I signed up. I didn't let on that I was very surprised and quite
disappointed when I realized at the first session that he had said
“writing” not “riding.” I guess I had not paid any attention
to the word “creative,” or perhaps I thought we would invent new
ways to ride horses.
I
was fully integrated into the junior high school routine in no time
at all, including school dances, and sports. The only real problem I
had was in Health class. My classmates had learned the names of all
the bones in the body. There I was at a total loss because the names
were Latin words which I had never heard before and which I couldn't
even fake as I could some English words that were similar to German.
The teacher let me slide by, realizing that I had no background in
this subject and knowing the names of all the bones at that point
wasn't all that important anyway.
All
this attention and good will sometimes went to my head so that I felt
superior in some ways. Looking back now I have the feeling that at
times I was opinionated, even arrogant, because I thought that if
everyone admires me so much I must be good. I even thought about
going out for some kind of sport until I realized that most of my
classmates had been playing baseball, softball, and basketball all
their lives. They had experience in playing these sports, I didn't
even know the rules. This became clear to me the day I broke a bat
while playing baseball in gym class because I didn't know that the
logo on the bat should be straight up facing the batter, otherwise
the grain of the wood runs in such a way that the bat will split upon
hard contact with the ball. And that it did, much to my surprise and
to the displeasure of Mr. Sweeney the gym teacher. So there were
times when I was brought back down to earth and the impression I left
could not have been all that bad because I continued to maintain a
good rapport with my classmates and the teachers, some of which
accompanied us throughout high school.
One
highlight of my six months at Clark Lane Junior High School was
during field day when the school year was coming to an end. One of
the events was a “slow bicycle race.” This meant, to win, one had
to be the last one over the finish line without leaving one's lane
and without touching the ground with one's feet. In other words, you
had to balance on the bicycle almost standing still, hoping that all
the others would fall over before you did. I had ridden a bicycle
most of my life and I had recently been reunited with my bicycle from
Germany (which I had sorely missed), so I felt confident that I could
compete. Unfortunately, I only came in second because Ed Bezanson,
who lived up the street from me, had let most of the air out of his
balloon tires and was practically riding on the rims which gave him a
much stabler platform, whereas I was on my German bicycle with
narrow, fully inflated tires. Again, foiled by lack of experience,
because Ed had probably done this many times before during field
days.
The
school dances were “sock hops” in the gymnasium, usually after a
basketball game. For my first dance Sylvia taught me a few steps of a
slow dance. This was almost not necessary because most of the music
was the newly emerging Rock 'n Roll where everyone sort of improvised
the dancing without touching their partners a great deal.
Daily
Life
Every
day after school I rushed home to watch TV. My favorite at that time
was the Mickey Mouse Club. I watched it every day in addition to any
other cartoon show there was. On Saturday mornings I sometimes went
to Dennis' house when he had to watch his younger brother, David. We
then watched Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Doody with his younger
brother.
My
mother and I also spent a lot of time with David's family, together
with his brother Woody's wife Elaine's family who had a house on a
bay on the Thames River. There I went water skiing and we had
cookouts. We also spent time at a friend of David's house on the
Niantic River. David had two friends, brothers, by the name of
DeWolfe, who grew up across the street from David. Jimmy was about
David's age and was his best friend. David re-joined the Army with
Jimmy in 1950 (they both had served in World War II, David in the
Army and Jimmy in the Navy) and both were then stationed in Germany.
Billy was younger and became a musician. He played the drums and gave
me drum lessons for a while. Billy had a house on the Niantic River
where we spent some Sunday afternoons in the early part of our time
in Waterford.
Summer
Jobs
I
graduated from Clark Lane Junior High School in June of 1956. In the
summer of 1956 I had my first summer job, mowing a neighbor's lawn. I
dreaded the hour and half it took to mow the lawn because Dennis and
I had other things to do. A few times there was no gasoline for the
lawnmower which was like a last minute reprieve from the death
sentence for me. Of course I had to mow the lawn the next day anyway.
In
the summer of 1957, after I was able to get a Social Security card, I
got a summer job at the newly opened First National Store, a
supermarket, not far from where we lived. I kept the job even after
school started again that fall with the goal of eventually buying my
own car. I worked about 20 hours per week after school.
Waterford
High School
I
started high school in the fall of 1956. The classmates were
familiar, just the building was new. Our class was the first to
occupy the building and to graduate from Waterford High. Later on I
started to hang out at the firehouse, as well. Looking back, it seems
that my order of priorities then was: the part-time job, the
firehouse, and then school. Homework was done superficially. On some
days we had so-called “X-Periods” which were study periods during
which I quickly did the most pressing studying, but not more.
Amazingly, I always got good grades. I even made the honor roll
several times. I always felt bad because I realized that I could do
better. Today I wonder what I did to deserve so much confidence that
was put in me by the faculty and my fellow students. I was elected
treasurer of the Student Council, elected to the National Honor
Society, and elected to be vice president of the senior class.
A
good part of the reason is that I had some terrific teachers who
helped me over some of my “growing pains.” Mrs. Roberts, the
Spanish teacher and Miss Cardin, the History teacher, made an effort
to keep me motivated. I think I had enough of going to school. My
involvement at the firehouse didn't help the situation because there
the majority of my friends were not under any pressure from school.
They were somewhat older, worked, but their free time was their own.
They could afford newer cars, etc., and I thought, why can't I be
like that. I didn't realize until later on that these friends
probably ended up doing the same manual labor they were doing then,
for about the same pay for the rest of their lives. Some had not even
finished high school.
My first
Car
In
the spring of 1957, a day or two after my 16th birthday, I got my
driver's license. David drove me down to the Motor Vehicle Office. I
drove an inspector around the block and received my driver's license.
From then on I used every excuse possible to borrow David's and
Sylvia's car. They had traded in the Oldsmobile for a 1954 Ford the
year before.
In
the spring of 1958 I bought a 1939 Buick four door sedan. At first I
would have rather had a 1949 or 1950 Ford which were “in” cars
for teenagers in those days. But, when I found a 1949 Ford at the
Buick dealership, and David and I went to look at it, the salesman
told David (David had worked as a car salesman there a few years
earlier) to forget the Ford and to take a look at a 1939 Buick with
only 33,000 miles on it. According to the salesman, it was owned by a
“little old lady who had bought it new and only drove it to church
on Sundays.” Since David knew him we believed him and sure enough,
the car had only 33,000 original miles, was in excellent condition,
except that the little old lady had a little trouble getting in and
out of her garage and had put a small dent in one of the rear
fenders. The car was older than I was, 19 years old, whereas I was
17. It cost me $195, but the insurance cost me $250, because of my
age, which was a shock.
Being
naive about insurance matters at that point and being told that the
policy would be mailed to me, I thought that I had to wait to receive
the policy before I could drive the car, although I had paid the
premium (or the first installment). So there sat my dream-come-true
and I could not drive it. I drove it up and down Woody's driveway any
chance I got, I even went home on my lunch hour at the First National
Store on Saturdays to drive up and down the driveway.
Finally
the big day arrived (I think I had asked David if he could call the
insurance agent and ask him why we hadn't received the policy yet. He
was told that I had been insured all along, because as soon as I had
paid the first payment the insurance had gone into effect). It was
Memorial Day and I remember Dennis and I and maybe some others drove
around all day, I even had to put in $2 worth of gas (at less than 20
cents a gallon)! The Buick had a straight eight cylinder engine which
used a lot of gas, but gas was cheap then and when we went riding
around, the passengers were asked to chip in. I don't think that I
ever bought more than $3 worth of gas at one time.
Dennis
Dennis
and I spent a lot of time together. First on foot or on bicycles,
later in my car and then sometimes in Dennis' car. After I got my car
we rode to school and back home together. We both worked part-time at
the First National Store, we tinkered on our cars, hung out at Ray's
Tire Service, and at the fire house together. We mostly took my car
because Dennis was very particular about his car. There was no
smoking in his car because of the ashes and the smell, one could not
cross one's legs because one might scratch the dashboard and one
could not rest one's arm on the open window because this might wear
the paint off. I preferred to drive anyway, therefore we usually took
my car. Dennis was so particular about his car, especially after he
had it painted, that after it rained (even during the night) he went
out and dried his car off with a chamois leather.
Dennis'
parents bought a 29 foot motor boat called a cabin cruiser. They took
me along several times. We even tried to water ski while being pulled
by the boat, however, although the boat was powerful, it wasn't quite
fast enough to get the skier up on the top of the water. We were
ankle-deep in the water with the powerful engine pulling on our arms
and never really got up into water skiing position.
I
have some fond and also embarrassing memories connected with that
boat. The embarrassing memory concerns the time Dennis and I got
permission to spend the night by ourselves on the boat while it was
at the dock. We must have been 15 and 17 years old. Dennis had
brought a couple of cans of beer from home, the Hollisters always had
beer in the refrigerator and weren't going to miss two cans, Dennis
claimed. Of course we also had cigarettes. Dennis put the beers in
the bilge of the boat to cool them down while we settled down in the
cabin and smoked one of our cigarettes. I don't remember how much
time went by when Dennis suddenly said that he thought he saw his
father's car drive by on the road. We quickly dowsed the cigarettes,
opened all the windows to let the smoke out and Dennis got the beer
cans out of the bilge and stashed them somewhere else. When I asked
him why he did that, the bilge seemed a safe place to hide the beer
to me, he said that the bilge was the first place his father checked
to make sure the boat wasn't leaking. Sure enough, his father
appeared and the first thing he did was open the hatch to the bilge.
Then he looked around the boat a bit, Dennis and I all this time
anxiously awaiting his anger if he found the beer or smelled the
smoke from the cigarettes. The Hollisters were non-smokers and there
was no hiding the smell of cigarettes. But Dennis' father was a man
of few words and some considerable wisdom. After he looked the boat
over he started to leave and as he stepped unto the dock he turned
around and said: “There is no smoking allowed on the boat.” Then
he left. He never mentioned if he found the beer and never mentioned
the incident again. I think Dennis and I skipped our overnight on the
boat. Another more memorable occasion was when Dennis' father took
Dennis, another friend and myself out on his boat and dropped us off
on a small uninhabited island (I think is was called “Duck Island”)
and then moved the boat far enough away from the island to give us
some privacy and stayed on the boat. We spent the afternoon lying in
the sun and swimming. We had brought a cooler with some snacks and
soft drinks and when we opened it, there on top were three cans of
beer, one for each of us, that Mr. Hollister had deposited for us
without our knowledge. We were impressed.
Dennis
and I never did anything illegal. The only brush with the law we had
was when I was driving and we were stopped by a policeman and I was
charged with driving without a valid driver's license. It turned out
that it was only partially my fault. We were going home from a
basketball game at the high school. On the way home we stopped at a
used car lot in New London to look at some of the cars. It was about
11 P.M. and unbeknown to us a policeman was watching the used car lot
from his cruiser in a side street. When we drove off he followed us,
put on his red light and siren and made us pull over. He said that
one of my tail lights was out
and wanted to see my driver's license. When he saw my driver's
license he pointed out to me that it had expired about six months
earlier. We had to follow him to the police station and I was charged
with driving without a license. Since Dennis didn't have a driver's
license yet, I had to call David to come and get us. By this time it
was a little after midnight and David was asleep. When he asked where
we were and I said “at the police station in New London,” he
almost flipped out. He came and got us, my car stayed at the police
station.
The
next day I had to appear in court to answer to the charge of driving
without a license. David came with me. I told the judge that I had
gotten my license right after my sixteenth birthday which was about a
year and a half ago and that I was under the impression that the
license was good for three years before one had to renew it. I was
told that the initial licenses were issued only up to the next
birthday and that the permanent licenses from then on were valid for
three years. But I should have gotten a renewal notice, which I
claimed I never got. Since I had no previous conflicts with the law
the judge told me to go to the Motor Vehicle Registry and straighten
this matter out. David and I went straight to the Motor Vehicle
Registry and when I told them my tale, the person there reached under
the counter and in a box with other undelivered renewal forms he or
she pulled out mine. What had happened was that when I took my
driving test I had listed my address as Chapman Ave., Waterford,
which was correct. However, our mailing address was Chapman Ave.,
Quaker Hill, one of the communities within Waterford with its own
post office which delivered our mail. So, the fault actually lay with
the Waterford post office which returned the form to the Motor
Vehicle Registry because Chapman Ave. was not within their district
and the Motor Vehicle Registry just put it in with other undelivered
renewal forms. I completed the renewal action and rushed back to
court which was still in session. I waited my turn and as I was
watching the proceedings a vagrant got some jail time for something.
As he was being escorted out the guard said to him something like:
“You're in luck, Charley, we're having turkey for dinner.” It was
near Thanksgiving and Charley apparently was an old customer. I
explained to the judge what had happened to my license renewal and he
dismissed the case.
Even
though we didn't do anything illegal, we did do some childish things,
some dumb things and some downright stupid things. With teenagers it
is many times impossible to distinguish clearly into which of these
categories their actions fall. Childish, but fun, were the times when
I drove my car and demonstratively combed my hair with both hands up
on my head while Dennis nonchalantly sat in the passenger seat and
reached over, low down so it couldn't be seen from the outside,
steering the car while I worked the pedals. The whole thing of course
only made sense if people were watching.
Dumb
was the time we laid under my car and cut a section out of the
exhaust pipe so that we could install a so-called “cut out,”
which, when opened by a wire under the dashboard of the car, allowed
the exhaust to exit before going trough the muffler, making a sound
like a tank. That this was dangerous because the exhaust fumes came
right through the floor of the car never entered our minds, or if it
did, it didn't deter us. Equally as dumb was the attempt to remove a
dual carburetor intake manifold from a junked 1941 or 1942 Buick. The
idea was to exchange it with the single carburetor manifold of my
car, thereby “souping up” my car. We never got very far because
we couldn't remove the bolts on the junked Buick, they had been
rusted on for almost 20 years. As a matter of fact, we broke off
several when we tried to apply extra leverage. We would have done the
same to the bolts holding the manifold on my car, which were just as
rusted in addition to being frozen because of the heat of the engine
over the years. Luckily we gave up before we got that far.
Dumb
was the time Dennis and I were asked to escort two girls to their
prom and refused. The girls were sisters and belonged to a family
that was befriended with the Hollisters. Dennis and I weren't into
dating and dancing. But when the parents asked us if we would wash
dishes for money we readily accepted. The girls had found other dates
and the whole family and the girls and their dates had a big meal at
the parents' house before they all went to the prom. So as not to
have to waste time with clearing off the table and doing the dishes,
they hired us. It didn't occur to Dennis and me how embarrassing it
was that we had refused to go to the dance, but were willing to clean
up, until we arrived at the house and were about to go in. Maybe we
had thought the people would all be gone and we would just clean up
and leave like little elves. However, everyone was still there having
desert. We sat in the car contemplating whether we should run away
and hide or pretend that we forgot. We finally decided to go in
because how could we hide? These people were friends of Dennis'
parents. We swallowed our pride, went in, and went to work. The
family soon left and we washed dishes. Some weeks later one of the
girls saw me in the First National Store and as she passed me she
said: “Got dishpan hands?”
Downright
stupid was trying to be a rocket scientist. It was the late 1950's.
The Russians had launched their Sputnik and everyone in the US was up
in arms because the Russians were beating us into space. Rockets and
space travel were suddenly more than science fiction or the work of
mad scientists. We too experimented with rockets. I don't know who
came up with the idea, I just know that it wasn't me or Dennis, I
think it was another of Dennis' friends, but we were eager to
participate. Dennis appropriated the tube from his mother's vacuum
cleaner and we all scrounged every matchbook we could find. I took a
whole box of match books out of Sylvia's kitchen. We cut the aluminum
vacuum tube into sections, squeezed one end together to close it off
and filled the insides with match heads which we had cut from the
match books with scissors. Then we closed the open end up with a cork
or something similar with a fuse of sorts sticking out. This “rocket”
was then propped up on the ground and the fuse lit. We did retreat
some distance, but not nearly far enough from today's vantage point.
The match heads ignited and the “rocket” took off rather
uncontrolled. Sometimes it went straight up, when one of us timed its
flight to the apex, allowing the height attained to be calculated (it
was a scientific experiment after all; if any calculations were ever
made I do not know). The dangerous part was that sometimes gasoline
was added to the match heads for greater thrust. Also sometimes the
projectile took off in an unwanted direction, causing us to scatter.
And once or twice one of the tubes ruptured rather than the thrust
blowing off the cork or other object holding in the “rocket fuel.”
I don't remember, but probable Dennis' father, in whose yard the
experiments took place, put a stop to our space exploration when he
found out about it.
Cohanzie
Fire Company
As
stated earlier, the town of Waterford is made up of several small
communities, one of which is called Cohanzie. David and Sylvia's
house on Chapman Avenue was in Cohanzie. Somewhere along the line I
became introduced to the Cohanzie volunteer fire company. I don't
remember exactly how that happened, someone older must have taken me
there as a guest. When I turned 18 I became a full member. Dennis and
I spent much of our time there, he was my guest at first because he
wasn't 18 yet. The fire house was a two-storied building. The engine
room, where the two fire trucks were parked, took up most of the
ground floor, except for a kitchen where the steward cooked Kielbasa
and beans at the monthly membership meetings. The entire upstairs was
taken up by a meeting hall where the membership meetings were held.
Most interesting, however, was the basement where there was a
recreation room with a pool table, a card table, a soda machine, and
a cigarette machine. The younger members usually played pool (that's
where I learned to play pool). On weekends some of the older members
played “penny-anti” poker.
One
of the older members was a farmer named Allen. Mr. Allen's farm was
right behind Nana's and Papa's house and his land extended from the
back of Woody's lot to the surrounding hills. His wife, Mrs. Allen,
was the treasurer of the Cohanzie Community Club, to which Nana and
most of the other ladies in the neighborhood belonged. The reason I
am relating all this is that getting elected as a member of the fire
company was not an assured thing. I saw several prospective members
rejected for no apparent reason, except for the fact that they were
relative strangers and were not well known by the older members, even
though they were sponsored by a full-fledged member. The voting was
done with a series of white and black marble-sized balls. When it
came time to vote on the prospective member, the members filed by a
table with a box (open on top) on it with the balls in it, secretly
picked the appropriate ball (white for accept, black for reject) and
then deposited the ball through a hole into a closed box so that no
one saw what color ball was dropped in. If only one black ball was
among the balls in the voting box the candidate was rejected, which
was called being “black balled.” One could apply again the next
month, but most rejected applicants had their feelings hurt so that
they never showed up again. I am guessing that by knowing Mr. Allen
and some of the other older members who knew who Sylvia was and who
were aware of her connection to the Cohanzie Community Club
facilitated my acceptance as a member on the first ballot.
Later
on I was elected as one of the officers of the company, as Assistant
Engineer. The Engineer looked after the two fire trucks, made any
necessary repairs, kept them fueled, and clean. The Assistant
Engineer helped him do this. Because I was not allowed to drive the
trucks for which one had to be over 21, I could ride along to the gas
station and could wash and polish the trucks. Every time the trucks
returned after leaving the station on a call they had to be washed
(you never saw a dirty fire truck, did you?). If the hoses had been
used, they had to be stretched out and hung up to let them dry out.
The
fires we fought were usually grass fires, except once a barn burned
down, once there was an aircraft accident, and there were small car
fires where someone's engine backfired and set the carburetor on
fire. We were called out when there was an accident on the highway
and gasoline was spilled, in which case we hosed down the street and
directed traffic. Had we ever been confronted with a real fire
involving a multiply storied house, we might have gotten ourselves
injured or killed because we had very little training. I can recall
only one afternoon when the Chief, a farmer who was elected by the
membership, tried to show us younger members how to hold a high
pressure hose and instructed us not to direct it at each other
because someone one time had an eardrum blown out when he was hit by
a stream from one of the hoses.
Speedbowl
The
most exciting task, however, and the reason many of us young members
joined the fire company, was that our company provided fire
protection for a stock car race track in our district, called the New
London – Waterford Speedbowl. In the summertime there were races on
two days of the week, on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We manned a fire
truck in the pit area, provided two ambulance drivers, two ambulance
helpers, two guards at the gates to the pit area, and four people on
a World War II jeep that was posted in the infield and responded to
all pileups. If there was a fire, it was extinguished with fire
extinguishers and the track was cleaned of any oil or gasoline with
sawdust and brooms. This was the most exciting job and was the domain
of the younger members, except for the driver of the jeep who was an
older member who owned a jeep just like it and who knew how to handle
it. Everybody on the race track detail was designated a certain job.
I was first an ambulance helper and then on the jeep. The most
serious injury I witnessed was when a car crashed into the retaining
wall, rupturing its fuel tank, and burst into flames. The driver's
hands and the back of his neck were burned. We took him to the
hospital, but he was released shortly after being treated.
University
of Connecticut
I
graduated from Waterford High School in June of 1960. There was never
any question of me finishing high school, but I didn't look forward
to another four years in college. At the beginning of my freshmen
year in high school, the teachers had encouraged me to enroll in the
college preparatory curriculum rather than in the business or general
curricula. Therefore, it was a foregone conclusion that I would go to
college after high school. The Russians had recently launched the
first satellite and were threatening to overtake the US in the space
race. Therefore, there was a great push for engineers. Everyone who
qualified was encouraged to take up engineering. My counselor
suggested that I apply to MIT, Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, and
the University of Connecticut. Fortunately, I was only admitted to
the University of Connecticut (UConn), because the thought of leaving
my friends at the fire house to go to Boston or to upstate New York
would have been too much. UConn was less than an hour's drive away,
which was acceptable.
I
received a $500 scholarship from the Town of Waterford and
reluctantly enrolled at UConn in the School of Engineering. The
introductory sessions were a torture for me. My thoughts were at the
fire house. My friend Dennis was still going to high school and
possibly hanging out at the fire house after school when he wasn't
working at the First National Store. From the first day of classes on
I realized that I didn't belong there. The students were motivated,
eager to get started whereas my thoughts were at the fire house.
Again I studied superficially. The closeness to home and the fire
house, but most of all the fact that I had my car with me were big
mistakes. The car presented a constant temptation to drive away from
the campus and away from the pressure of having to do something for
which I had minimal motivation. So it happened that at least once per
week and sometimes more often, I showed up at the fire house in the
afternoon and then drove back to the campus at night, without having
gone home. On Fridays I could hardly wait for the chemistry lab
(which I hated) to end so that I could drive home “officially,”
taking along some fellow students who lived in the area. On Monday
morning I had an eight o'clock class. I left home around seven to
barely make the class. Sometimes I tried to do a little studying
before the class started. When mid-term exams came around, the only
good grade I had was in mechanical drawing (there was no homework to
be done as I recall), the others were marginal to failing. All this
time the feeling that I let all the people who believed in me down
weighed heavily on me, but I could not get myself motivated. I felt
trapped between what was expected of me and what I really wanted to
do.
Pilot
Ever
since my days in Germany I had dreamed of becoming a pilot, more
precisely a military fighter pilot. One day during my short stint at
UConn, several US Air Force Officers came to give a talk to
prospective Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets.
When I saw the blue uniforms with the shiny silver insignia I decided
that that was for me. I enrolled in Air Force Reserve Officer
Training (ROTC), with special permission because I was not yet a US
citizen but had promised to become one as soon as I was eligible. As
a further attempt to get myself motivated, I joined the UConn Flying
Club. Each of these actions was supposed to be a bridge between the
current situation and the life that I envisioned. The flying club was
to make me apply myself at UConn and ROTC was to speed up the process
of reaching my goal as a pilot.
The
flying lessons were the highlight of my stay at UConn. The flying was
done at the Willimantic airport, about 15 to 20 minutes from the
campus. Since it was fall, it was always cold on the ground, but even
colder in the air. The airplane that belonged to the flying club was
a 1946 Piper J3, also known as a “Piper Cub.” The body was made
out of lacquered canvas stretched over a frame made out of aluminum
tubes. The door and the attached window barely kept out the wind, let
alone the cold. Some of my friends at the fire house saw the airplane
and nearly died laughing at the thought that anyone would go up in
the air in such a flimsy contraption. One day, after eight hours of
instruction, when I showed up for my next lesson, my instructor
surprised me by announcing that on that day I would solo, that is,
take off and (hopefully) land by myself. If everything went well I
could then practice flying by myself. When we got to the airplane and
checked the log book as required, the instructor discovered that the
airplane was overdue for its periodic check-over and that it would be
a violation of Federal Law to fly even one more minute with it. So I
didn't solo that day - or ever. By the time the maintenance was over,
I had left UConn and consequently the flying club. I took three more
lessons while in the Air Force, but didn't pursue it any further
because I couldn't afford it at the time.
On the
Way to a New Life
After
mid-term exams I had switched from Engineering into Liberal Arts,
trying to salvage what was left of my reputation. But one Friday
evening in early December I announced at home that I was going back
to UConn on Monday morning just to dis-enroll myself. I didn't meet
much resistance, my mother always was very understanding and had
little idea what a college education meant in America. My sister and
brother-in-law couldn't object too much since I was 19 years old and
not really their responsibility. So, on Monday morning I leisurely
drove to the campus and took all the necessary steps to dis-enroll.
It was a sad day, but I felt relieved.
After
quitting UConn I had plenty of time to spend at the fire house, but I
also needed a job. Just to earn some gas money I went to work for a
store in New London that sold baby and children furniture, and toys.
The store was called “Lee's Kiddieland” and my job was to deliver
and set up playpens, swing sets, beds, etc. I also cleaned up and did
other odd jobs as necessary. The job didn't pay much but the
atmosphere was leisurely, the bosses (three of them) nice, and the
work easy. I spent lots of time driving around delivering things. But
this was only a job to tide me over until I found my real occupation.
I applied to several companies who had apprenticeship programs,
including the Electric Boat Company where a lot of the people in the
area worked. Dennis' father who was Chief Engineer got me an
appointment with a Personnel person. They would have taken me as a
draftsman apprentice, but it would have been on the second shift,
that is from 3 to 11 P. M. That would have practically eliminate my
social life during the week, therefore I declined and decided to try
to become a pilot in the Air Force. I guess I didn't realize then
that if I joined the Air Force I would eliminate my local social life
all together, or I thought it would be better to be gone totally
rather than partially.
The
Air Force recruiter was eager to sign me up. I passed all the
qualifying exams for Aviation Cadet training. But, as the time drew
near to sign the papers, the recruiter informed me that the Air Force
just now changed the rules, so that to become a pilot one had to have
a college degree. But, he assured me, the Navigator Cadet program was
still taking applicants with only a high school education. But, in
order to speed up the process I should enlist first, then while in
basic training it would be just “a hop, skip, and a jump” over to
the Navigator Cadet training area where I could apply directly. I
enlisted and soon found out that in basic training no one “hops,
skips, or jumps” anywhere unless the training instructor says to do
so.
I
went to the United States with the intention of becoming a
full-fledged American as soon as possible. I had no thoughts about
ever returning to Germany to live. Maybe my thinking was influenced
by the books I had read about immigrants in the 19th century who had
cut all ties with the old world because going back for them was
virtually impossible. Besides, all US Air Force pilots were officers
and to become an officer one had to be a US citizen. I still dreamed
that dream; therefore, I seized the first opportunity and took the
oath of citizenship on the 8th of March 1961.
In
the early morning of March 15, 1961 my mother woke me and as usual
had all my clothes laid out for me. At about 6 A. M. I took the train
to New Haven to be at the Armed Forces Induction Center by 7:30 A. M.
Thus
ended life number three!
Chapter Four
Life Number Four
(1961-1983)
In
late 1960 and early 1961 my life seemed to have hit a dead end. I had
quit UConn halfway through the first semester, I didn't want to go to
work on the second shift at Electric Boat Company drafting plans for
submarines, and I was getting to be too old to stay with my sister
and brother-in-law who were already taking care of my mother.
It
was time for something to change. In those days young men over the
age of 18, who were not going to school, sooner or later were
drafted. Since that prospect loomed on the horizon for me and because
of the fact that I had always been interested in flying, I decided to
join the US Air Force before the draft got me. Besides, the Air Force
recruiter encouraged me to take this step by letting me believe that
even without a college education I could become a pilot or navigator.
As it turned out, even though the recruiter's promise never came
through, I fell into a rewarding career.
I
slid from one opportunity into another, without really trying very
hard. I did have to put out some effort now and then. However, I
never displayed the kind of ambition that makes some people, very
successful, but who are disliked by their peers because of their
ambitions. Consequently I never rose to the very heights of
leadership, but contented myself with “being in the middle of the
pack,” so to speak, but I was happy and free of regrets.
Enlistment in the United States Air Force
The
Beginning
I
do not recall how I got to the train station in New London,
Connecticut, where I got on the train to New Haven; but, it must have
been my brother-in-law David who drove me. I also do not remember any
tearful goodbyes or second thoughts on my part. I think I was ready
to go out into the world and start a life of my own.
The
train I took came from somewhere up north, maybe Boston, and probably
went on to New York City. In any case, I remember two young guys
(younger than I was - after all I was almost 20 years old) who were
already on the train when I got on. From their conversation I could
tell that they were also going to New Haven to enlist, but they were
joining the Marine Corps. They were laughing and joking and
fantasizing about the great fun they were going to have in their new
endeavor. I kept to myself because I wasn't quite sure what lay ahead
of me.
We
arrived in New Haven and somehow got to the Recruitment Center. There
we filled out some paperwork, were examined briefly by a doctor, and
were given our oath of enlistment. Giving us the oath of enlistment
was a pimply-faced Army second lieutenant. He couldn't have been more
than a year or two older than I was, he probably had just graduated
from college and at the same time received his ROTC commission. He
gave my spirits a tremendous lift because I told myself that if
someone so immature-looking can become an officer, then so can I. My
desire from the outset, even before making the final decision to
enlist, was to eventually become an officer. I have many times
thought of that young Second Lieutenant and it always reminded me of
my goal to also become an officer, but in the US Air Force. There
were maybe 10 or 15 of us, but one of the two young guys who were on
the train with me was missing. His buddy was in the line-up for the
oath with a sad face. Apparently, his friend had not passed the
physical or some other phase of the final enlistment process and was
sent home. For the one who got into the Marines this was a sad and
lonely moment because of all the good times he had looked forward to
enjoying with his buddy.
Now
my new life began in earnest, I was off to basic training in the US
Air Force. We were split up into groups by service. The Air Force
group consisted of five or six of us. From that time on I did not
have a great deal of time to reflect on my new situation or of that
of my fellow enlistees because I was designated to be the leader of
the Air Force group. I was handed the newly created personnel files
of the entire group and given several vouchers that were worth money
along with some initial instructions. We proceeded by train to New
York City. I was instructed that when we arrived at Grand Central
Station in New York City to call a certain telephone number. I called
and was told to look for the large clock in the main hall of the
station. I saw the clock and was told to go with my group out the
door under the big clock. Outside there was a bus stop. We were to
get on a certain bus, the number and/or destination of which was
given to me. We ended up at the New York Bus Terminal and after
another phone call were on another bus to the airport. For each of
the legs of the transportation I had a voucher with which I paid for
our travel. The train conductors and the bus drivers seemed to be
familiar with the vouchers, and the system of calling at each change
of transportation worked well too, although I thought I was caught up
in some spy movie where instructions for delivering secrets or money
were being passed by telephone. We got on a charter airline Super
Constellation, at that time a state-of-the-art aircraft.
The plane had come from somewhere else, probably Boston and there
were already other Air Force recruits on board. We stopped once more,
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and picked up some more before we flew
on to San Antonio, Texas.
Basic
Training, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas
We
arrived in San Antonio very early in the morning. It was March 16th,
but the air felt warm in comparison to cold New England. There was
grass in front of the airport building, the likes of which I had
never seen. It was thick as a carpet, neatly trimmed, but mostly
brown. In addition there were palm trees and cactus plants. The sun
came up in a bright blue sky. I was fascinated by the warmth and the
exotic vegetation, so that I immediately wrote a postcard home to
tell everyone about the wonderful world I had entered.
First
Shocks
The
admiration of my new surroundings came to an abrupt halt as a stern
voice loudly proclaimed that we should all group around the person
from whom the voice emanated. It was Staff Sergeant (SSgt) Martell,
our Training Instructor (TI). From that moment on SSgt Martell became
the focal point in the lives of 60 sleepy, hungry, apprehensive and
somewhat bewildered young men. We entered some Air Force-blue buses
that took us to Lackland Air Force Base (AFB), the US Air Force's
basic training center outside of San Antonio. When we got to the
base, SSgt Martell made us line up in four columns with our suitcases
in hand (I don't think any of us had more than one small suitcase or
a sports bag because we probably were told not to bring any more
civilian clothes than what we had on because we would not be allowed
to wear civilian clothes for the duration of basic training). We
ambled - because we didn't know how to march yet - to a nearby mess
hall (dining facility). There we had our first meal in the Air Force.
As we found out, this was the real beginning of our basic training.
Up
to that point everything still came off quite civil. The first real
shock came when those of us who smoked couldn't see any ashtrays in
the mess hall. I don't remember how it came about, if someone asked
for an ashtray or tried to light up, but we found out that the end of
the first meal meant that we were now officially in basic training.
SSgt Martell's voice took on a totally different - quite menacing -
tone. Whoever the guy was who thought about lighting up immediately
discarded the idea, because he had SSgt Martell's face in his.
Another of the recruits started to snicker and found out that you not
only did not smoke in basic training unless your TI gives you
permission, but you also were not allowed to find anything funny
unless you were given permission. Needless to say, we did not get to
smoke that day and it was a couple of weeks before we heard the
sentence: “Light 'em up if you got 'em.”
We
had our first lessons in how to march in formation on our way to our
barracks after our first meal, where we dropped our bags and
continued to drill on the concrete area called the drill pad until
nightfall when, after another meal, we were instructed in how to make
our beds. We were totally exhausted and were grateful when “Lights
Out” came at 9 P. M. However, the well-deserved, uninterrupted
sleep was not to be. Two fire drills, each one just after we had
fallen into a sound sleep, sent us scurrying outside with our
blankets wrapped around us and with our untied shoes on our feet.
Thus ended our first day in basic training.
Learning
the Ropes
Then
came a total haircut (all hair cut off down to the skin), the issuing
of uniforms and assignment of barracks details such as cleaning the
latrine, shower, floor, etc. We learned how to arrange our foot
lockers in inspection order with the socks and underwear rolled into
tight rolls and everything in its special place. Most of what we had
to do we could not do alone, one needed a “buddy.” This was our
bunk mate, that is, the guy who slept in the bunk either above or
under us. For instance, to roll the socks so tightly that they
withstood the TI's test, one man had to hold the upper part of the
socks firmly while the other one stretched and at the same time
rolled the socks from the toes on to the top, which was then folded
over the roll so that it did not come apart. After we rolled the
socks we had to be able to hold them by the folded part and snap them
like a yo-yo. They were not allowed to come apart. The blankets on
the beds had to be stretched and tucked so tightly that the TI could
bounce a quarter on them. We spent lots of time on our hands and
knees waxing the floor with paste wax and then buffing it by hand or
by one man sitting on a blanket and two or three others dragging him
across the floor. At inspection time foot lockers were turned over
and everything dumped out by the TI, or we had to strip the beds
completely and start over if several beds did not meet requirements.
One time the TI did not like something about the way several of the
beds were made or some other aspect of the barracks. We all had to
strip our beds, take the mattress covers off, neatly fold the sheets
and blankets on the bed, empty the content of our foot lockers into
the mattress covers, fall out in formation (line up in ranks outside)
with our mattress covers slung over our shoulders like a bunch of
Santa Clauses and double-time once around the squadron area. After we
returned to the barracks, we had 15 minutes to get everything ready
again for the next inspection.
All
this caused a lot of grief at first. I am sure that one or the other
trainee buried his head in his pillow at night, sobbing. What was the
worst in the first couple of weeks was the uncertainty of what else
was coming. Once we could recognize a certain routine in our daily
training lives, things started looking up. We realized that as
individuals we could not cope with the situation, but as a team we
could. That was the purpose of much of the harassment in basic
training: To make a team out of a bunch of young men by forcing their
individual wants and desires into the background and rewarding good
team work.
After
about a week we started to develop a camaraderie. We looked out for
each other and helped each other, because if one messed up, all
usually suffered. We were proud when we marched in a way so that the
TI didn't constantly admonish someone or call “dig in those heels”
or “stop bouncing.” When we passed other flights (each barracks
was a flight, approximately 60 men) of trainees we tried to look
extra smart and made a large sound with our heels as they hit the
pavement in unison. We tried to look particularly good when we met a
flight of “rainbows.”
The
pride of a flight was enhanced when it won the weekly competition of
best flight in the squadron (each squadron consisted of six or eight
flights) and received the title Honor Flight. The Honor Flight
carried a flag designating it as such and the members received extra
privileges such as “Open Patio,” which meant that in the evening
between the evening meal and “Lights Out” every member of the
flight could go as long or as often to the area designated as “the
patio” where smoking was allowed and vending machines were
available.
The
Obstacle Course
The
days became warmer and warmer, but the nights were cool and sometimes
downright cold. We perspired during the day and welcomed the cool
draft blowing through the barracks at night. This combination led to
my catching a cold early on in basic training, which was aggravated
when we had to go through the obstacle course. I remember looking
forward to the obstacle course because it meant that we were halfway
through basic training. There were several flights going through the
obstacle course that day, one after another. To heighten the
uncertainty of what to expect, the members of the flights that were
waiting to start on the course had to lay flat on their stomachs so
that no one could see any of the obstacles and thereby prepare
himself mentally. And since it was right after sunrise, the ground
was cold and damp. I remember shivering from excitement and the cold.
I didn't find the obstacle course as difficult as rumor had it or as
some found it. If you made it over the first obstacle, which was a
pit filled with water, over which you had to swing on a rope without
getting wet, you were in good shape for the rest of the course,
because those who fell in and got wet slipped or lost their grip
easily on other obstacles. One of the obstacles was a cliff which we
had to climb using a rope. The cliff was actually an earthen pit with
footholds in it from many previous climbers. You had to pull yourself
up on the rope and simultaneously “walk” up the cliff. A somewhat
heavy member of our flight got stuck halfway up this cliff and
started crying, I think mostly out of frustration with himself.
Another member next to him started to laugh at him, lost his grip on
the rope and promptly fell to the bottom of the cliff. It wasn't high
enough to get hurt. I think that it was on the obstacle course that
my cold developed into pneumonia which sent me to the hospital for
three weeks, much to my regret, interrupting and thereby lengthening
my basic training experience.
Vacation
in the Hospital
It
must have been the day after the obstacle course, when, in the
morning I started to feel weak. As we were lining up outside the mess
hall after breakfast I had to sit down (which was normally not
allowed). The seriousness of my condition must have shown, because
the TI sent me back to the barracks to lay down (we were normally not
allowed to even sit on our beds during the day). When the rest of the
flight returned later, I was still on top of my bed, apparently not
looking any better. That is when the TI sent me on sick call
Going on sick call was made quite difficult in basic training to
preclude trainees from going on sick call just to get out of several
hours or a day's training. One had to strip all the blankets and
sheets from one's bed, fold them neatly, empty the content of the
meticulously arranged footlocker into the duffel bag,
including all other personal items such as underwear, uniforms,
shoes, etc. Everything was jammed into the duffel bag and came out
totally wrinkled and twisted. One can imagine the work it took to get
everything back into inspection order after it had been in the duffel
bag. The duffel bag and the pile of sheets and blankets and the
pillow were then taken to the supply room for safe keeping. One was
required to take a so-called “writing kit” (a pen and a box of
stationary with envelopes) along to sick call so one could write home
if kept in the hospital. Well thought out, because everybody thought
twice before deciding to go on sick call and if something more
serious was determined, one could write home. I walked to the nearest
medical facility, called a dispensary. Lackland AFB was the Air
Force's only basic training facility and many recruits were in
training at any one time, therefore there also were several
dispensaries scattered throughout the base to take care of the “sick,
lame or lazy,” as people who went on sick call were referred to at
times. After waiting a short period of time I was seen by a doctor,
was x-rayed, after which I expected to get some cough syrup or some
aspirin and to be sent back to my barracks to resume my training.
Much to my dismay I was told that I had to go to the main hospital to
be admitted with Upper Respiratory Infection, or URI as it said on
the envelope that held the x-rays. I asked which way I should walk to
get to the main hospital and was told to sit down, that I was not
walking anywhere. Shortly thereafter an airman in white medical
clothing escorted me outside to this huge Pontiac station wagon which
had been converted into an ambulance. I was relieved when the airman
told me that I did not have to lay in the back on the stretcher
unless I wanted to, but could sit in the front with him.
I
was admitted into the hospital, the diagnosis changed from simple URI
to pneumonia and my hope of getting out in three days was dashed. One
could miss up to three days of training and still remain with the
same flight. If one missed more than three days, one was set back to
the beginning of the week during which one went on sick call. That
meant leaving the comrades with whom one had made friends, worked as
a team and had shared some memorable moments, and starting all over
again with a strange group of guys who also had already formed their
friendships and cliques.
What added to my dilemma was that after three weeks in the hospital I
had lost most, if not all, of my tan, which made me look like a
rainbow again. I should have enjoyed my little vacation in the
hospital, instead I worried about how long it would be before I could
get on with basic training.
The
first two weeks I spent confined to the bed. All I had to do was
drink pitchers full of juice or water and submit to daily penicillin
shots. The last week I spent with the “walking wounded”
in a separate building on the hospital grounds, getting up every day
at “Reveille,”
making my bed, doing some chores like cleaning my bunk area and the
common areas, and in the evenings watching TV until “Lights Out”
which was at 9 P. M. This perhaps was the worst time, because I was
anxious to get back into training to get it over with, yet was very
apprehensive about how I would be treated by my new comrades, what
the new TI would be like, etc. I finally went to my new flight,
became integrated quickly and it turned out that I did not lose a
week, but gained a couple of days because I went to the hospital
toward the end of the week.
A
Decisive Decision
Somewhere
along the line about the third or fourth week of training we were
herded to a big green building called the “Green Monster.” We had
already heard from trainees, who were further along, about this
experience. The “Green Monster” was the place where all the
initial assignments following basic training were made. The rest of
our Air Force careers and perhaps our entire future (if one stayed in
the Air Force as a career) were determined here. Each man got to
spend about fifteen minutes with a personnel specialist who went over
oor record and decided what career field we would enter after basic
training. But the best part was, we thought, that one could smoke as
many cigarettes as one could possibly smoke in the time one spent
with the personnel specialist.
The
personnel specialists weren't TI's and weren't there to discipline
us, but to help us. Of course, restrictions applied as to what career
field one could choose. Everybody enlisted under a certain category
as determined with the recruiter before one even signed up. The
categories open to any one individual depended on his qualifications,
e. g., test scores, level of education, etc. Because of my ability to
speak German, the recruiter had suggested that I go for “Language
Specialist” if I didn't get into Aviation Cadets (to apply I would
just have to "hop, skip, and a jump" a short distance - I
never tried). He prophesied that I would go to a university
somewhere, probably in the Midwest, to polish up and refine my
translation capabilities and then work in the intelligence gathering
area. That sounded like I was going to be assigned to Germany, which
sounded good to me. Even the personnel specialist in the “Green
Monster” agreed with my choice of language specialist as a career
field, but could not promise anything further because the language
specialist candidates had to be tested some more for suitability at
the language lab on Lackland AFB. This didn't matter to me, I had
smoked my half pack of cigarettes.
Needless
to say, the language lab was a tremendous disappointment. I didn't
even get to take a single test. They determined right away by looking
at my foreign background (I had been a US citizen for all of about a
month and had most of my relatives living in Germany) that I would
not be able to get the level of security clearance required to be a
language specialist. At first I was heartbroken. I had hoped to
resume my college career and the assignment to a university studying
a language would help me get started, I thought. But, as I found out
later, this was a stroke of good fortune. For one thing, the job of a
language specialist is not very exciting. They usually sit in
windowless rooms behind vault doors and listen to foreign broadcasts
which they then translate into English and type up in reports.
Besides, the Air Force was not training anyone in the German
language, Germany was an ally and not an enemy and did not need to be
spied upon by the Air Force. The language skills required where in
Chinese, Russian, Czech, Polish, etc., that is, languages spoken in
communist countries.
The
personnel specialist had been required to list an alternate career
field, which he did and which was the Medical career field. Because I
was sure when I was sitting at the desk of the personnel specialist
and smoking diligently that I would get into language school, I paid
no attention to the second choice of career field. Now that I was
rejected from language training the alternative choice was applied
and when the time came and we received orders for our next
assignment, mine was to the Medical Technician School, of all places,
on Lackland AFB. This was a double blow. First, I had no desire to
become a “Medic,” especially not after spending three weeks in
the hospital where I saw what the job of a medic was. The second blow
was that I would have to remain on Lackland AFB for another few
months, a thought that every basic trainee abhorred.
A
Desperate Move
In
desperation I invoked a solution that was well-known to all members
of the military, but looked upon as something cowardly to do and only
to be fallen back on as a last resort: I went to see the chaplain.
My brother-in-law David was a devout Christian Scientist. So, when my
mother and I joined him and Sylvia in the US we started to attend the
Christian Science church with him and Sylvia although our family had
been Roman Catholic.
Therefore, when I enlisted I listed Christian Science as my religious
preference. Since Christian Science advocates the avoidance of, or
participation in, any kind of medical treatment, I saw my chance in
this to change career fields. The easiest way to do this was to go
see the chaplain who functioned essentially outside the basic
training establishment, everyone had free access to him (the TI's had
to allow anyone who expressed the desire to see a chaplain to do so)
and who in turn had access to all avenues that could help someone in
need. I was not proud to have to resort to this measure; but as it
turned out, it was the singular event that determined my future.
I
saw the chaplain, I don't know what religious denomination he
belonged to. He listened to my objections to becoming a medic (I
didn't mention that I thought the job was boring and that I didn't
want to spend a minute more than necessary on Lackland AFB), picked
up the phone and made an immediate appointment with a personnel
specialist in the “Green Monster.” I went there and was ushered
to the desk of a Master Sergeant Suarez (strange how some people and
their names are burned into one's brain). He looked at my file, noted
that I had been rejected by the language lab and asked me what I had
in mind for an alternate career field to that of medic. I told him
that I would be happy to become an aircraft mechanic or a policeman
or anything else where I would be out among pilots and airplanes. He
told me that my test scores were too high for me to be a policeman
and that to become an aircraft mechanic I would have had to enlist in
a different category than the one I had enlisted under. When he
suggested that he could send me to the Weather Observer technical
school I immediately jumped on it before I even knew what a weather
observer did. When he told me that weather observers work in weather
stations near the flight line and record the weather so pilots could
be provided forecasts of the weather along their route of flight and
at their destination, I was in seventh heaven. I signed the necessary
papers and went back to my training flight much relieved. Little did
I know then that this had been the career decision of my life.
From
Airman Basic to Airman Third Class
I
graduated from basic training and was promoted to Airman Third Class
(A3C) on 5 June 1961. The important milestone here being that I was
no longer in basic training where one was addressed as “Basic"
(or "Yard Bird” or worse), but as “Airman” from then on.
Because of the change in career fields I did not receive my orders
along with the others in my training flight and consequently was not
able to leave Lackland when they did. Rather, I ended up spending
another week or two on what was called “casual status” after
graduating from basic training. Casual status meant that I was
available for any odd job that had to be done: I rode on a mail truck
and delivered bags of mail to the basic training squadrons, I sorted
and loaded into trucks soiled and sometimes bloody linen at the
hospital, etc.
Because
I had already spent more time on Lackland AFB due to my hospital stay
and the casual status after basic training, I opted not to take any
leave at home before going to technical school (it was customary to
allow a two week leave), but to get on with my career. I thought that
the sooner I got to tech school (as it was referred to), the sooner I
would be finished and therefore could enter the “real” Air Force
sooner. So, I proceeded directly to Chanute AFB in Illinois where the
Weather Observer Technical School was located and thus I became a
member of Air Weather Service (AWS), a technical service under the
Military Air Transport Service (MATS) which later on became Military
Airlift Command (MAC), and lately the Air Mobility Command (AMC).
Weather Observer Technical School, Chanute Air
Force Base, Rantoul, Illinois
It
was the middle of June 1961 when I took the train from San Antonio,
Texas, via St Louis, Missouri, to Rantoul, Illinois, where Chanute
AFB is located. Upon arriving, much to my chagrin, I was again put
into a sort of casual status, this time it was called PATS for
Personnel Awaiting Tech School. As it turned out, I could have taken
my home leave and still been too early for the start of the next
weather observer class. I spent another three or four weeks doing odd
jobs.
Details
Every
morning the day's details (jobs) were passed out. Sometimes it was
grounds-keeping, sometimes moving furniture, etc. The best job was
when we once moved mattresses from a warehouse on one part of the
base to a building on another part. We got to ride in the back of the
truck on the mattresses where the two or three of us on the detail
promptly fell asleep (after all, we had been up since 5 in the
morning).
Then
one day I violated the cardinal rule that many people had warned me
about before I joined the military: Never volunteer for anything! At
the morning formation the Sergeant asked for volunteers who were
“very interested” in aviation. Of course I was. I had taken
flying lessons and wanted to (and did) continue to take flying
lessons. I was fascinated by military aircraft (I had built several
models) and I was eager to get close to and maybe put my hands on a
real military jet. Well, my wish came true, I did get close to a jet
and even got to put my hands on it - more than I actually wanted. The
job was to wax and polish a T-33 trainer jet. I had polished cars
before, but the surface area of a car is nothing compared to the
surface area of an airplane! The wings with an upper and a lower
surface, the fuselage all around, the tail way up high, the ailerons
again like the wings, made for a lot of waxing and polishing.
Fortunately I was not alone and I did get to look through the
Plexiglas canopy into the cockpit while pretending to diligently
polish around it.
Kitchen
Patrol
One
of the details every lower ranking person in the military had to
participate in in those days was Kitchen Patrol (KP). KP of course
was the dreaded work in the mess hall, always having to do the
dirtiest and most menial tasks such as scraping the leftover food
from the plates (disgusting), washing the plates and trays (wet and
steamy) and scrubbing the pots and pans (wet and greasy). Between
meals the entire mess hall had to be scrubbed and mopped, not to
mention the potatoes that had to be peeled, etc. Morning KP started
very early in the morning, at 3:30, and lasted for twelve hours, then
another shift of KPs took over.
The
KP duty we all looked forward to was called “School KP.” It was
called School KP because that meant that once one fulfilled the week
of this unpleasantness one was free from ever “pulling” (as it
was called) KP again, at least on Chanute AFB.
Today, the quaint custom of pulling KP is no longer practiced in its
original form. Many years ago it was decided that pulling KP was a
deterrent to volunteering for the military and the “paid KP”
(civilian contract worker) was invented.
Weather
Observer School
The
Weather Observer tech school lasted four months. The subject was
interesting and the way it was taught made it easy to learn. On
Chanute AFB there were tech schools for several career fields. Each
tech school had its own squadron area with about six or eight
barracks. The weather observer tech school operated in two shifts,
A-shift from 6 A. M. to noon, and B-shift from noon to 6 P. M. Other
schools had as many as four six-hour shifts. We met each other on the
way from and to classes, usually at the mess hall where one shift
formed up to march to classes after eating while another shift
returned from classes to eat.
When
the members of one shift met the members of the next shift at the
mess hall, chaos resulted. There must have been several hundred
airman moving through the serving line, trying to find a place to
sit, or on their way to the “clipper” (the dish washing area)
with their dirty dishes. This chaos became particularly severe when
it was raining, because we were not allowed to take our raincoats to
the tables due to a lack of space, but had to hang them up in the
hallway. What invariably happened was that someone grabbed the wrong
raincoat, leaving the rightful owner no choice but to take someone
else's and the owner of that one had to take another - starting a
chain reaction which finally left someone with a much too large or
much too small raincoat. But all that mattered at that point was that
everyone had a raincoat on, because being without a raincoat when it
was raining was “being out of uniform” and punishable with a
number of demerits.
We
got up at 5 A.M., assembled in formation, marched to the mess hall
for breakfast, marched to school. We went to school from 6 A. M. to
noon, marched to the mess hall for lunch, marched back to our
barracks and then had the rest of the day free, except for some
homework and an occasional detail around the squadron area. The
homework was easy, mostly practicing map plotting or code
interpretation.
Formations
Everything
was done in formations. The daily routine always began and ended with
a formation. Our formation consisted of the occupants of about six
barracks, housing about 30 airmen each. We lined up by barracks in
four columns. In this formation we then marched to chow (meals),
classes, and occasionally to drills, or parade practice, or in
parades. A training NCO (Non-commissioned Officer, a sergeant)
supervised the initial morning formation and the final afternoon
formation when he announced any details or other items of interest
(or non-interest) to us. Sometimes when we marched in formation
someone started singing a marching song. The only one I can remember
went something like this: "GI beans and GI gravy, gee I wish I
joined the Navy - sound off: one, two, sound off: three, four, sound
off: one, two, three, four...” Presumably this song was a leftover
from what was called the “Brown Shoe Corps.”
Student
Leaders
Each
barracks had a student leader who reported to the next higher student
leader that all were present or accounted for. The student leaders
were called “Ropes” because they wore a braided rope on one
shoulder. Different colors indicated the level of responsibility of
the wearer. For instance, a green rope meant the wearer was a
barracks chief and a red rope indicated a shift leader, that is, a
leader of all the barracks on a particular shift, but only for a
particular career field. Student leaders were chosen by the Training
NCO on the recommendation of the incumbent student leaders, usually
when the incumbent departed for his next assignment. To be a student
leader was prestigious because one didn't have to perform any details
around the barracks, one had a certain power and one got a private
room in the barracks. I was nominated to be a barracks chief when the
current chief was ready to leave. However, I opted not to take the
position, mainly because of the last of the benefits mentioned above:
I didn't want to be separated from my buddies in the open bay. The
work around the barracks was minimal anyway and I didn't seek any
power, I just wanted to get on with it, and go to my next assignment.
Barracks
The
living quarters were old World War II, two-storied, wooden buildings
which provided very little privacy. The barracks on Lackland AFB were
more modern than those on Chanute AFB, one of the oldest Air Force
Bases. The sleeping areas on Chanute AFB consisted of two large open
bays (halls) with a total of about 30 single bunks (as opposed to the
double bunks in basic training) in each. There was a study room
furnished with plain tables and chairs such as were found in the mess
hall. The latrine (bathroom and shower) was located near the front
door where everyone going by could look in. Along one wall there were
about four or five toilets without any stalls, that is, no dividers
between them nor any doors. Along another wall was a row of sinks and
next to them an open doorway to a room where there were eight or ten
shower heads. The lack of privacy didn't seem to bother any of us: we
were all guys and the WAF (Women in the Air Force) area was far away
across the base - obviously planned that way.
In
the bays there were wooden posts that supported the building. On
these posts so-called “butt cans” were fastened. The butt cans
consisted of old coffee cans that had been painted red. They were
about half full with water and were our ash trays. Since smoking was
allowed in the barracks (except in bed) the butt cans served as a
convenient way to keep the area clean of cigarette butts and
prevented a possible fire from a discarded butt that was not quite
extinguished. Someone had the duty to empty the butt cans daily and
to put in fresh water. Others had the duty to clean the latrine or to
sweep and polish the floor.
AWOL
I
regretted that I didn't take a home leave before starting tech
school. I had been away from home for almost six months and was
anxious to tell family and friends back in Waterford about my time in
the Air Force so far. Therefore, about halfway through tech school I
took the opportunity afforded by a long Labor Day weekend to fly
home. I hitched a ride with someone who was driving to Chicago, took
a plane to Hartford, Connecticut, where my brother-in-law David and
my sister Sylvia picked me up. We arrived at home on Saturday
evening, I had all day Sunday to spend at home and with my friend
Dennis and flew back to Chicago early Monday (Labor Day) morning. I
arrived back at Chanute AFB after taking a train from Chicago in time
for “Lights Out.”
Theoretically,
I was AWOL (Absent Without Leave) because my pass only allowed me to
be within a certain radius of the base. For the trip back home I
needed at least a 3-Day pass. During that time in the Air Force all
enlisted persons had to have a pass. A pass was a precious thing
which could be taken away for varying amounts of time for any small
infraction of the rules. There were three kinds of passes issued, a
class “B” pass, a class “A” pass and a 3-Day pass. A basic
trainee or someone otherwise under restriction got a class “B”
pass, which did not allow that person to leave the base, all others
got a class “A” pass, which allowed them to leave the base as
long as they could return for duty, with certain distance
restrictions. For special reasons one could be given a 3-Day pass.
For longer absences one had to take leave. The guards on the gates
were required to check passes on the way out as well as on the way in
and held and reported anyone trying to leave or enter the base
without the proper pass. I did receive a 3-Day pass later on for
maintaining a certain average on my tests in tech school. This pass
would have allowed me to take a long weekend or to miss three days of
classes if I took it during the week. However, I did not use the pass
at all because I didn't want to miss anything in class so as not to
jeopardize my grade point average.
Off-Duty
Recreation
On
base there was a movie theater, a bowling alley, a large cafeteria,
an aero club,
and perhaps some craft shops. The biggest attraction on weekends
mainly was the cafeteria where we could buy pitchers of beer, albeit
a light version, hamburgers, and pizzas, etc. Needless to say, the
cafeteria was always crowded, especially with those who did not have
a class “A” pass or were not old enough to go to a bar in town -
such as I.
Some
of my barracks mates were over 21 and went downtown. One or two had
cars and sometimes took some of us with them. One favorite spot to go
to for those who were old enough was on the way to Champaign-Urbana,
where the University of Illinois is located. It was called “Club
45” since it was located on Route 45. One day six or seven of us
decided to go there. I don't remember how many of us were underage, I
had turned 20 that year and had nothing to prove otherwise. But since
the club was known to always be crowded, those of us underage were
convinced by the others that there would be no problem.
The
club was a typical roadside bar with a loud jukebox and tables
crowded around a small dance floor. It was crowded but we did squeeze
in at a table. The older guys ordered a pitcher of beer and the rest
of us cokes, because the waitress was checking ID cards for each
initial order. Then, when it came time to order another round and the
music was loud and the confusion great, she brought another pitcher,
but since we already had glasses in front of us she failed to check
our IDs. Therefore, we all were able to partake of the festivities. I
remember that the song “Hava Nagila” was played over and over
again.
However,
the clincher came when we were on our way back to the base well after
midnight. We dutifully showed our passes and IDs to the guard at the
gate and he waved us through, but after having entered into the
parking lot near our barracks the sound of a siren and the flashing
of red lights caught our attention. We were the only vehicle in the
area, so we guessed that we were the target of the siren and the red
lights. We piled out of the car and scattered into the shadows of the
barracks - all except the owner of the car in which we had been
riding. He was trying to protect his property by properly locking the
doors before making his getaway. He proved to be too slow and was
apprehended by the Air Police.
The charge was not “Driving While Intoxicated” as we all feared,
but driving an overloaded car. The guard at the gate had had second
thoughts after he let us through and called a patrol to catch us. The
driver was punished with two week's restriction to the base. No one
was interested in finding out who his passengers were.
Ike
Jacket
Outside
the main gate of Chanute AFB was the usual assortment of uniform
stores, pawn shops and tattoo parlors. A number of my classmates got
themselves a tattoo. I thought about it, a tattoo would show team
spirit, especially if it would be something identifiable with the US
Air Force such as the old Air Corps wings. But most of the tattoos
that I saw I considered ugly and reflected poor judgment, I thought.
Besides, jokingly I said that I was never sure that I would not
eventually engage in a life of crime, in which case the tattoo would
be a permanent, identifiable mark.
In
those days General Officers were allowed to design their own
uniforms. These uniform designs could then be adopted as optional
uniform items for the rest of the troops. One of those optional
uniform items was a short jacket with hidden buttons and a flap at
the bottom and presumably designed, but certainly worn, by General
Dwight (Ike) Eisenhower. Therefore, it had the name “Ike Jacket.”
The Ike Jacket was very popular because it was more comfortable than
the standard blouse (long jacket). Since the Ike Jacket was not an
issued item, it was not sold in the Clothing Sales Stores on base,
only by civilian vendors off base. Outside the main gate of Chanute
AFB there was such a vendor. About a week before graduating from tech
school I decided to buy an Ike Jacket. I went to the store, was
fitted for a jacket and was told that it would be ready (it had to be
altered slightly) the next week, about a day or two before I was
scheduled to leave Chanute. When the day came for me to pick up my
precious Ike Jacket (after all it cost me the, at that time,
exorbitant sum of $25) I discovered that the store was closed. Upon
inquiring in the pawn shop next door as to why the clothing store was
closed on a weekday, I was told that the owner had been committed to
an insane asylum and no one knew when, if ever, the store would open
again! I had no choice but to ship out without my Ike Jacket. Just in
case, I left the receipt (I had of course already paid) and my
forwarding address with a buddy who was going to be there a few weeks
longer and asked him to check back with the store periodically and to
mail me the jacket when he got it. Needless to say, I never heard
anything from my buddy. He may have been happy with my Ike Jacket or
the store never opened again while he was there. To look at the
positive side, I wouldn't have had much of a chance to wear the Ike
Jacket anyway since at my new assignment we very seldom wore anything
but fatigues (work uniform) and about a year later the Ike Jacket
became obsolete and was no longer authorized for wear.
Assignment
Time
I
graduated from Weather Observer Technical School on 7 November 1961.
A few days before graduation we received our follow-on assignments.
Assignment time was always an exciting time. It was like Christmas,
you never knew what to expect and many times you had hoped for
something else. However, this time was different. Some of us could
pick the assignments for our first permanent duty station. I don't
remember how many of us got to pick our assignments but at least the
overseas assignments were “up for grabs.” There were about five
or six of us who wanted to go oversees. Of course, I wanted to get to
Germany. We got to pick the assignments in order of our standing in
the class, that is, by grade-point average. One person had edged me
out for the top grade near the end of tech school. But since I knew
that he wanted to go to the Far East, he was not a threat. He chose
Japan. I was tied for second place with my best buddy in the class.
There were four assignments to Germany. My friend, Jim Miller,
allowed me to choose first since he had no preference as to where in
Germany he would like be stationed and we had talked about the fact
that I wanted to get as close to my old hometown of Dachau as
possible. I chose Heidelberg Army Airfield, even though at that
moment I did not have a clear idea exactly where in Germany
Heidelberg was located, but it seemed to me that the other
assignments were farther to the north, that is, further away from
Dachau. That was the case and I was off to my next assignment - in
Heidelberg, Germany.
Home
Leave
But,
first I went home to Connecticut for a 30 day leave. I visited my
friend Dennis in his dorm at the University of Connecticut and we
spent some time together on weekends when he came home. One Sunday,
shortly before I was to depart for Germany, Dennis kept insisting
that we drive around some more and kept me from going home. When we
finally returned home, I discovered the reason: Sylvia, David, and my
mother had decorated a Christmas tree and they had engaged Dennis to
keep me away so that I wouldn't find out about the Christmas
celebration they had planned for me. We had an early Christmas,
because on the 6th of December I left for Germany.
First Permanent
Assignment, Heidelberg Army Airfield, Germany
I
flew to Germany from McGuire AFB in New Jersey, arriving at
Rhein-Main Air Base (AB) in Frankfurt almost to the day six years
after arriving in the US with my mother. This was my first real
assignment in the Air Force. Up to now I had been in training, so I
didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised when, upon
arriving at Rhein-Main AB, my name was called and I was greeted by a
friendly Technical Sergeant (TSgt) by the name of John Lahey who
introduced himself as the Chief Observer of Detachment 3, 7th Weather
Squadron, my new duty station. I was flabbergasted that I was being
personally picked up by my immediate boss. In addition, he had come
in an Army staff car with driver and we sat in the back seat and
chatted on the one hour drive to Heidelberg. The Heidelberg Army
Airfield (AAF) was located about 2 miles outside the city of
Heidelberg on the eastern edge of the Rhein Valley. To the east of
the airfield there were hills about two miles distant. But, the
weather was so dreary with low clouds and rain that it was not until
about a week later when the weather improved that I realized that the
hills were there.
Detachment
Commander
Next
I met the Detachment Commander, Major Edward Badger, which was just
as surprising as meeting the Chief Observer, because when I reported
to him and smartly saluted while standing at attention in front of
his desk, he said something like “...we don't believe in all that
protocol around here” and reached out to shake my hand. A few weeks
later he co-signed a loan for a couple of hundred dollars for me when
I wanted to buy a 1955 VW Beetle from the Chief Forecaster who was
being reassigned and I didn't have the money. The bank required a
co-signer and Major Badger unhesitatingly agreed to go to the bank
with me when asked by the major who sold the car to me.
Weather
Station
The
weather station was the focal point of our lives. We worked there,
received our mail and our pay there, and when we were off duty and
had nothing better to do we went there to read the paper and to chat
with our comrades who were on duty. The detachment consisted of about
15 to 20 people. Besides the Commander, Major Badger, there was a
Chief Forecaster, Major Thompson, three or four other officers
(lieutenants and captains) who were forecasters, three or four NCOs,
also forecasters, and then there were ten to twelve observers (lower
ranking enlisted) under TSgt Lahey, the Chief Observer.
The
weather station operated 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. We were
part of a worldwide network of observing and forecasting stations
which existed primarily for aviation safety purposes. The shifts the
observers worked consisted of two mid shifts (midnight to 8 AM), two
day shifts (8 AM to 4 PM) and two swing shifts (4 PM to midnight).
When the weather was good, the observer on duty had little to do
except to keep an eye on the weather and to record and transmit an
observation once per hour. During the day and night shifts another
observer was on duty also to plot maps and to help with the “tearing
and filing.”
During peak flying activity a third observer assisted the forecasters
by plotting a number of the latest weather reports on a map behind
Plexiglas on the wall. If the weather became really bad, especially
if it was changing rapidly from one condition to another, such as a
series of thunderstorms with intermittent clearing, or snow showers
off and on, any of us who were off duty and hanging around the
barracks went to the weather station and helped the people on duty.
Because
the weather station was just a few steps from the building in which
we lived, made it convenient to get to work. Some married men lived
in Army housing or rented apartments in town (“on the economy” as
it was called). The drawback to living on the airfield was that when
we worked a night shift, sleeping during the day was difficult
because of the constant aircraft noise. Sometimes helicopters hovered
at the level of our windows on the first floor for what seemed like
hours. In addition to airplanes and helicopters landing and taking
off, mechanics were testing engines, refueling airplanes, etc.,
making it hard to sleep. But we were young and resilient. Some time
after I arrived, heavy curtains were installed to dampen some of the
noise and to darken the room for sleeping during the day.
During
holidays, if possible, the schedule was arranged according to what
kind of holiday it was. On Christmas single people manned the weather
station, if possible, to let the married members celebrate with their
families. On New Years the single people would be off, if possible,
so they could celebrate. On holidays, the single people not on duty
usually were invited to the various married members' houses for
dinner. There seldom was an occasion when anyone had to sit around
the barracks during a holiday. In addition, someone usually brought
leftovers, desserts or especially prepared plates of the holiday
dinner to the weather station for those (especially the singles) who
could not partake of an invitation.
There
were frequent invitations to the quarters of the married people.
Besides holiday dinners there were parties on various occasions.
However, there were still many times that we single airmen were left
to our own devices and so we went downtown frequently, mostly to the
bars frequented by American soldiers. We also went to eat in various
restaurants, but mostly we went to the “GI bars” (watering
holes frequented by American soldiers, also known as GIs). An
occasional movie or a short sightseeing trip to some castle or
cathedral were about the extent of our cultural experience. The
pictures taken in front of a cathedral or other auspicious building
always made great items to send home to make the folks back home feel
good.
Rules
One
of the first things I was told was that there were two rules that
were irritants. These rules had been imposed on all US Army units in
Germany by the Commanding General, US Army, Europe. One rule was that
anyone in civilian clothes leaving an Army post had to wear a tie and
a sports coat or a suit. The reason for this rule apparently was the
general's displeasure with the American soldiers' appearance when in
civilian clothes.
Although the general could dictate what to wear, he couldn't dictate
good taste. Therefore, all kinds of hideous combinations could be
seen that met the basic criteria of coat and tie. Later on the
requirement to wear a tie was dropped.
The
other rule was that there was a curfew between midnight and 6 A. M.
The reason for this was readiness. The Berlin wall had been erected
in that year, leading to the Berlin crisis, and putting US forces in
Germany on a continued state of alert. The general wanted to have all
his troops within easy recall (with a good night's sleep).
The
US Air Forces, Europe, did not have either of these rules. But, since
we were at an Army installation, supporting the Army, our squadron
commander was eager to show that we could be as well-dressed and as
ready as the Army was, therefore he imposed both rules on the members
of his squadron. The Military Police (MP) enforce both rules
rigorously as some members of our detachment found out. We resented
the curfew because it seemed that when we were downtown, just as the
atmosphere was getting good we had to leave because midnight was
approaching.
The
MPs patrolled the well-known GI bars regularly, appearing in pairs
two to three times during the evening. Maybe coincidentally, maybe
not, one MP was big and the other was smaller. The big one usually
stood by the door so that no one could escape while the smaller one
went from table to table and demanded to see “pass and ID.” We
surmised that he could read. When they were satisfied that all was in
order they left. If something wasn't in order, as insignificant as
having taken one's sports coat off because one got warm while
dancing, the MPs had a rehearsed text they recited: “You will not
drink the rest of your beer, you will wait outside by the jeep.”
So, the accused had to go outside (sometimes in the cold) while the
MPs finished making their round in the bar. Fleeing was useless,
because the little MP held the pass and ID cards of the accused. One
might get off with a verbal reprimand to keep his coat on at all
times. Others could be less lucky and had to take a ride to the MP
station in an open jeep and then had to be picked up by someone from
their unit.
Barracks
Living
The
single and unaccompanied
men lived in a fairly large room in the main building on the
airfield. In that room lived eight to ten men. The ranks ranged from
Airman Third Class, such as I was, to Senior Master Sergeant. I
didn't know any better because I had just come from tech school, but
others who had had previous assignments to Air Force bases complained
about the poor living conditions. At an Air Force base the senior
ranks had their own rooms. Here they were crammed in with the lower
ranks. But little by little the higher ranking people moved out
because they were married and opted to bring their families over to
Germany at their own expense and finally the ban on dependents was
lifted.
Life
in the barracks room at the Heidelberg Army Airfield was as much
devoid of any privacy as it had been during tech school. We had metal
Army wall lockers which we arranged so that the open bay was at least
divided into sections. There was always someone trying to sleep after
a midnight shift while others who were off duty tried to lead a
normal life such as talking, playing cards, playing records or
listening to the radio. After all, this was our home, we had nowhere
else to go. This led to some friction, but all in all, we got along.
These conditions notwithstanding, we were one big family of blue (Air
Force) living in a sea of green (Army). This helped to weld us
together as a team.
Barracks
Mates
When
I arrived and met my barracks mates I was immediately shown around by
some of them who had been there a little longer. It was customary to
take a newcomer around to all the watering holes frequented by
American soldiers. Strangely enough, I remember more about my initial
barracks mates in Heidelberg than I do of many other fellow airmen,
including those that came later into the detachment at the Heidelberg
Army Airfield. I guess my mind was fresh and particularly receptive
for first impressions, or was it that the initial group of comrades
was especially noteworthy? Following are some of the most notable
impressions. I have refrained from showing their full names for some
of them because some of the things I say about some of them are not
flattering.
Jimmy
The
first one I can remember meeting was Airman First Class (A1C) Jimmy.
Jimmy was a small, slender man in his early thirties. He had been in
the Air Force for a number of years, but hadn't advanced very far.
However, he was always ready to have some fun. He was married and had
two small sons, but as an A1C he was not authorized to bring his
family with him, even if the travel ban on dependents had not
existed. Jimmy was the unofficial greeter in that he tried to get
hold of every newcomer and tried to impress him by showing him around
to all the local bars. The first place he took me a few hours after
arriving was to the bowling alley in the Army housing area because I
didn't have a coat or tie yet, so we couldn't go downtown.
Jimmy
liked to drink and when he'd had a few he talked in his sleep,
loudly, much to the dismay of his barracks mates. Jimmy shouted out
in his sleep: “A-OK” and “fly by wire,” expressions which
came from the recently initiated space flights, and “giddy-up,
Mary-Lou.” We could never find out if Mary-Lou was a person or an
animal such as a cow or a horse because Jimmy got very angry when
confronted with his sleep-talk. One night when Jimmy talked a lot and
couldn't be woken up, someone pulled him out of his bunk (I heard a
splat like a piece of raw meat hitting the floor) and Jimmy jumped
up, with his fists up like a boxer, dancing on his tip-toes yelling:
“I'll peel your head like an onion!” Whoever threw him out of bed
just laughed and went to bed, so did Jimmy and all went back to
sleep. Jimmy tip-toed a lot and the reason for that was that when he
was stationed in Korea he had to carry a heavy weather instrument in
a backpack over some unknown terrain during the night. Poor Jimmy
stepped into a deep hole and broke both of his ankles. They must have
healed poorly, that's why Jimmy tip-toed.
Jimmy's
German language skills left something to be desired.
He must have been of at least average intelligence, otherwise he
would not have been in our career field. He didn't have enough money
to be able to afford a car, so Jimmy always was a passenger. One day
Jimmy and someone with a car - I seem to remember that it was an Army
guy - went for a ride. They came to a house with a patio out front, a
patio table and some patio chairs. On the corner of the building was
a beer advertisement such as were found on the buildings of pubs or
beer distributors. Since Jimmy and his friend felt like having a
beer, they stopped the car, got out and took seats on the patio. Soon
a woman appeared at the sliding door to the patio and looked
questioningly at her “guests.” They obliged her curiosity by
ordering two beers. The lady disappeared with a confused look on her
face and very soon a young girl appeared at the door and asked in
school English what the two gentlemen wanted. “Two beers,” was
the reply from Jimmy and his friend. The girl disappeared and the
woman returned with two bottles of beer and two glasses. Jimmy and
his friend enjoyed their refreshments and when it came time to leave
they called for the woman who had served them and again the young
girl appeared. Jimmy and his friend indicated that they wanted to pay
for their beers, but the girl shook her head and said: “Not a
Gasthaus!” Only then did it dawn on Jimmy and his friend that they
had been guests at a private home - the beer sign at the corner of
the house indicated the entrance to a beer distributor around the
corner!
Del
My
closest bunk mate initially was an A1C named Del. Del, like Jimmy,
had been in the Air Force for a number of years
and was in his late twenties. Del had a problem. He was intelligent
and had been elected to the National Honor Society in high school,
but along the way seemed to have acquired low self esteem. He felt
sorry for himself, probably for not applying himself more and had
become an alcoholic, or was well on the way to becoming one. Del was
a pleasant bunk mate because he kept to himself. He always was
present for duty and didn't let his problem interfere with his work.
He just didn't put in any effort to get ahead in the world. Of
course, his problem did not go unnoticed by his barracks mates. When
Del was off duty and the rest of us in the Barracks were still
sleeping he climbed down the fire ladder which led from our room to
the side entrance of the snack bar that was downstairs, directly
under us, as soon as it opened at 6 A. M. and asked one of the ladies
there to give him a beer disguised in a paper cup, which they always
did.
One time Del returned to the airfield from an evening out on the town
without his shoes and his overcoat. He couldn't remember where he had
left them and I don't remember if he ever got them back.
I
felt sorry for Del because I got along well with him. One day as I
was planning to drive to my cousin's in Wörsdorf (probably because I
was low on cash) Del was hanging around the barracks, on the spur of
the moment I invited him to come along. We went to my cousin's, had
something to eat and my cousin asked us if we wanted a glass of wine.
I think I declined, but Del accepted. When it came time to leave, Del
asked if we were going to leave this almost full bottle of wine, my
cousin asked him if he would like to take it along, and he did.
Willy
When
Del left, his bunk was then occupied by Willy, an A1C from St. Louis
who acted like a college professor. Willy read a lot and was the
first one to talk about 007 - James Bond - before any of the movies
came out. He sometimes smoked a pipe and had a collection of
Meerschaum pipes that he rubbed with his hands (the oil from the
hands makes them shiny) and occasionally he retrieved his private
shotgun from the armory and polished the wooden parts. The strangest,
however, was when Willy decided that he needed to do some muscle
building. He procured a one-hand dumbbell, sat on his bed with a
cigar in his mouth, a glass of whiskey on his night table, doing
curls with his elbow resting on his knee. All in all, Willy was a
good bunk mate.
Sam
In
the bunk on my other side was a frail little Airman Second Class
(A2C) by the name of Simeone,
known as “Sam.” He smoked Pall Malls, at that time a favorite
because of their length. The first one of the day he lit with shaking
hands while still in his bed. Sam readily told us about the time he
was on a night shift at his previous assignment when he fell asleep
on duty, missed his hourly observation, and was awoken by, of all
people, the base commander who had just landed his jet and who was
checking to see why he wasn't informed of the deteriorating weather
as he was approaching the air base. Maybe that is why Sam's hands
shook every time he woke up.
Sam
was shy, quiet and a sucker. Another member of the unit who was
married and not living in the barracks sold Sam several items, among
them a car that needed repair. One of the first days I was in
Heidelberg Sam asked me for help. He had to go to the garage where
they were repairing his car for the umpteenth time and needed me to
translate for him. It didn't take much, because the only thing I had
to translate was what it was going to cost Sam to have that car
repaired further and I think I remember that he left the car at the
garage for payment of the work they had already done because he
couldn't afford to pay what he already owed, let alone what the
additional work was going to cost. Because he was short on money he
sold some of his possessions, such as some records and a stereo radio
with an attached record player. I bought these from Sam for about
$25, which got me into debt with the “slush fund”
for many months to come. When his enlistment was up, Sam left the Air
Force to work at an automobile assembly plant in his home town of
Detroit.
Harry
Sam's
bunk was then occupied by an A3C out of tech school, by the name of
Harry. He was short and roundish with hair on his shoulders and chest
which earned him the nickname “Honeybear,” which he didn't seem
to mind. Harry was originally from Wisconsin or Minnesota and slept
only covered by a sheet, even in the dead of winter. I sold the
Honeybear my 1955 VW sometime in 1963 and he had no trouble with it
as far as I know, because I was still around for over a year. Harry
also could be counted on to work a shift on short notice for $10.
Short notice being a half hour before shift start (usually a midnight
shift), when the downtown lights were still bright and one didn't
want to quit now (this was after the curfew was lifted).
Don
Further
over, up against the wall that separated the Army bay from the Air
Force bay, resided Don, a self-proclaimed “southern gentleman.”
No one else thought that highly of him besides himself. Don was an
A2C from Arkansas and racially prejudiced. I wouldn't mention him
except that he presented me with one of the most amusing anecdotes
from that time: The Army bay and the Air Force bay were separated by
a wall with a door. The Army bay was a long room in the middle of
which a rubber mat as walkway lead from the door of the Air Force bay
to the entrance to the Army bay, another door, after which came a
hallway with doors to the latrine and showers. On each side of the
rubber mat, and perpendicular to it, were several rows of wall
lockers, dividing the bay into sections. Each section had four or
five bunks in it. The Army adhered strictly to lights out after 10 P.
M. so that if any of us had to go to the latrine during the night we
had to do it in the dark through the Army bay. Especially when coming
back from the bright lights of the latrine, it was like going through
the bay blindfolded. So we learned to count the rows of wall lockers.
As long as we felt the rubber mat under our bare feet and counted the
wall lockers, we could accurately tell when to put out our hands to
open the door to the Air Force bay. Don's bunk was just inside the
Air Force bay on the right, up against the wall as one came in the
door. One night Don had to go to the latrine and on the way back
apparently miscounted, and sleepy as he was, turned too soon and got
into the first bunk he came to. There was a tremendous ruckus,
shouting and swearing, bare feet slapping the floor, the door to the
Air Force bay slamming and the creaking of a bunk as someone
hurriedly jumped into it. The noise in the Army bay soon subsided, no
lights were ever turned on because the light switch for the Army bay
was down at the other end. What had happened, as we found out from
Don, was that he miscounted the wall lockers, turned to the right too
soon and jumped into bed with one of the Army guys. The rightful
occupant of the bunk was understandably outraged at the intrusion in
addition to being awakened out of a sound sleep. This alone would be
reason enough to make a ruckus, but as we, his roommates, had noted
repeatedly - Don always slept in the “raw,” that is, naked, and
he went to the latrine that way!
Brian
Then
there was Brian, another A3C out of tech school. A tall, lanky guy
from Los Angeles who earned the nickname “Abe” (I think Willy was
the originator of the nicknames) because his jaw protruded like
Abraham Lincoln's, albeit without a beard. Abe had passed out at a
parade while in tech school and, the real trooper that he was, fell
forward at rigid attention so that the first thing that hit the
pavement was his chin. He had his jaw wired shut and could only drink
liquids through a straw for about six weeks and because his chin had
also taken a beating it ended up looking like Abe Lincoln without a
beard. Abe and I became close friends, especially at a future
assignment where we met again.
Rick
Another
member worthy of mentioning is an A3C named Rick, an airman I trained
when he arrived. Rick came from a well-to-do family in New York City
and had some problems. He admitted that he had spent some time
somewhere in Connecticut “drying out” as he called it. He stayed
sober during his shift cycle, but on his break days he caught up.
Shortly before Rick arrived we had received a small refrigerator for
our bay to keep soft drinks, a water pitcher, milk, etc., cold.
Alcohol was not officially allowed in the barracks. The pitcher with
cold water was particularly welcome because the latrine and the water
fountain were a long way down the Army bay, especially in the middle
of the night when one got thirsty. One day after sleeping after a
midnight shift I felt like the whole Chinese army had marched through
my mouth barefoot (an expression I learned from Willy), so I went for
a drink of cold water to the refrigerator. I poured a large glass
full of that refreshing treat and proceeded to pour it down my throat
when I let out a yell and spit whatever hadn't gone down yet in an
arch across the room - Rick had mixed a good quantity of martinis in
our water pitcher!
Bob
A
member of the barracks who had arrived shortly before I did was an
A3C named Robert. Bob was from Mississippi, but entirely different
than Don. Bob was smart, charming, a good athlete and eager to learn
the German language. Unfortunately, Bob too had a problem. But his
problem was not alcohol or money, it was that he tended to sometimes
do things without thinking about the consequences. Bob apparently was
an honor student in high school, but he quit high school before
graduating and enlisted in the Air Force. I never found out what the
problem was, maybe some family difficulty, or a girl. One night in
our favorite bar, the Columbia Bar, someone bet him that he couldn't
burn a hole into a dollar bill with a cigarette. Bob accepted the bet
before knowing what the condition was. The condition was that the
dollar bill had to lay flat on the back of one of his hands. Bob laid
the dollar bill on the back of his hand, lit a cigarette and pressed
the burning end unto the dollar bill. Much to everyone's (except the
challenger's) surprise, the dollar bill did not burn, but Bob's skin
did. When the pain from the burn on his hand became unbearable, Bob
had to remove the cigarette and found the dollar bill undamaged, but
on the back of his hand he had an ugly burn mark. Needless to say, he
lost the bet, but we all learned a lesson in physics, namely that the
heat drew moisture out of the searing skin, keeping the paper of the
dollar bill moist and therefore keeping it from bursting into flame.
When the burn mark became ugly after a few days, Bob went to the Army
hospital to have it treated and told them that he burned it on the
hot exhaust manifold of a car he was working on. They didn't believe
him because the burn was perfectly round and almost turned him in to
the military police for self-inflicting a wound, a punishable
offense, but finally did treat him. He has an ugly burn spot on the
back if his hand for the rest of his life.
Another
time, I was on a midnight shift, the MP desk sergeant called at about
2 or 3 A. M. Requesting that someone from our unit come to the MP
station to pick up a curfew violator. I was sent to sign for the
delinquent and it was Bob. He had had a date, and as is its habit,
“time had just flown by.” As he was on his way back to the
airfield after midnight he was stopped by an MP patrol and delivered
to the MP station. He was released in my custody, but a report
promptly arrived next day. The commander, Major Badger, made a big
show of contemplating the punishment and in the end sentenced him to
a two week restriction to the airfield, it was the least severe
punishment he could give and yet not violate higher headquarters'
directives.
Phil
Then
there was the A1C named Phil. Phil was a happy-go-lucky single guy
with a dark cloud hanging over his head - bad luck seemed to follow
him around. Phil hung out with us, but sometimes he went off by
himself somewhere or went to the movies, which also caused him some
heartache. He had just re-enlisted and had received an $800
re-enlistment bonus. Unwisely, Phil carried this sum in his wallet
when he went to the make-shift movie theater at one of the Army posts
in Heidelberg. The room in which movies were shown was really a ball
room, which at times was converted into a movie theater by placing
rows of dining room chairs in front of a large screen. As most dining
room chairs are, these chairs did not have solid backrests, but were
partially open in the back. Sometime during the show Phil's wallet
either fell out of his back pocket unto the feet of the person
sitting behind him or his pocket was picked by that person. In any
case, he never got his wallet nor his money back.
However,
Phil will be remembered forever by most of us as the inventor of the
“Phil shower.” When most of us decided to go downtown, we took a
shower and put on our civilian clothes. Taking a regular shower was
too time consuming for Phil, he just applied some deodorant to his
underarms, changed into civilian clothes and was gone. That dabbing
of deodorant became known as the “Phil shower.”
Doug
I
had the good fortune to be trained by an A1C by the name of Doug when
I first arrived. Doug introduced me to his wife, whom he had recently
married. It was at his house that I had my first home cooked German
meal since leaving home to start my assignment in Heidelberg. Doug
also brought sandwich-making materials from home when we worked night
shifts together. Doug introduced me to the bowling club called
“Rasselbande.” A lady who worked in the snack bar on the airfield
was in this club along with her husband, two other couples, three
elderly ladies and Doug and I. All were German civilians except for
Doug and I. Doug had gotten into the club before he was married
because of Frau Kremer, who was a vivacious woman. Doug and his wife
had a small child, therefore, his wife stayed home and I took her
place in the “Rasselbande.” We bowled once a week, paid dues, and
took a weekend trip once a year with the proceeds from the dues. I
went with them twice. Then, other interests became more important
than the “Rasselbande.” Besides, at times I had a hard time
coming up with the weekly dues so that I had to find an excuse not to
attend the bowling session. Luckily, my rotating duty schedule
provided that excuse sometimes.
Mutti's
Next
to the airfield there was a group of farm houses, arranged in a
rectangle. Prominently situated in the middle was a large manure
pile. One of the houses contained a “Gasthaus,” the German
version of an inn or restaurant, although restaurant is too
flattering a term for the place that everyone referred to as
“Mutti's.” Some wicked tongues called it the “Horsesh**
Hacienda” because of the manure pile.
Mutti,
of course is German for Mom and this Gasthaus derived its name from
the elderly lady (maybe 80 years old) who ran it. The Gasthaus
consisted of two rooms, the main room and a back room where card
players gathered. The tables were without tablecloths and scrubbed to
the grain. The chairs were equally as spartan. Suspended from the
ceiling hung an immense number of model airplanes, all US Air Force
or US Army aircraft, built and donated for decoration by US Army
soldiers who had been stationed at the airfield and who had
frequented the place since 1945. On the wall hung a picture of Frau
Schmitt's (her real name, Mutti was a nickname assigned her by
American soldiers) deceased husband on a white horse with someone's
Army uniform coat on. The gentleman in the picture was also advanced
in age.
The
beer and Schnaps were cheap, the sausages that Mutti heated up were
hardy, but other than that, there wasn't much to be said for Mutti's.
Frau Schmitt ruled with an iron hand. She liked her soldiers, but she
didn't like it when they brought women into her establishment,
especially if she deemed them to be of dubious character. She let
them know in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome. We
soldiers and airmen, on the other hand were welcome. She kept tabs of
what each of us owed with chalk on a slate. If at the end of the
evening someone couldn't pay his tab (which happened frequently), she
entered the sum in a book and waited for payment until the next
payday. Some of my barracks mates went to Mutti's for a couple of
cheap drinks to “get into the mood” before going downtown where
the real action was.
Many
soldiers celebrated their promotions at Mutti's by providing free
beer to anyone working at the airfield. Some of the soldiers were so
familiar with the place that they were called upon to tap a new
barrel of beer for Frau Schmitt because she didn't have the strength
to do it herself. In fact, the airfield commander declared Mutti's as
part of the airfield so that those of us stationed at the airfield
could go there in our work uniforms (fatigues), which were not
allowed to be worn when going downtown.
My Old
Home Town of Dachau
Soon
after I bought the VW Beetle from the departing Chief Forecaster I
took a trip to Dachau full of anticipation. I visited a friend and
his family whom I had always called my best friend
although we saw each other rarely, and I visited Andreas Bálint and
his family, but for some reason I did not look up my old friends (as
far as I can remember) Peps and Armin. The visit was somewhat
disappointing. Although I knew my way around I felt like a total
stranger. It had been only six years since I had left, but much had
changed. Not only the town had changed, with new buildings and
streets, but I had become totally American in my appearance and
mannerisms and I had the feeling that I didn't fit in there anymore.
In addition, I realized that my German vocabulary had stopped
expanding when we left Germany. That is, I only knew the words and
expressions of a 14 year old instead of that of an almost 21 year
old. In the intervening formative years I had learned the English
version of what a boy learns during those years. I found that I had a
hard time just having my car worked on because I had learned about
such things as the generator, carburetor, points or condenser in
English during my time growing up in Waterford and I didn't know
their names in German.
Later
on in the late spring of 1962 I went back to Dachau and visited my
old friends Peps and Armin exclusively. On the way back from Dachau,
as I was coming down a long hill on the Autobahn where I let the
Beetle roll on beyond the speed limit, I saw a German police car at
the side of the road (they were driving VW Beetles like mine, just
newer) and I was sure that they had taken my picture or noted my
license plate because I was going too fast. Sure enough, the next day
after I returned to Heidelberg, the commander called me into his
office and I was sure that he had received a "Discrepancy
Report" (military jargon for ticket) from the German
police through the military police. With a stern face Major Badger
said something like “what have you been up to,” handed me a set
of Airman Second Class (A2C) stripes, broke into a broad grin and
shook my hand in congratulation – instead of a ticket I had gotten
a promotion.
Relatives
I
also made contact with my aunt and uncle and cousins in a village
called Wörsdorf, a little north of Frankfurt. Since my aunt Fanny
and uncle Leo lived in an old farm house which was still quite
primitive (the outhouse was across the courtyard adjacent to the
barn), I preferred to stay with one of my cousins, Magda, and her
husband Peppi and daughter Siggi. In the beginning they lived in an
apartment, but were in the process of building a house. They always
took me in with open arms and I enjoyed Magda's cooking. Sometimes
when I was low on cash I drove the two hours to Wörsdorf because I
knew that I would get fed there.
Being low on cash was chronic then, as an A3C I was getting about $35
every two weeks. With this I had to buy my food, cigarettes,
gasoline, beer, etc.
For the first year or so I constantly owed the slush fund some money,
even at times the maximum of $25.
Twins
Definitely
the most lasting impression made on me from any assignment was the
acquaintance of the Hall brothers. They were twin brothers with the
names Dale and Don Hall. Dale was a Master Sergeant (MSgt) and Don
was a Senior Master Sergeant (SMSgt). They were weather forecasters
and when I first met them they lived in the barracks due to the
travel ban on dependents. After about a month or two they brought
their families over at their own expense.
The
Hall brothers came from rural Arkansas. They both read a lot, could
converse on any subject and were full of homespun humor, anecdotes
and sayings. They had been in the Air Force for about 15 years and
had always been stationed together
except one time when they were assigned to separate Air Force bases
in England which, however, were only a few miles apart.
Dale
and Don Hall were identical twins, yet once you got to know them
closer you realized that their voices, their hair and their
mannerisms differed. They were of equal size and weight, but Dale's
voice was a little higher pitched than Don's, Dale's hair was a
little longer and combed back whereas Don had a crew cut (not
terribly noticeable on both because they both had receding
hairlines), Dale would laugh out loud whereas Don would hold back a
little. But the real clue was that Dale smoked a corncob pipe whereas
Don smoked cigarettes.
However,
these small differences notwithstanding, they told of at least two
times that they used their matching identities to their benefit. One
time when reporting in at a new station, one of them was late, so the
other twin, the one who was on time, reported in as himself, then
left the office, put on another uniform hat and reported in as his
brother.
Another time, when they were in pilot training (which they did not
complete for various reasons) and one of them had difficulty passing
a check ride (a flight where an instructor evaluates a students
performance), the other one took the flight for him without the
instructor being the wiser.
Don
liked to draw and rendered portraits of various people, including my
future wife (whom I didn't know yet at the time), which were very
well done. Later in life Don had an art supply store. He and his wife
Marie frequently fed and entertained members of our unit and also
some of the German nationals who worked in the Army Flight Operations
Facility (AFOF).
Dale
liked Roman history and literature and discussed (some called it
lecturing) at great length history and American literature, small
wonder that in later years he opened a chain of book stores. Dale and
his wife Doris also frequently fed and entertained members of our
unit and some of the German nationals who worked in AFOF. I did some
translating for Dale when he was furnishing the house he had rented
in preparation for his family joining him, but he soon taught himself
enough of the German language so that he could converse with just
about anyone in Schriesheim, a village a few miles north of
Heidelberg, where he and his family were the only Americans for a
long time and Dale became known throughout the village because of his
open and gregarious manner. Many times he was called upon to act as
translator and thereby made many acquaintances.
Both
Don and Dale, who lived in villages in opposite directions from
Heidelberg, were called upon to translate for their neighbors since
both had acquired a working knowledge of the German language. I had a
closer relationship with Dale than with Don, I therefore know more
about Dale's interactions with the local population. An example of
Dale's translating exploits: Dale lived in a house he rented from a
prominent family in Schriesheim who owned the local bakery. Everyone
in the village knew the Kniesels and that an American who spoke
German rented from them. If one wanted Dale to translate, one only
had to go to the bakery and make that fact known and someone from the
bakery would contact Dale. One evening Dale got a frantic request to
come to a local restaurant because there was an American there who
insisted on “rein Wasser,” and no one could understand what it
was. Dale immediately sprang into action and went to the restaurant.
When he arrived, there sat the American with several small glasses of
liquid before him and shaking his head to the effect of: “No, no,
that's not it!” When Dale asked him what he meant by “rein
Wasser,” the American answered: “Pure water.” He had memorized
the German words for “pure” and “water,” “rein” and
“Wasser,” which were correct, but he should have said: “reines
Wasser,” when he combined the two words. The way he used the words
it sounded to the local people as if he were saying: “Rhein
Wasser,” meaning water from the river Rhein. Furthermore, several
alcoholic beverages in German, known as “Schnapps,” have similar
names, such as: “Kirsch Wasser, Pflaumen Wasser,” etc., depending
on the fruit from which they are distilled. Therefore, the
restaurant, thinking the guest wanted one of those alcoholic
beverages, presented him with a variety of them for his choosing.
However, what they didn't realize was that the guest was a Baptist
minister, totally opposed to alcohol, and that is why he asked for
“pure water.”
Willy
Kramer
One
of the first local Germans Dale met when he moved into the house in
Schriesheim was Willy Kramer. Willy Kramer was in his mid-forties and
had been a member of Hitler's Waffen SS. He had been an early recruit
before the Waffen SS took in all sorts of criminals and adventurers.
Willy's legs were scarred from the many wounds he received during
World War II. At the end of the war he was to be put on trial for war
crimes, but nothing but loyalty to his comrades could be proven.
Willy
Kramer was a man ready for any assignment or adventure. Dale called
him a “prince among men” and “someone you can steal horses
with,” but he also referred to him as “Pechvogel.”
Willy had an accident with his motor scooter whereby he unfortunately
received some brain damage which affected, among other things, his
equilibrium, his speech, and his ability to grasp objects with his
hands - he sometimes knocked them over because he lacked the ability
to judge the distance to the object properly. In short, he seemed
“punchy.” But that didn't deter him from trying to help with
anything that needed to be done. He and Dale spent many hours
discussing world affairs and working around the house whereby Dale
gained knowledge not only about the German language but also about
German life and culture in general.
The
paint on my VW was fading and flaking. Someone, maybe Dale or Willy,
suggested that I give it a paint job. Willy was immediately ready to
assist. He had some connection with the local Mercedes dealership in
Heidelberg and promptly procured some paint for me. Unfortunately, my
VW originally was blue and the paint Willy got (for free) was fire
engine red. This notwithstanding, we started to spray my VW using
Dale's vacuum cleaner attachment, which was meant for spray painting,
but probably not for cars. After one coat of paint we ran out of
paint and the blue color was still shining through in spots. Since
Willy's connection at the Mercedes dealership did not let him have
anymore paint, Willy tried another connection with success, except
the color he got was - blue, not fire engine red. So we spray painted
the car again, but this time the red was bleeding through all over
the car and we had run out of paint. I don't remember exactly, but I
think I then bought some more of the blue paint to give the car
another coat. But this was not yet the full extent of Willy's
contribution to the project. Willy had recently had a new house built
which he rented out to a US Army lieutenant colonel because Americans
were paying exorbitant rents, according to German standards, because
the dollar was strong and the housing allowance covered the expense
easily. However, Willy announced that the colonel only rented the
house and not the garage in the basement and that we could do the
painting in his garage.
All
well and good. We drove the car into the garage, masked and taped the
windows and the chrome, and proceeded to do the spray-painting part
of the job, when we realized that there was no electricity in the
garage. “No problem,” said Willy, “we will just run an
extension cord out into the basement,” which we did. Now, the
painting took some time and we created quite a smell throughout the
garage which was just big enough for my VW. Undoubtedly some of the
fumes spread to the rest of the house, because we had to keep the
door to the basement open a crack so that we could run the extension
cord out to where the socket was. Whatever the reason, the colonel
showed up and wanted to know what we were doing, which was obvious.
Dale had met the colonel before and was on good terms with him
because he had done some translating for him, therefore the colonel
didn't seem upset, just curious. I was introduced to the colonel and
as he left he wished us luck and said something to the effect that we
were welcome to use his electricity. Suddenly I wasn't so sure
anymore that Willy really had the use of that garage.
The paint job eventually came out nice.
Moving up
in the World
Sometime
in 1963 I sold my VW to a fellow observer (the “Honeybear”) and I
bought a 1956 Opel Kapitän from a departing forecaster, a Lieutenant
(called “the Screech” behind his back because of the pitch of his
voice when he got excited). The Opel Kapitän was somewhat of a
luxury car with a sunroof, reclining seats, and ashtrays and
cigarette lighters by every seat. It was seven years old, but
definitely a step up from the VW.
Yasuto
Kono
In
the spring or summer of 1963, Dale Hall called the weather station
from his home in Schriesheim and told the observer on duty to go to
our barracks and to tell anybody there to come to his house, he had a
case of beer and a “Japanese fiddle player” at his house. Since
two or three of us happened to be sitting around the barracks, we
went to Dale's house. This was the beginning of my association with a
Japanese violinist.
A
next door neighbor, Herr Münch, had approached Dale Hall and stated
that he had a visitor who spoke better English than German and asked
if Dale would help him to talk to the visitor. This visitor was a
Japanese man who had come with a letter of recommendation from a
schoolfriend of Herr Münch. The schoolfriend had been living in
Tokyo for many years and operated a German restaurant there. The
letter asked Herr Münch to help the Japanese gentleman to get
situated in Germany and to help him do what he came to do - to play
German music.
The
name of the Japanese man was Yasuto Kono, and he was an accomplished
violinist. Kono, as he came to be known, had studied classical
violin, but to earn a living while studying the violin he played in
bands in US Army and US Air Force clubs in Japan. They mostly played
Country and Western music. Then, Kono landed a job in the German
restaurant of Herr Münch's friend, called “Bei Rudi,” and
started to play German traditional music. He liked the music so much
that he decided to make a career out of playing German-style music.
The owner of the restaurant encouraged Kono to go to Germany to study
the music firsthand and gave him two letters of introduction, one to
another schoolfriend in Hamburg and one to Herr Münch in
Schriesheim, who owned a large printing establishment. The
schoolfriend in Hamburg didn't know what to do with Kono and put him
to work in his import-export business, packing boxes for shipment.
This was not what Kono came to Germany for, so he decided to try his
luck with the second letter of introduction and landed in
Schriesheim. Since Herr Münch did not know what to do with Kono
either, he called Dale Hall to the rescue.
Characteristically,
Dale sprang into action, invited Kono to his house, and provided an
audience for him by luring two or three of us airmen with the promise
of “a case of beer and a Japanese fiddle player” to his house.
Except, Kono wouldn't play, or maybe he played one piece: We were not
the kind of audience he had hoped for. We had a good time anyway.
However, thus began my association with Kono and it deepened my
relationship with Dale and his wife Doris. Initially because I spoke
German and we were trying to help Kono. We spent many hours together
trying to get Kono established in Germany so that he could do what he
came for - to play German music.
Kono's
main problem was that he came to Germany on a tourist visa which
allowed him to stay one year, but which did not allow him to work in
Germany. Coming from a non-European country, it was nearly impossible
to get a work permit, we were told. Only two types of occupations
from Japan were eligible for residence and work permits: People
studying nursing and automotive engineers who were working with
German automobile engine developers with development the so called
“Wankel” motor (which was later use by Mazda). Dale, being an
eternal optimist, never was be daunted by a “turn-down.” He
managed to glean a glimmer of hope from almost any negative answer.
Whenever someone at one of the offices we contacted made some remark
which sparked this glimmer of hope for a positive solution, we broke
out a bottle of Sekt (the German equivalent of Champagne) and
celebrated. After every celebration came another setback, but then
invariably came another glimmer of hope, and so on.
Kono
traveled to the city of Kassel to play in an orchestra - a sort of
audition. We hoped that if he were offered a job by the orchestra
that that would facilitate getting a work permit, but no such luck.
Kono didn't get hired (or didn't want to get hired because he didn't
like the music they were playing).
Because
of some remark some official made, we thought that if Kono had a
“residence” in Germany he might be able to get a work permit.
Although Kono did not have a residence permit, we proceeded to
establish a residence for him. Since he could not live forever in the
Münch's guest room anyway, it was natural to look for some other
living arrangements for him. At first he stayed in a type of hotel,
called a “Pension,” but the conditions there were not very
pleasant. I picked Kono up whenever I was off duty and drove him to
the Halls and he and I spent most of our time at their house, being
fed and “entertained.” So, it came naturally that we decided to
move Kono's residence closer to the Halls in Schriesheim, since he
spent most of his time there. I'm sure Dale inquired about a room for
Kono in Schriesheim and found none, but I know for a fact that we
then went to the neighboring town of Dossenheim, where we found a
nice room with a balcony on two sides, in a private home. Dosssenheim
is on the way to Schriesheim, so it was easier for me to pick Kono up
along the way. In addition to having only a tourist visa, Kono was
only allowed to take a certain amount of money with him out of Japan.
Therefore, his means were limited. Whatever the rent for the room
was, it was too much for Kono, so I volunteered to pay for the room
and to live there with him, since the room was big enough for two. I
was tired of the barracks life anyway. Our rooming together didn't
last long, because, in our optimism, now that the residence was
established, he would get the work permit (after all, he had to make
a living), Kono sent for his wife and small son to come join him in
Germany. His wife, Misato, and Naoto, his son of three or four years
of age, arrived one day in late 1963. I moved back into the barracks,
I had never officially moved out anyway.
Somewhere
along the line when the work permit was not forthcoming, Dale came up
with the idea, since Kono had played in US military clubs in Japan,
why couldn't he do that here in Germany. The American clubs didn't
care about work permits. The only drawback was, he couldn't do it
alone, he needed accompaniment, a violin alone was not very
marketable. Doris suggested that I accompany him on the drums, since
I was forever drumming with my fingers on the table, the chair, etc.
I had also mentioned the fact that I had taken drum lessons and that
I had played in the band during high school. I think it must have
been during one of those “interim success celebrations” that I
agreed, and Dale and I went to a local music store and I bought a set
of drums. Since I didn't have enough money to pay for them, I took
out a loan at the bank, which Dale co-signed. At the same time,
because of our sudden interest in music and to facilitate practicing,
Dale and Doris bought a small upright piano. Drums and violin don't
make a very pleasing combination by themselves, so we looked for at
least one more member of the combo called “The Consorts,” a name
created by Dale Hall who was going to be our manager. We tried out
several candidates, one played the guitar and his name was Harry, one
other time we played with a bass player (actually for pay at the
officers club), I seem to remember that there also was an accordion
player, but am not sure. I do remember an evening in some village
away from Schriesheim where a group of local amateurs gathered to
make music. We joined them in the hope of finding a suitable member
for our combo. They were not what we were looking for and when one of
them asked Kono if he could follow along and play second violin, Dale
almost died laughing - Kono was an accomplished soloist. We made a
demo tape with the guitarist named Harry and sent it to Chet Atkins
in Nashville. We thought maybe Chet Atkins would find a “Japanese
fiddle player” playing Country and Western music interesting. We
got a polite response - thank you, but no thank you.
We
never made enough money to pay for my drum set. As far as I can
recall, we only played three times for money, once with the bass
player and twice more only Kono and I played. My favorite song was
the “Hawaiian War Chant,” when Kono strummed his violin like a
ukulele and I could really beat the drums. Unfortunately, during one
session at the NCO Club one of my drumsticks flew out of my hand
during the height of the war chant and into the audience. I pretended
that flinging a drumstick is normal, grabbed a substitute stick,
which I luckily had at hand, and continued on. All in all, I found my
playing with Kono embarrassing. Kono was an accomplished musician, I
was a rank amateur. The combination of drum and violin left something
to be desired anyway. Kono kept a straight face through it all.
Sometime
during his stay in Germany, Kono expressed the desire to learn to
play the zither. So, one day Dale (and I believe I chipped in, but
could be mistaken, given my financial situation at the time) bought
him a zither. We managed to get hold of some sheet music for zither
and Kono taught himself, literally over night, to play the zither.
When he went back to Japan he became the only zither player in Japan
and quite famous, until his son Naoto later on took up the same
instrument and now there are two famous zither players in Japan
(unless someone else has taken it up too).
When
I had to fly to the States from Germany in 1964 because my mother was
hospitalized, Misato and Kono made 2000 “Happy Birds,” as they
called them, birds made out of folded paper, which I now know as
“Origami.” The birds were to bring health, luck, and happiness to
my mother. Unfortunately, since there were so many, I could only take
a fraction of the birds to my mother - they helped, she recovered. I
took the Konos to Munich and around Heidelberg and we had great times
at the Halls', but finally we all came to realize that Kono was not
going to get a work permit, his one year visa was expiring and his
wife Misato was very homesick for Japan. Therefore, in the summer of
1964 the Konos went home to Japan.
Army
Flight Operations Facility
The
weather station on the Heidelberg Army Airfield was housed in a long,
low building. About half the building was occupied by the weather
station, the other half by the Army Flight Operations Facility
(AFOF), which was a flight clearing and following
office which handled all the US Army flights in Europe. As part of
their preflight procedure, US Army pilots had to call AFOF to file a
flight plan and get an AFOF clearing officer's permission to make the
flight. When the flight was completed they had to call back and
report their arrival to AFOF. There essentially were two rooms where
this operation took place, a small room were the clearance officer,
his assistants and a weather forecaster sat, and a large room where
flight plans were received and tracked.
Flight
plans were received over the telephone by a number of civilian
employees who had headsets on and who typed the flight information
unto strips of paper. These people were called “air traffic control
communicators” and they sat around a circular table on top of which
there was a turntable like a large “lazy Susan.” The strips of
paper with the flight information were fastened unto clips on this
lazy Susan, which was then rotated to a section of the table where
another group sat who took these strips of paper and posted them on
boards on the wall. These people were called “flight followers.”
When a flight was completed, the air traffic control communicators
received another phone call closing out the flight; this information
they then passed on to the flight followers with a strip of paper via
the lazy Susan. If a flight was not reported as completed in the
estimated flight time, the flight followers initiated action to find
out what happened to the flight. Most of the time it was simply a
delay in reporting the arrival.
Other
than the US Army Clearance Officers and a few Army supervisors, the
people working in AFOF were German civilians (one Scot was among them
one time). Since all air traffic communication was and is carried on
in English, they all spoke English very well. Furthermore, many of
the civilians were young women, mostly single. They worked shifts
similar to ours, 24 hours per day and 365 days per year. On many a
night shift when the weather was good, the observer(s) and
forecaster(s) on duty spent as much time as possible, without
neglecting their duties, in the AFOF section of the building
conversing with the young ladies.
The Swimmer
Several
of the young ladies had nicknames given to them by the guys in the
weather station, usually based on their looks. There was “Monica
Red,” because she had red hair, “Monica Blond,” because she had
blond hair, and “Bouncy” because of her large bosom. Also there
was the young lady everyone called the “Swimmer” because it was
known that she swam competitively and had won several titles. The
Swimmer rode a heavy motor scooter. When she drove up, someone
yelled: “The Swimmer is coming” and everyone rushed to the
windows of the weather station to watch her dismount the motor
scooter. If she was leaving, someone yelled: “The Swimmer is
leaving” and everyone of us rushed to the windows to watch the
Swimmer get on her motor scooter and drive off. She always seemed to
be in a hurry, especially when arriving for work, because she was
always on the verge of being late for her shift. Therefore she drove
accordingly - fast. Some lucky guys got rides on the motor scooter
with her, but I was not one of them.
The
civilians that worked in AFOF also had a sort of a team spirit. On
special occasions one of them who was off duty came to the airfield
and brought a bottle of wine or something and the AFOF civilians
celebrated whatever it was they were celebrating. This was only
possible during a night shift when the bosses were not around. We Air
Force people took our job seriously and never took part. However, we
saw what was going on and said nothing, it was none of our business.
Then on one night shift, the weather was good, the Swimmer showed up,
not on duty, with a leather flask of Spanish wine. There was little
if any air traffic and the civilians started to taste the wine, some
more than others. Pretty soon the sounds coming from the AFOF section
of the building aroused our curiosity. The forecaster on duty (a
first lieutenant) was watching the party and eventually I went over
to see what was going on. There on the large circular table in the
Flight Following section, the Swimmer was doing handstands. As I
found out, she had just come back from a two week vacation on Majorca
and had brought back this flask of wine to share with her colleagues.
Since she was very athletic and always open for some fun, it hadn't
taken much to dare her to do a handstand on that table.
I
was training a new observer who was almost fully trained and who
would go on shift by himself in one or two shift cycles. When, toward
morning, the word came around that the Swimmer needed a ride home
(she had come to AFOF with a girlfriend who had to be on duty several
hours more), the observer I was training suggested that I take her
home. The civilians on duty couldn't leave, the forecaster couldn't
leave and my trainee didn't own a car. So, I was the logical choice,
and since my trainee was almost fully qualified, and the forecaster
had no objections, I took the Swimmer home. It was the late spring of
1964, about 5 A. M. and already fairly light out. I drove the Swimmer
home and returned to the weather station to the grins of the observer
trainee and the duty forecaster. I was back in less than 30 minutes
and my trainee admonished me that I had come back at all. But, after
all, I had only given the Swimmer a ride home as promised. (She
claims now that I asked her for a kiss.) I had secretly admired her,
but had never dreamed of approaching her and even after driving her
home didn't think that anything more would come of it, she seemed to
be so far out of my league.
Matchmaking
The
swimming pools in Germany open early - in May. Sometime after the
pools were open, it was a warm day and I was on duty, our Chief
Observer, TSgt Hall (not related to the Hall brothers in the
forecasting section, TSgt Lahey had gone to another assignment), came
to me and said: “Go get your bathing suit, you're taking the
Swimmer to the swimming pool.” I replied that it was only a little
after noon and I had to be on duty for another three to four hours.
He said: “I'll take care of it, go.” So I went, got my bathing
suit and, sure enough, the Swimmer was waiting for me and we went to
the swimming pool.
Getting
Acquainted
A
week or two later TSgt Hall was promoted to MSgt and I was promoted
to A1C. We decided to throw a combined promotion party at the NCO
Club on a Friday afternoon. It was MSgt Hall's idea and I went along
readily because he was carrying most of the cost. Somewhere along the
line I invited the Swimmer, whom I'd gotten to know as Ingrid. She
asked around if any of the wives were coming and was told yes, so she
agreed to come. Well, no other wives came and Ingrid was the only
woman there, which made me a bit nervous because I was afraid that
she would find one of the other guys more attractive, etc. She was
late arriving because she had to ask someone who worked for her
father to give her a ride because her motor scooter wouldn't start.
This was my opportunity to get to know her better. I offered to see
if I could fix her motor scooter. The next afternoon, a Saturday, I
went to her house, took one look at the motor scooter and decided
that I couldn't fix it. The battery was dead and the motor scooter
was so heavy that you couldn't push-start it. But, the visit did it's
purpose, Ingrid served me fried eggs and potato salad and we were a
pair from then on. A few days later I drove her to a parts store
where she could buy a battery for her scooter.
Planning
for the Future
In
early 1964 I started to think about what I was going to do with my
life. Was I going to stay in the Air Force, or was I going to get out
and give college another try? I liked the Air Force and I liked
working in the weather station and I wasn't sure that I would do any
better in college the second time than I did at the first attempt.
The past three years had been rather care-free and fun. But I felt
that life could not go on forever like that, I felt that I wanted to
be more than just a weather observer doing shift work for the rest of
my career. Even though I had another year to go on my enlistment, my
tour in Heidelberg would end in early December and the policy was
that I would not be given another assignment for the remaining three
months of my enlistment, but be discharged upon reaching the United
States. Since I had been assigned to an Army installation for the
past three years and never to an Air Force base other than for the
initial training, I opted to extend my enlistment for eight months so
that I could get a stateside assignment at an Air Force base. At the
same time, in connection with my career contemplation, I decided to
take an evening course at the University of Maryland branch in
Heidelberg.
I took the first course to see if I could go through with it to
the end. It was a course every freshman in college has to take,
English Composition, and if completed successfully could be
transferred to any other college, thereby getting a required course
out of the way. Since I successfully completed that course I decided
to take another, but the only course available was one in European
Literature, but it too served its purpose, it fulfilled a later
requirement for an elective subject. I was encouraged by the fact
that I completed both courses with relative ease and felt that I
could go on to college when the time came. An additional benefit of
attending evening classes was that the more self improvement effort
one showed, the more likely it was that one would get promoted faster
than someone who showed no initiative in that regard. It certainly
helped for the promotion to A1C in the summer of 1964 and for the
next promotion later on.
Two
events influenced my further course of action. One was that an
observer at one of our operating locations
was called to see our commander one day and as those of us on duty
were able to watch, Major Badger proudly handed this airman a set of
Staff Sergeant stripes and a so-called commissioning set. The stripes
meant that he was being promoted to Staff Sergeant and the
commissioning set was a set of second lieutenant bars, officer's
collar, and hat insignia for when he eventually would become an
officer. What this airman had earned was acceptance into the Air
Force's Airmen Education and Commissioning Program (AECP) and a
promotion to E-5 (Staff Sergeant), the pay grade every officer
trainee carried. To apply for AECP one had to accrue at least 30
semester hours of college credits on his own, besides passing the
required tests. If everything was passed successfully the applicant
was then sent to an accredited university to pursue a bachelor's
degree at the Air Force's expense with pay and allowances of a Staff
Sergeant. The only stipulations were that the degree had to be in a
field that the Air Force needed qualified people in, and the
applicants had to commit themselves to go through Officer Training
School and upon successful completion to serve as officers in the Air
Force for four years. This airman had accumulated his 30 semester
hours off-duty with the University of Maryland which greatly
encouraged me. If he could do it, why not me and being an Air Force
officer had been my dream from the start. The other event was that I
had met Ingrid. I decided to try for AECP. So, in the summer of 1964
I took what was called a “short out” and re-enlisted for four
years
with the intention of eventually applying for AECP.
Getting
Married
Ingrid
and I saw each other regularly. The summer went by too fast and my
rotation date
of 5 December was approaching rapidly. So, one evening in August
Ingrid and I decided to get married so that she could accompany me to
the US.
Although I had met her family, the engagement came as a total
surprise to them. They had no choice but to agree and we were
officially engaged on the 14th of August 1964.
The
whole thing seemed a little rushed to Ingrid's relatives and friends
and there were some raised eyebrows, but we had to make a quick
decision because before I could get married I had to get not only my
immediate commander's permission, but also the permission of the next
higher commander, the squadron commander. And if Ingrid wanted to
come to the states with me, she needed a visa, and a visa could only
be applied for after we were married. So it was imperative that we
get married as soon as possible, because we didn't know how long the
visa process would take.
The
squadron commander was a big game hunter and was always off on some
safari; therefore, the paperwork lay on his desk for weeks.
Fortunately, the squadron headquarters also was in Heidelberg so that
I periodically (almost daily) checked with a clerk at the
headquarters who assured me again and again that my paperwork was on
top of the colonel's in-basket. But nothing happened, even when the
colonel came back from his trip. Then finally one day in September or
October I was called to the weather station where I was told by the
Chief Forecaster, Major Thompson, to put on my best uniform and to
report to the squadron commander. I didn't know what to expect and as
I was standing in the doorway to the colonel's office, while he was
talking to someone else, he said to me: “Don't look so sad, Schenk,
I'm going to approve your marriage request.” He then explained to
me that it normally was his policy to disapprove marriage requests by
young airmen who were about to go to another assignment in the US,
and to let them go back alone. This gives them time to think things
over and if they are serious enough about marriage, they can always
come back and marry the girl. However, Major Thompson, the Chief
Forecaster, had put in a good word for us, he knew Ingrid and had
known me for almost three years. That convinced the squadron
commander to approve my request.
Time
was pressing. We had to go see the chaplain for a counseling,
and there were preparations for the wedding to be made because
Ingrid's family wanted a proper church wedding with all the
trimmings. There were also some other requirements to be met such as
publicly posting the names for two weeks, allowing anyone who had a
good reason to object to the marriage, etc. We managed to get it all
done and on the 10th of November 1964 Ingrid and I were married in a
civil ceremony in the Heidelberg city hall and in a church ceremony
on the 14th of November 1964. The 10th of November (a Tuesday) was
chosen so that we could go right to the US Consulate in Frankfurt to
apply for a visa for Ingrid, which we did much to the astonishment of
the official who worked on our case when he found out that we had
been married just a few hours ago. As it turned out, we were able to
take Ingrid's visa home with us that day. The 14th (a Saturday) was
chosen so that relatives and friends could attend the wedding without
taking a day off from work.
My
“Best Man” was Dale Hall and the “Maid of Honor” (in Germany
they are called “witnesses” because they sign the marriage
certificate) was Ingrid's friend and roommate Monika Schad who then
inherited the cocker spaniel she and Ingrid had bought together.
Unfortunately, Doris, Dale's wife, could not attend because the
packers were at their house packing up their furniture because they
were leaving for the US in the next few days. Unfortunately, they
were not in Heidelberg anymore for our church wedding.
Since
we were leaving for the United States about three weeks later, we did
not go on a honeymoon. Our trip to my next assignment, San Angelo,
Texas, was going to be our honeymoon. For the remaining time in
Germany we lived in a two room apartment in Ingrid's parents' house.
I had no idea what lay ahead, but in retrospect, I should have
realized then and there that I had stumbled onto a special person in
Ingrid.
Return to
the United States, Married
Because
I was only an A1C, I was not authorized to have my new wife flown to
the US at government expense, nor was I allowed to ship more than a
few hundred pounds of household goods. Consequently, we packed what
was important to us, mainly Ingrid's things (I didn't have much
except some records, a radio, a record player, and some clothes) and
paid for Ingrid's plane ticket. She also couldn't travel with me, I
went via US Air Force plane, she had to fly with a civilian airline.
Since I wanted her to meet my family in Connecticut before proceeding
to Texas, I booked her to New York where I planned to pick her up. I
had purposely timed her departure so that I could arrive in
Connecticut first, then a day or so later drive to New York City to
pick her up. However, when I reported to the passenger terminal at
Rhein-Main AB in Frankfurt (in those days the “Gateway to Europe”
for US forces) I was told that I was scheduled to go to Charleston
AFB in South Carolina because my next assignment was in Texas, and
not to McGuire AFB in New Jersey from where I had come and to where I
expected to return. I didn't know how I was going to get from South
Carolina to New York City in time to pick up Ingrid. My problems
seemed to multiply as I was in the Air Force C-118 heading out over
the Bay of Biscay in the evening of my departure and the airplane
suddenly turned and turned and the setting sun was finally on the
opposite side of the airplane. Although the loudspeaker system in the
C-118 was of poor quality, we finally found out that we had engine
problems and that we were returning to Rhein-Main AB. Back at
Rhein-Main AB I found out that I was being rescheduled and that I
would not be leaving for a couple of days. I was told to get a bunk
in the transient quarters and to come back for the new flight.
The
bad news was that Ingrid would arrive in New York before I ever left
Germany. The good new was that my new flight would take me to McGuire
AFB in New Jersey, rather than to South Carolina. I decided to forgo
the bunk in the transient quarters and hopped on a train back to
Heidelberg. Somewhere along the line I must have called Ingrid. I
think she picked me up in our Opel which was never properly
unregistered. I believe we both went to our respective flights the
next day or the day after, but not before I sent a telegram
(telephoning internationally was cumbersome) asking David to pick up
Ingrid at the airport in New York City when she got there. David and
Papa Stevens (David's stepfather) went to the airport and met Ingrid,
although they had only seen a photograph of her. Papa Stevens
supposedly asked every young woman coming in from the passport
control point: “Are you Ingrid?” until he finally found the right
one. They went to Connecticut where Ingrid met my mother and sister
and was firmly established by the time I arrived a day or two later.
It
was just before Christmas, the weather could not have been better for
an introduction to the US for Ingrid. The lakes next to Sylvia's and
David's house were frozen solid and one of the first things we did
was to go ice skating. Ingrid had never ice skated before, but soon
was able to even attempt some fancy maneuvers. Then we had some
freezing rain that turned the neighborhood into a fairytale
landscape. Everything was enveloped with a cover of ice which
produced a diamond-like sparkle when the sun shone on it.
This
Christmas was the most memorable in my life, not only because of my
new wife and how well she was received by my family, but also because
my sister Sylvia was expecting her first child. Sylvia had a recital
for her dance school scheduled for just before Christmas. Ingrid
helped with the sewing of costumes and I helped David with the
scenery.
We spent many hours exploring surroundings that were new to Ingrid
with David, Sylvia, and a distant relative, David Thomas. Just before
New Years we bought our first car together, a Chevrolet Corvair
(Ralph Nader called it “unsafe at any speed”), a black
convertible with red interior and fancy spoke-wheel-like hubcaps.
New
Year's Eve we spent with Denny and Sue Hollister. Dennis had gotten
married recently and was in his last year at UConn. A few days into
the new year, 1965, we started what we considered to be our
honeymoon, the trip to Texas, and our first time living together,
alone, without relatives around.
Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas
Going to
Texas
The
trip took about three days. I just remember a few tidbits from the
trip. The first night, after checking into a motel, we ate in the
attached restaurant and some time after we got back to our room I
became “sick as a dog!” Maybe it was the bed which had a
vibrating mechanism built in, ostensibly to relax you - maybe it made
me seasick.
I
also remember having my first taste of married life along the way
because Ingrid wanted to stop at every roadside souvenir store, but I
wanted to get to Texas as fast as possible. In those days there
weren't as many interstate highways which bypass towns and cities as
there are now, so we passed through a lot of towns and by roadside
stands which beckoned us to stop. By the time we got to southern
Oklahoma and Ingrid wanted to stop at what I believe was called the
“Outlaw Caves,” we had stopped speaking to one another. But, as
has been usual for all our married life, the “ice age” didn't
last long, mainly because Ingrid has always been very forgiving.
San
Antonio
When
we got to Texas we first went San Antonio to visit our good friends
the Hall brothers who had been there for about two months. Seeing
Dale and Don and their families again was a nice transition from
Germany to Texas for us. Dale had shipped my drum set with his
household goods since I wasn't authorized to ship more than a few
hundred pounds of belongings. Furthermore, since I had no further use
for the drums he was in the process of trying to sell them for me.
After
a day or so we departed for San Angelo, about a three hour drive to
the north-west of San Antonio. The landscape quickly became pretty
barren, not to say desolate, interspersed with some green areas which
must have been cultivated fields or pastures. What struck us most was
the small size of the telephone poles. We had thought that everything
in Texas was going to be big, according to the tales we had heard.
However, Texas itself is big. We were awed by the miles and miles of
miles. I had been in San Antonio during basic training, but I didn't
get out into the countryside and therefore hadn't experienced the
wide open spaces.
We
stopped in one of the towns settled by Germans in the 1800's called
Fredericksburg. The butcher shop and the bakery offered typical
German products, but when we told the butcher that we had just come
from Germany it didn't seem to make any difference to him. After all,
he probably was part of the fourth generation of “Germans” that
were born in Texas. Just before reaching San Angelo, then as now,
there is this small cluster of houses called Eden. At that time there
was an International Harvester dealership, a few houses, and not even
a gas station. This is where it got particularly desolate looking.
Some of the houses a little away from the highway had plowed fields
which came up to the edges of the houses on all sides except at the
entrance. No bushes, no trees, no lawn. The few times we passed
through Eden while we were in San Angelo I got this really depressed
feeling. I tried to cheer Ingrid and myself up by claiming that
somewhere in the world, perhaps in the military, was someone who was
homesick for Eden, Texas.
San
Angelo
San
Angelo was (and probably still is) truly an oasis in the desert. When
you approached the city at night, you could see the lights from miles
away because it is flat all around and the dry desert air makes for
good visibility. Most sections of town had green lawns, trees, and
parks. In the more exclusive neighborhoods there were some stately
homes, even villas. No wonder, at the time we were there there were
reputed to be 33 millionaires living in San Angelo, most in the sheep
or oil business. I never saw any large herds of sheep, they must have
been further away from town, but I did see an occasional oil well
here and there.
I
said that most sections of town were green and well kept. There were
two sections that were not as nice: One was where the Latinos (this
is what the locals called people of Mexican descent) lived and the
other section was where black people lived. This was 1965 and
desegregation had not yet reached all the distant corners of the
South. Segregation was still so strict that when an Air Force person
was assigned to be stationed in San Angelo, they were asked during
in-processing whether they were part of an interracial marriage, and
if they were, they were immediately assigned on-base quarters because
they had an extremely hard time finding a decent place to live in
town. An all-white family had no trouble finding a good and
reasonably priced place to live. We had a Sergeant in the unit who
had a Japanese wife, even he fell into the interracial marriage
category and lived on base when he would otherwise not have qualified
(base housing was provided by the Air Force mostly for higher ranking
people). We had no trouble finding places that we could rent or buy,
it was just a question of what we thought we could afford.
Goodfellow
Air Force Base
There
is a large water reservoir called Lake Nasworthy just outside of San
Angelo and of course there is Goodfellow AFB. It had been a pilot
training base during World War II, but had been deactivated some time
after the war. Sometime in the 1950s it was reactivated, but not for
pilot training or other flying activity (as a matter of fact, the
runway was unusable because it was crumbling, only helicopters could
land and take off), but as a school for young officers, mostly second
lieutenants straight out of college, to teach them their jobs in the
Air Force. Their career field was called Security Service and their
jobs were to work in, and be managers of, units that collected
intelligence data by listening in on other people's communications.
That included telephone, radio, teletype, and whatever else; it was
all top secret and I was not allowed to know what all they did and
how they did it. Ostensibly, they only cared about communications
between and among people we considered our enemies - but then
again... This was precisely the career field I would have gotten into
if I had been accepted into language training - sitting in a
windowless room with earphones on, translating some foreign language
conversation into English.
Balloon
Detachment
The
other activity on the base was our weather detachment. It was an Air
Weather Service unit, but the actual weather people were in the
minority. Most of the detachment consisted of balloon riggers,
maintenance people, and air crews. The detachment's mission was to
get air samples from high in the atmosphere - 60,000 to 120,000 feet
up. The way the samples were obtained was through the use of high
altitude balloons. The air samples were then passed to the Atomic
Energy Commission for analysis. The purpose was to determine who in
the world (besides the US) was testing atomic weapons. No one
advertised the fact that they were going to detonate an atomic bomb
to test its effectiveness, but several countries were testing.
Naturally, the US was most concerned about the Russians and the
Chinese. I was told that the scientists of the Atomic Energy
Commission could actually tell who was blowing stuff into the
atmosphere by examining the minute particles that floated around the
globe at great heights after a test. I guess they knew what materials
the Russians or the Chinese were using, perhaps by the radioactivity
of the residue.
The
balloons looked like huge plastic bags about a quarter of a mile long
and were stretched out on the runway on a carpet to protect them.
Precisely the right amount of helium was pumped into the balloons to
bring them to their intended altitude and to make them float there.
Attached to these balloons were large electric motors that activated
large fans that blew air across very fine filters. The tiny particles
were trapped by the filters. At those altitudes, the fans had to blow
a lot of the thin air onto the filters to be able to get a sufficient
sample of the radioactive debris. So, one of the higher altitude
flights might take 10 to 12 hours. After it was determined that
enough of a sample was obtained, a signal from the ground initiated
an electrical spark that cut the connection between the balloon and
the payload (motors, filters, blowers) which then fell to earth
suspended by several giant parachutes. The balloon continued to rise
and finally burst into a million tiny pieces that became part of the
floating debris in the atmosphere.
The
launching of the balloon was a spectacle in itself. First of all, it
had to be done without any wind, usually at sunrise. The payload was
positioned on a large truck, and the end of the balloon which was
attached to the payload was clamped tightly unto a special clamp on
the truck. As helium was pumped into the balloon, it slowly rose.
This is where it had to be wind still, because now the truck
maneuvered under the slowly rising balloon so that at the moment when
the balloon was completely off the ground and vertically over the
truck, the clamp could be released so that the payload could rise
smoothly without hitting the ground. It happened now and then that a
small breath of air caught the balloon, which looked like a giant
sausage skin, and twisted it or even sent it back to the ground,
tearing it. Or the payload was released too soon and it crashed unto
the ground. To prevent these mishaps, a launch controller with a
headset stood on the truck bed, strapped to the cab of the truck,
giving directions to the driver because the driver had to keep his
eyes on where he was going and could not see the balloon once it was
straight overhead. It reminded me of the movie “Hatari!” where
John Wayne sat on the fender of a truck telling the driver how to
turn so that he could snare the rhinoceros.
The
unit had four H-21 helicopters (affectionately called “Flying
Banana”) and a C-47 transport (affectionately called “Gooney
Bird”) assigned. The four helicopters were stationed on the base,
the C-47 with a special glass bubble on top was stationed at the
municipal airport of San Angelo. When the balloon was successfully
launched, the Gooney Bird took off and followed it. Someone in the
glass dome kept it in sight all the time. Of course, the Gooney Bird
could not go to the heights that the balloons went, they were kept in
sight with powerful field glasses. Two of the helicopters
“leap-frogged” from one airport to another along the path of the
balloon which was being relayed by the Gooney Bird. When the payload
landed, one of the helicopters flew there, landed in some farmer's
field or whatever, retrieved the payload and brought it back. I'm not
surprised that people in the Southwest occasionally thought they saw
UFO's and little green men carrying away what they thought were parts
of a crashed space ship. Sometimes they had to go well into
Louisiana, 400 or 500 miles from San Angelo to retrieve the payload,
depending on the winds.
That
is where we, the weathermen, came in. Whereas the balloon launchers
and air crews were specialists in their fields, they were not trained
weather observers or forecasters. It was our job to determine what
the weather would be like for the next day's launch, how strong the
winds would be, if there were going to be clouds. The bosses had high
level meetings almost like those for a space launch. A “go/no-go”
decision was made the day before the launch based on our forecasters'
prognosis and a flight plan had to be filed with the FAA (you can't
have this balloon the size of a hangar floating unannounced through
the airspace), and the helicopters and the Gooney Bird had to be
prepared for the time and distance that was anticipated. In addition
to the calm winds at launch time there could not be more than
scattered clouds, because the balloon had to be able to be kept in
sight by the Gooney Bird and by all other aircraft in the area.
Weather
Station
There
were two sections to the weather support team. One section consisted
of “surface” weather observers, such as I was. It was our job to
monitor the four or five teletype machines, post the weather reports
that came in over teletype and plot an occasional map so that the
forecasters could make their forecasts. This part of the job was just
like in a regular weather station. The difference was that we didn't
take any weather observations ourselves. I disliked this job from the
moment I arrived. I had enjoyed going outside and recording the
weather. The indoor duties such as tearing and filing weather data
belonged to the job, but were not my primary motivation. Besides, I
missed the team spirit usually found in a weather station, here only
one observer was on duty at any one time. Even though we did not work
any night shifts, time dragged on because the work was repetitive and
boring.
Our
weather station was in a large metal hangar which had offices
“pasted” on two of the sides. I say pasted because the center of
the hangar naturally was a big empty space (when no helicopters were
in there), but floors of offices seemed to be pasted unto two sides
of the hangar. One had to enter the hangar to be able to get to the
offices and also climb steep staircases to get to the second floors.
Our weather station was on the second floor on one side. This gave me
a feeling of being hemmed in.
It
became extremely hot in our weather station when the Texas sun beat
down on the metal hangar. In those days, human comfort was not as
important as the continued functioning of equipment. Therefore,
because the ancient teletype machines frequently quit working because
they became too hot, a window air conditioner was authorized for the
teletype room, but not for other parts of the office. I wondered
about that because I did see some air conditioning units in other
rooms. I heard tell that originally the teletype machines were in a
different room which received an air conditioner and after a while
the teletypes were moved to another room for which an air conditioner
was again authorized. But, once approved for a room, there was no
provision to remove the air conditioner even though the justification
for it did not exist anymore. By this method several rooms received
air conditioners - so the rumor had it.
RAWINSONDE
Operations
The
other section of the weather support team was a RAWINSONDE section. A
RAWINSONDE (short for Radio-Wind-Sonde, “Sonde”
is French for probe) is
a piece of equipment for use with weather balloons that measures
various atmospheric parameters and transmits them to a fixed
receiver. In those days, a RAWINSONDE measured temperature, relative
humidity and atmospheric pressure, and transmitted these data via
radio signal. The signal was tracked with a circular antenna similar
to a radar antenna that locked on to the radio signal from the unit
on the weather balloon once the antenna was manually pointed at the
ascending unit (which was not always easy if the balloon took off
rapidly or a cloud bank suddenly swallowed it before a good manual
fix could be established). Today, with GPS and other technical
innovations, RAWINSONDE operations are probably quite a bit
different.
A
RAWINSONDE team consisted of three to four operators. They
“baselined” the instrument before sending it aloft by calibrating
the sensors and the transmitter. Meanwhile another part of the team
filled the balloon with the calculated amount of helium to allow it
to go to the required altitude. The balloons used for RAWINSONDE were
much smaller than the balloons used to collect the atmospheric
samples, but they had to reach the same altitudes as the balloons
with the payload to get an accurate picture of what the research
balloon would encounter. Then a “train” was constructed, that is,
the balloon was tied to a paper parachute with about 60 feet of
string which in turn was attached by another 60 feet of string to the
RAWINSONDE instrument which was about the size of two shoe boxes put
together. The paper parachute served the purpose of bringing the
instrument back to earth slowly enough after the balloon burst so
that it would not kill anyone or otherwise do serious damage. The
instrument was only used one time, that is, no effort to retrieve it
was made. If, for some reason, the balloon burst before reaching the
required altitude, which happened occasionally, the whole procedure
had to be repeated until the correct altitude was reached.
As
the antenna tracked the RAWINSONDE, one person read the azimuth angle
(horizontal direction) in which the antenna was pointing and the
distance of the airborne instrument from the antenna, and called them
out to another who plotted them on a round board. This way the wind
speed and direction could be calculated by the way the balloon was
moving. At the same time another person converted the pressure
readings to altitude values and plotted them and the corresponding
temperature and relative humidity readings on a board that
represented a vertical cross section of the atmosphere. When the
“run” was finished the results were passed to the forecasters and
transmitted for the rest of the weather community to use.
Since
I was not happy working in the hangar, I jumped at the chance to go
work with the RAWINSONDE section when it was announced that there was
a shortage and they needed an extra person. I was a “surface”
observer and the RAWINSONDE types were “upper air” observers. We
had all gone to the same basic tech school at Chanute AFB, but they
had had an additional several weeks of training in upper air
observations. But that didn't matter, they needed a body and I wanted
out of a bad situation. Besides, I was eager to learn an additional
skill, no telling when that would pay off. So, I became an OJT
(on-the-job-training) RAWINSONDE operator. Even though all of the
work was done at night, as close to the next day's launch of the big
balloon as possible, I enjoyed the work. There was team work and
camaraderie. We met at 4 P. M., started the run at about 6, and were
done, if everything went well, around midnight. Sometimes our balloon
burst prematurely, the instrument malfunctioned, or the antenna lost
the signal, then we had to start another run. In this case we did not
get done until the early hours of the next morning, depending on when
the new run was started.
The
RAWINSONDE site was in an empty part of the base, across the unusable
runway. We worked in a half-keg-like structure called a “Jamesway
Shelter.” It was a semi-permanent, movable structure consisting of
a wooden floor, semicircular wooden struts, and was covered with
canvas. While I was there the team built another shelter for
inflating the weather balloons because the slightest wind could wreak
havoc with the balloon before it was released. This inflation shelter
consisted of the struts of another Jamesway Shelter, covered with
canvas, without the floor, and the whole thing raised about 20 feet
in the air by wooden beams. This gave us a sheltered place to inflate
the balloons and to attach the trains without being bothered by the
wind. Coming out of the shelter with the balloon was another matter.
It was often the case that the person holding the instrument which
was attached to the balloon by the 120 foot train had to run quite a
distance before the balloon was high enough so that he could let the
instrument go. The procedure was quite similar to that followed by
the launchers of the big balloons, except we had to do all of it on
foot. Sometimes the wind was so strong that the balloon took off
horizontally instead of vertically and the operator had to run very
fast so the instrument would not hit the ground, and we had to start
all over. One time one of the team members during just such a
situation got his expandable watch band caught on the string of the
train. He ran almost to the end of the runway before letting go of
the instrument. When he got back and was asked why he didn't let go
earlier, he replied that he didn't feel like having his watch go to
120,000 feet - he had been trying to untangle his watch while
running.
This
being desert-like West Texas, there were certain creatures that were
not just annoying but could be downright dangerous. It wasn't
uncommon that spiders the size of a small hand scurried across the
floor of the shelter. Before reaching into a drawer or dark corner
one had to first shake or knock the receptacle before reaching in to
give the “beasties,” as they were called, time to depart. The box
that contained the paper parachutes was kept on the side of the
inflation shelter. It was a favorite place for scorpions to establish
their homes. To make reaching into the box for a parachute less
dangerous, a pair of gloves were hung on a nail above the box.
However, before putting on the gloves they had to be turned
upside-down and shaken to make sure none of the “beasties” were
in there.
The
first few months we were in San Angelo the weather was so good that I
left the top down on our convertible for weeks at a time without
having to fear that it would rain. Then later in the spring and
summer there were tremendous thunderstorms that sometimes developed
in the late evening. We tried to complete our RAWINSONDE run despite
the storms. I remember one particular night when we either had
completed the run or were forced to abandon it and were driving
across the runway to the main part of the base when the lightning was
so bright and continuous that we didn't need any headlights - at 1 A.
M.! And then there were sandstorms, when the wind blew tons of New
Mexico sand into West Texas. I remember one instance when I was
walking to the mess hall or snack bar for lunch when I had to tie a
handkerchief over my nose and mouth to be able to breath. The eyes
burned and the teeth ground the sand that got into the mouth despite
the handkerchief. The sun was visible only as a dim disc, although
there were no clouds in the sky. It was an eerie scene, cars were
driving with their headlights on although it was the middle of the
day. The sand was so fine that it seeped through the edges of the
windows although they were closed tightly.
Off-Duty
Education
I
was determined to continue my effort to gain enough college credits
by going to school on my off-duty time to be able to qualify for the
Airman Education and Commissioning Program. Soon after signing in to
the base, I enrolled in evening classes at San Angelo College. When I
moved to the RAWINSONDE section I wasn't able to go to evening
classes, but could go to classes in the morning or early afternoon. I
was able to accrue a number of credits toward my goal.
Living in
San Angelo
When
we first arrived in San Angelo we immediately had to start looking
for a place to live. I was an A1C and was not authorized to get
on-base housing, therefore we had to look for a place in town. Being
inexperienced in house hunting, being newly-wed, not knowing exactly
how much we could afford to spend on an apartment or house, and being
somewhat homesick for familiar surroundings, we spent a few days
being depressed. On one of the first days in San Angelo we stumbled
onto a nice lady in a real estate office who pointed us toward an
apartment complex in the newest section of town. After looking around
a bit, because we didn't know if we could afford one of those
apartments and not finding anything suitable, we came back and rented
a furnished one bedroom apartment for $125 per month, a sum we
thought might break our budget.
The
apartment complex was called "Chateau Beauregard" and was
practically brand new. Most of the residents were Air Force members.
Aside from us, only our neighbor, a Chinese Language specialist, was
of a lower rank. Most of the other residents were young officers,
some married, some single. Many of them were going to the Security
Service school on Goodfellow AFB. The complex consisted of a number
of small two storied buildings with two apartments downstairs and two
upstairs. The downstairs apartments were rented unfurnished and the
upstairs apartments were rented furnished. There was central air
conditioning and heating and all utilities, other than the telephone,
were included. There was a small outdoor swimming pool, a coin
operated laundry facility and every apartment had a covered carport.
When I mentioned to my fellow airmen where I lived it often led to
raised eyebrows or a low whistle, making me think that we were living
way above our means. Consequently we were constantly looking for a
cheaper place to live, but never found one that was worth giving up
Chateau Beauregard for.
When
we couldn't decide on a cheaper apartment we had the brilliant idea
(I still think it was such) to move to one of the unfurnished
apartments downstairs and to invest the money we would save on the
rent in some furniture. The unfurnished apartments were identical to
the furnished apartments except without furniture, but the kitchen
had cabinets and there was a stove and refrigerator. These apartments
rented for $105 per month. One evening we went to the local Sears
(and Roebuck, it was then) and found that there on the showroom floor
was just what we were looking for. In less than an hour we bought a
dining room table with four chairs, a bedroom set consisting of a
queen-sized bed, two night tables and a chest of drawers with a
mirror on top, a golden couch which was big enough to serve as a
spare bed, a coffee table, a side table, a small easy chair which
matched the couch, and a table lamp. The monthly payments, when
spread out over three years came to just about $20, which we were
saving on the rental of the apartment. The furniture served us well
for many years to come.
The
Encyclopedia Salesman
On
one of the first nights in our new apartment, the doorbell rang.
Excitedly I jumped up and said: “Aha, our first visitor!” Outside
our front door stood a tall, very thin man in a dark suit. He looked
like a preacher who was about to try to convert us to his religion.
But, it was an encyclopedia salesman who probably got tipped off by
someone in the apartment complex whenever someone new moved in. He
managed to overcome our skepticism of whether we needed a set of
encyclopedia by eliciting from me the confession that I was going to
college part-time and that I hoped to go full-time in the near future
and by pointing out that there were going to be numerous research
papers to be written - and what about future kids? The 24 volume
Collier's Encyclopedia with a two volume dictionary was impressive,
the ten annual yearbooks, and the ten years of unlimited research
service that went with the deal were an extra bonus. And all this
could be had for “mere pennies per day” as it was explained to
us. Spread out over ten years, the cost of the entire deal was going
to be around 20 cents per day. If you do the math, you find that this
amounts to about $700 we could not afford at the time. To make the
accumulation of the pennies per day easier we were given a little
bank into which the pennies were to be deposited daily. Then,
monthly, someone would come around and empty our little bank and that
would be our payment. Alternatively, we could make a larger monthly
payment by check for a shorter period of time and thereby get a
certain discount on the encyclopedia. Who in their right mind would
not go for the latter option? The thought of the inconvenience of
having to wait for the person to come and empty the bank was enough
to convince me. Later on I thought that I should have made them
follow us around for ten years, but then I also realized that there
probably never seriously was that option and sooner or later the
salesman would have put the pressure on to send them a monthly check.
We still have the encyclopedia today (one volume is missing, I
suspect one of our daughters of having taken it to school and
forgotten it there), somewhat outdated despite the yearbooks that
brought us up to date until 1974. We never used the research service
to which you could send any question imaginable (the example the
salesman cited was a question something like, “...how do I build an
atomic bomb” and the answer supposedly was explicit and many pages
long). Our neighbor, the Chinese language specialist, also had fallen
prey to the “preacher,” as I called him, when they first moved
in. He sent a query to the research service and asked what he could
do with his Chinese language skills when he left the Air Force, which
he was planning to do. The answer was a one or two sentence reply
stating the obvious: He could become a translator or a graphic artist
drawing Chinese characters.
Getting
used to Local Customs
As
soon as we moved into our first apartment we needed some groceries.
We had been married about two months, Ingrid had been in the US for
about one month and I hadn't had time to indoctrinate her in all the
intricacies of life in the US. One aspect that was missing was how to
go shopping. We had a shopping center around the corner with, among
other things, a supermarket. Shopping and paying was no problem, but
Ingrid didn't know that supermarkets provided paper bags to carry
your groceries to your car, so she did what was customary in Germany,
she brought a shopping bag. But, the only bag available was what in
the military was called an “AWOL” bag, a small bag for carrying
gym clothes or the bare necessities when going AWOL (Absent Without
Leave), therefore the name. As the cashier rang up the items, Ingrid
stashed them in the AWOL bag and when the cashier turned around to
bag the groceries, much to her astonishment, they were all gone.
Ingrid, realizing that she had done something not seen there before,
flashed her winning smile and said: “That's the way we do it in
Germany!”
On
another occasion Ingrid decided that our apartment needed vacuuming.
We had seen a sign that said that carpet cleaning equipment could be
borrowed at the apartment complex manager's office. Ingrid, having
learned her English in England had the English word “Hoover” in
her vocabulary instead of the American equivalent, “vacuum
cleaner.” When she went to the office and asked to borrow a Hoover,
they looked at her as if she were from another planet until she made
clear to them what she meant with a carpet cleaning gesture.
In
the process of trying to become acquainted with life in America,
Ingrid didn't shy away from making contact with people. One day she
met an elderly lady living in one of the apartments. The lady
promptly invited Ingrid for a cup of tea. Ingrid thought that the
lady spoke with a German accent, so she asked her where in Germany
she was from and the lady answered that she had never been to
Germany, but that she was born in Fredericksburg, Texas, and had
lived there until she moved to San Angelo. The German accent, she
explained, came from the fact that she, her family, and others in
Fredericksburg spoke only German until the First World War, at which
time they decided that they had better speak English. She still only
knew the German word for certain objects such as “matches.”
As
stated earlier, as an A1C who had been single when I went overseas, I
was not authorized to ship more than one small crate of belongings
back to the US even though I was married by the time I returned. The
crate was approximately three feet wide, five feet long and three
feet deep. It, a duffel bag stuffed full with extra uniforms, and the
suitcase that Ingrid carried contained the total of our worldly
belongings. These consisted of my “stereo set,” which was just a
radio which doubled as an amplifier, a turntable for playing records,
some LP's and some of Ingrid's heirlooms such as an oriental rug and
a hassock with the stuffing taken out, silverware, and some other
odds and ends. Dishes and some other kitchen utensils we got from my
sister and as Christmas presents when we arrived in Connecticut in
1964. Ingrid and I covered the crate with burlap and made it our
official stereo set. With the opening to the front, the inside held
the records and the record player while the radio sat on top. This
was our entertainment system for quite some time until one evening
when, because of a lack of entertainment, we went to the K-Mart in
the shopping center around the corner. While strolling through the
store, not looking for anything in particular, I became interested in
a show that was running on the TV sets on display. It was an episode
from a series that was called “Combat.” The need for a TV set
suddenly became insurmountable. I talked Ingrid into buying a TV set,
then and there, in the hope of taking it home and being able to watch
the rest of the show. By the time we got home with the TV, the show
was over. Since the TV was a portable model it came with a stand that
also doubled as a magazine rack. The TV, although only a black and
white model (color was just emerging in the more affluent circles),
it served us for many years to come (I believe that we got our first
color TV set in 1975).
A
Pleasant Encounter
One
day, soon after we first moved into the furnished apartment, I was
walking along a street on the base when I encountered three second
lieutenants.
I saluted smartly, as required, and crossed over to the other side of
the street when I was frozen in my tracks by the voice of one of the
second lieutenants when he yelled after me: “Schenk!” I thought
this second lieutenant was going to show his colleagues how one
corrects an A1C's salute. I stopped and turned around, still
expecting a chewing out as the lieutenant squinted at my name tag and
said. “Fred Schenk?” As his face broke into a broad grin I saw
his name tag and realized that this was Bruce Pritchard with whom I
had gone to high school and who had been in many of my classes and
extracurricular activities. Bruce had gone to college in Maine, had
taken Air Force ROTC, upon graduation from college had been
commissioned a second lieutenant, and was now attending the Security
Service school on Goodfellow AFB. Bruce had been on Goodfellow for
several months and had several more months to go. He shared a house
with two other lieutenants, but spent many hours with us, especially
toward the end of the pay period when he was running low an cash. We
enjoyed his company and had many good times together. He eventually
went on to his next assignment in Japan. We saw Bruce again several
time throughout the years, most recently in 2008 when we visited him,
his wife, and two grown children in Chicago.
The El
Patio Motel
It
was a foregone conclusion that Ingrid would get a job as soon as
possible when we got to San Angelo. She interviewed for several
secretarial positions, but many wives of Air Force members were vying
for the few jobs available so that Ingrid ended up as a cashier in
the restaurant of a prominent motel in town, the “El Patio.” The
hours were bad, 6 A. M. to noon and the pay was low, less than $1 an
hour! She brought home a weekly paycheck that was less than $25.
Ingrid's shift ended at noon, but it took her a good two hours
afterward to count the money and reconcile the cash register. At the
end of the day she was so tired that she dreamed of chickens on
platters flying through the living room. When we decided to drive
back to Connecticut during the summer of 1965 to see our newborn
nephew after having been in Texas for about six months, Ingrid asked
the proprietors of the restaurant if she could take a vacation, they
said: “Vacation? What's that?” Ingrid ended up quitting her job
so we could take that trip. However, it was great experience for her
to work there. She learned that the policemen got their coffee free
of charge and she got to know several of the locals who regularly
came in for their meals or for coffee.
The Taco
Hut
One
particular person Ingrid met while working at the El Patio Motel's
Pancake House was a man named Jack who had been a car salesman in the
local Buick dealership. He had married the dealership owner's
daughter. But that didn't mean that he inherited the dealership or
even moved up in the hierarchy, instead he left the car-selling
business and tried to become a successful businessman on his own. His
fortune was going to be made with Mexican food. He started out with a
small hut where he had hired an older woman who could make a decent
chili (when she wasn't drunk) and a young Mexican boy who knew what
it took to make tacos, enchiladas, re-fried beans, etc. Jack's hut
was called “Taco Hut” until one day two gentlemen in business
suits, carrying briefcases (a sight seldom seen in West Texas)
appeared at his door and made clear to Jack that there was a chain
called “Taco Hut” and that he was infringing on their rights and
that if he didn't change the name of his establishment he would be in
a heap of trouble. Immediately the establishment became known as the
“Bean Hut.” It had no tables, but had a drive-up window and the
business was strictly “to go.”
When
we returned from our trip to Connecticut, Jack jumped at the chance
to hire Ingrid (probably at the same measly wage, I don't remember)
as a cashier because he couldn't trust his other two employees. This
time the hours were different, instead of starting early in the
morning and ending up in early afternoon, Ingrid now started in early
afternoon and ended up late in the evening. I was always a little
nervous about her working there, especially in the evenings. I was
afraid she would be robbed or otherwise assaulted, because sometimes
the old woman did not show up for work and the little Mexican boy had
to go home to take care of his siblings and Ingrid was alone in the
hut. Ingrid soon became the person Jack relied on to run the
business, he spent very little time there. She learned how to make
most of the items that were sold there. This led to a long term
benefit in that Ingrid ever since then has been able to hold her own
when it comes to making certain Mexican foods. The recipe for the
chili the old woman made was never fully revealed,
but how to make tacos, enchiladas, re-fried beans, etc., has come in
handy throughout the years. In addition, a short term benefit was
that when I picked up Ingrid at closing time, I got to eat the
leftovers and there always were some, mainly refried beans which were
not able to be refrigerated and reused. The re-fried beans were served
in what they called a “bean cup.” The cup consisted of a taco
shell which was fried in hot oil to make it crisp, and as it was
frying, it was formed into a cup. The forming was done with the use
of a coke can that was soldered to a fork with a long handle. A taco
shell was pressed over the bottom of the coke can which was then
immersed in the hot oil. Re-fried beans, which were in a large pot,
were then scooped into the bean cup. Since this process took a little
too long to do while a customer was waiting, a number of bean cups
were prepared ahead of time, frequently leading to leftover bean
cups. Lurking behind the benefit associated with eating the leftover
beans was a drawback: I gained a lot of weight.
When
Jack decided to branch out and open a second “Bean Hut” in Big
Spring, Texas, about 80 miles northwest of San Angelo, he asked
Ingrid to go there to help him get that business started. She spent a
couple of weeks in Big Spring making salsa and ordering the
ingredients for all the things they made based on a few month's
experience while working with the lady who made the chili and the
little Mexican boy.
Mexico
Sometime
during the year we spent in San Angelo, Ingrid's school friend, Inge
Siebert, came to visit us. Inge was living in San Francisco. While
she was visiting we decided to drive about 150 miles south to Del
Rio, Texas, and across the Rio Grande into Villa Acuna, Mexico. As we
approached the border we saw signs pointing to the International
Bridge. I expected a bridge maybe not quite as big as the George
Washington Bridge, but as big as the Brooklyn Bridge with rows of
flags of the two countries it connected. What we came to first was a
barn-like wooden building which housed the customs check point and
then we came to the International Bridge, a flat little bridge with
just two lanes and no flags. The mighty Rio Grande was anything but
mighty, it appeared to be a small, muddy creek, one almost didn't
need a bridge to cross it. We knew that we were in Mexico when the
pavement ended in a giant pothole. After leaving the pothole we were
on the (also unpaved) main street of Villa Acuña. When looking down
main street one could see the beat-up pickup trucks of local
inhabitants pitching and yawing like ships on the ocean as they
navigated the dips, ruts, and potholes. I wondered what this street
would look like after a hefty downpour.
I
had been counseled by one of our neighbors and others about what to
do to minimize the chances of some unpleasant surprises in Villa
Acuña. First commandment was: Go there in the daytime. Second: Stay
on the main street, avoid straying too far into side streets. Third:
Pay one of the “guards,” who advertise their parking slots, to
guard your car, lest he be the one to steal it, steal the wheels, or
otherwise mistreat it. Besides the car being stolen and us being
stranded, I was particularly concerned about the convertible top
being slashed. We drove down a couple of blocks, ignoring the first
couple of “guards” until we came to a particularly
trustworthy-looking fellow. He had on what looked like a policeman's
or fireman's hat with a shiny insignia on the front and flashed a
broad grin that made his gold teeth reflect the sunlight. The parking
slot was particularly appealing to me since it was just around the
corner on a side street; therefore, not clearly visible when looking
down main street, which I thought was good. I paid the man a few
dollars and hoped for the best.
I
was a little apprehensive about the whole excursion. Here I was with
two young women, both good looking, the one I considered particularly
good looking was my wife. I also had another prized possession with
me: My, at that time, state-of-the-art 8 mm movie camera. The ladies
hardly seemed aware of my trepidation, they wanted to go into every
gift shop and souvenir shop there was. It was all I could do to keep
them from wandering away from the main street. At one point we were
walking along the narrow sidewalk which ran along the main street and
which, every so often, had telephone poles planted in it, making the
passage on the already narrow sidewalk even narrower. Leaning against
the wall of a building, with one foot propped against it, was a burly
gentleman, repeatedly pitching a switchblade knife into the telephone
pole opposite him. When I saw him, and what his pastime was, I
briefly considered reversing direction and going the other way,
because passing between him and his knife and the telephone pole
didn't seem like a good idea. But how could I explain that to my two
young ladies, after all I was their protector. I wound the shoulder
strap of my camera bag a little tighter around my hand, prepared to
use it as a weapon if necessary, and braced for the worst. Surprise!
As we came close, the gentleman retracted his knife from the pole,
straightened out, and with a grin waved us through between him and
the telephone pole.
After
my heart stopped pounding and my adrenaline level normalized, I
agreed to step into one of the many bars for a Margarita, even though
it was still very early in the afternoon. In fact it was so early
that the only person in the bar we entered was a young boy who was
sweeping the floor. When he saw us come in he dropped his broom and
summoned a lady who obliged us with three Margaritas. I don't think
that they had hours when the bars were closed, they were always open,
there just were times when no customers were in there.
We
bought some trinkets, several bottles of Tequila and headed back to
the possibly bad news about our car. Surprise, again! The car was
where we had left it, had all four wheels, and the top was whole. The
nice man who had guarded our car even held the doors open for us.
Ingrid's girlfriend, probably not being used to someone holding the
car door for her, promptly slammed the door on his fingers, causing
the broad grin to chance to an ugly grimace. Luckily, we were already
moving toward the main street at that point. We pitched and yawed
back to the International Bridge, where we lied to the US customs
officer about not having anything to declare (later I came to the
realization that having a couple of bottles of Tequila and saying
that you had nothing to declare wasn't lying), and headed back to San
Angelo.
Beware of
Unknown Waters
Running
through or near San Angelo is a small river. I don't remember if
there was a municipal pool in San Angelo, probably not, and if so it
would have been segregated. There was no swimming pool on base, but
there was a small picnic area on the river outside of town where many
people from the base went to swim and picnic. There the water was
deep enough to dive into and was flowing slowly enough so as not to
make a strong current. Tall trees stood on the banks extending their
sturdy branches out over the water. A rope had been tied to one of
the branches and was used for swinging out over the water and then
splashing down.
We
picnicked there with neighbors one Sunday afternoon, eating, playing
games, and watching the activity. For quite a while I had noticed a
young man on a higher branch up in one of the trees looking down at
the water as if collecting his courage to dive down. As I wasn't
watching, a great commotion started on the water's edge. People were
running to the spot under the tree where the young man had been
standing, looking into the water. Apparently he had jumped. Some
people went into the water and eventually pulled him out. He was
bleeding profusely and the cry to call an ambulance could be heard.
The water under the tree was tinted red, being dispersed slowly by
the weak current. How someone called an ambulance, I don't know, cell
phones weren't invented yet. But after some time an Air Force
ambulance arrived, a doctor, somewhat reluctantly it seemed, started
to examine the wounds on the young man's (apparently an Air Force
member) chest. Without having received much treatment at the scene he
was loaded into the ambulance and driven away. Naturally no one had
any inclination to go swimming at that point, all stood around and
exchanged their views on the situation. The prevailing theory was
that the young man finally dove head first, after long deliberation,
impaling himself in some branches of a submerged tree that were
sticking up like spikes. Whether he freed himself or was freed by
someone who saw the blood floating to the surface was unclear. But
what was clear was that the doctor's seeming reluctance to do
something about the bleeding and the wounds was due to the fact that
he was the base psychiatrist, trained to treat psychotic minds and
not traumatized bodies. He just happened to be on call that Sunday
afternoon. The tree in the water was down deep enough so that other
swimmers or those that plunged down from the swinging rope never came
in contact with it. But since the young man dove from a higher branch
he penetrated the water to a greater depth, encountering the
obstacle.
Another
Move
After
about eight months on Goodfellow AFB I received orders transferring
me to Offutt AFB in Omaha, Nebraska, exactly where I had been
scheduled to go from Germany about a year before. When the orders
came in, the detachment commander asked me if I had requested a
transfer and I said that I had not, which was true; but secretly I
was glad to get away from this somewhat odd unit. We left San Angelo
on a rainy January morning. By noon the rain turned into freezing
rain and by evening a full-scale blizzard was whipping snow across
the road as we tried to make it out of Texas. We ended up spending
the night in Wichita Falls, Texas, only a little over 200 miles from
San Angelo, a trip which should have taken about 5 hours, but ended
up taking almost twice as long.
Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, Nebraska
We
arrived at Offutt AFB,
Nebraska, in the evening. When I got out of the car it was the first
time I had gotten out since the last stop in Oklahoma. I knew that it
was cold out, but when I took a deep breath, my nostrils froze
together, that's how cold it really was. We immediately started
looking for our heavy winter clothes which we had in the trunk of the
car. We were able to warm up eventually, but the guitar which I had
bought Ingrid and which I loved to play and which was in the trunk of
the car, received a crack on top, near the sound hole, due to the
temperature drop we had experienced since we left San Angelo.
Offutt
AFB
is the home of
Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which at the time I was assigned there
(1966-1967) was called Strategic Air Command (SAC). SAC, with its
heavy bombers, which could carry atomic bombs, and its many ballistic
missiles with atomic warheads buried deep in the prairies of the
northern tier states, was the primary deterrent that kept the
Russians at bay during the cold war.
SAC
Headquarters was a massive building with three stories above ground
and at least as many underground. The Underground, as it was called,
practically was a small city which could be sealed off from the
outside in case of a nuclear attack. In it was Air Weather Service's
first computer facility. Our unit, Detachment 1, 3rd Weather Wing,
operated the computers used for collecting data, plotting maps, and
making crude (by today's standards) analyses and forecasts. In
addition, there were scores of weather forecasters manually
interpreting the computer products and many weather observers
operating the computers, and augmenting their products. I believe
that we numbered around 300 people.
Computer
Room
I
only had to enter SAC Headquarters once or twice and that only
upstairs where our administrative offices were located. My place of
work was across the base in a huge building that used to be the final
assembly building for bombers during World War II and that had, among
other things, several smaller blockhouses without windows built
inside of it. In one of these blockhouses a brand new set of
communications computers had been installed. There were two identical
computers (in case one broke down) that took up a good-sized room. To
keep the computers below 72 degrees the blockhouse was air
conditioned, a blessing during the hot summer months (except when the
wind was right and it blew the smell from the stockyards toward the
base and the air conditioning sucked in the smelly air) and a curse
during the winter when it was cold and one longed for some heat.
These
two Univac 418 communications computers were the reason for our year
in San Angelo. Several airmen, I among them, had been designated to
be the first computer operators of the Univac 418. That was when I
received orders in Heidelberg to go to Offutt. Then there was a delay
in the delivery of the computers or the facility wasn't ready,
therefore, all the prospective computer operators were diverted to
other assignments. Some of us were then recalled a year later to
become computer operators when the computers were ready. That is why
we got to spend a year in Texas and much to my commander's surprise
got to leave Texas after just one year.
Air
Weather Service was starting to convert its weather data collection
method from teletypes to computers. The first step was the
establishment of a series of hubs that collected the teletype data
from the outlying weather stations and converted them into digital
form which could then be processed by the computers on Offutt. The
Univac 418 computers were the final link that brought all the
consolidated weather information to our unit which later on became
the Air Force Global Weather Central (AFGWC) when all the weather
information and a majority of the analysis and forecasting functions
were consolidated on Offutt. Therefore, it was paramount that there
be no break in the data transfer and consequently it received
high-level attention when one of the computers stopped and was not
able to be brought back up and the backup computer had to be brought
on line. We had a chart with time lines: If the computer was “down”
more than, say, three minutes (I don't remember the exact times) a
supervisor had to be called, if the “downtime” was longer, the
next higher boss had to be notified as well and so on until at some
point the wing commander had to be informed. When the computer that
was on-line was running, there was little to do but to watch the
blinking lights on the computer or to watch the huge drum that
rotated at 880 rotations per minute and which was a forerunner of
today's mass storage devices.
When
the computer “went down,” as was frequently the case, the lights
stopped blinking, a red light came on, and a buzzer sounded. That is
when we, the operators, sprang into action. We had a book of standard
operating procedures which told us which buttons to press in what
sequence to reboot (re-initialize) the computer. At that time I had
only a vague idea of what I was doing and why, I just learned the
sequence of buttons to push and was always successful. Only much
later did I understand what we were doing. Today “rebooting” is
done from initialization information stored internally in the
computer or its storage device.
The
computer room was unclassified and the doors not locked, but for the
reasons explained above we were not supposed to leave the computers
alone for even a trip to the rest room or the cafeteria. The
cafeteria was in the basement of the bomber assembly building and the
rest room was on the stairs halfway in-between the two floors. We
went to both places anyway. In the daytime there always was a
supervisor on duty who could take over watching the computer and at
night when there was only one man on duty and the big building was
deserted we hoped that no-one would notice.
I
had three near disasters occur during night shifts. Once I became so
cold in the computer room that I briefly turned up the heat to about
75 degrees not thinking that anyone would notice. First thing the
next morning the NCOIC (Non-commissioned Officer In Charge) checked
the temperature recorder and noticed a distinct spike in the
temperature trace. I was able to deny any knowledge of what caused it
- I wasn't proud of that and never messed with the thermostat again.
Another time I went to the rest room during the wee hours of the
morning. The rest room had a combination lock to keep outsiders from
using and messing up our rest room. Anyone authorized to use this
rest room was given the combination. Besides the people in the 418
room there was a classified section next door. They also were able to
use our rest room. The person unlocking the rest room usually took
the lock with him and if someone else came in he handed it to him to
lock up or to give it to the next person should one come in. Well,
that early morning, between 3 and 4 A. M., a lieutenant from the
classified section was already in the rest room. He even glanced at
me, but I was able to tell that my presence didn't register because
he was deep in thought or half asleep. When he finished he took the
lock and I thought he would leave it by the door for me, but the next
thing I heard was the lock snapping shut. By the time I got to the
door the good lieutenant was gone. Panic struck me - what if I'm
locked in until morning? The least that would happen would be that I
would get busted (reduced in rank). This being the era before cell
phones (whom would I call?) the only thing to do was to rattle the
door and yell. Fortunately, the cafeteria downstairs stayed open all
night and eventually I heard footsteps. I called and rattled the door
and, lo and behold, someone unlocked the lock. Two people, strangers
to me, who knew the combination were coming up from the cafeteria and
much to their surprise saw and heard the door to the rest room
rattling and someone yelling. I didn't even take the time to explain
how I got in there, all I could think of was my computer and if it
was still blinking - fortunately, it was. Another time I went to the
cafeteria for a cup of coffee during the night and when I got back up
into the computer room I could hear the buzzer even before I opened
the door. Needless to say, the red light was on. But, the worst part
was, standing in front of the console was a major, one of the
programmers. I thought my goose was cooked that time - caught red
handed! However, this particular officer was such a mild mannered man
who didn't say a word, stepped aside and let me reboot computer. What
he was doing there at that hour I didn't ask and he didn't ask how
long I'd been away.
From
these anecdotes it can be seen that I worked a lot of “graveyard
shifts.” The reason was that I went to school in the evenings on at
least two, sometimes three, nights a week. To be able to do that I
traded my evening shifts (3 P. M. to 11 P. M.) for night shifts (11
P. M. to 7 A. M.) or day shifts (7 A. M. to 3 P. M.). There were four
or five of us who worked these shifts in rotation. Night shifts were
easy to obtain because nobody enjoyed them. I was fortunate to be
able to also get day shifts in return for my evening shifts because
several of the other operators had second jobs during the day and
were glad to get that time off.
I attended the University of Omaha and in the roughly year and a half
earned enough college credits to be able to apply for AECP.
Living
in Omaha
When
we first arrived in Omaha, we looked at some houses, but anything we
thought we could afford seemed below our standards. A small house
near the base is the only one that sticks in my mind because it had a
bright red or pink bathroom - to which I said that I couldn't face
that color early in the morning! We eventually rented an apartment on
South 13th Street in Omaha, across the street from a little park
called Mount Vernon Gardens. It was a straight shot from there to the
base past a multitude of cattle pens where cattle were staged until
they went to one of the slaughterhouses and meat packing plants for
which Omaha was famous.
Ingrid
soon got a job at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
She worked as the secretary to the man who ran the Building and
Grounds Department. The job payed more than the one in San Angelo and
the working conditions were good. She got to know several other women
her age who worked there and we subsequently became friends with them
and their husbands. One of the couples consisted of Rose and Roger.
Rose was a clerk in Ingrid's office and Roger was a medical student.
Rose and Roger came from somewhere near Lincoln, Nebraska. Roger had
grown up on a farm and Rose was ecstatic that Roger would someday be
a doctor. They had a son about three years old who was a little
monster. My guess is that he was that way because his parents, and
particularly Rose, were young and inexperienced in raising a child.
They showed us around Lincoln and some of the surroundings.
Happy New
Year 1967
We
spent quite a bit of time with Rose and Roger until New Year's Eve
1966 when Roger got very drunk at our house, slapped Rose when she
couldn't start the car right away when she was going to drive him
home, and ripped the buttons off her coat when she tried to get away
from him.
Rose came back into our apartment crying, claiming that Roger had
gone crazy. When I went out into the parking lot and tried to reason
with him we became involved in a short, non-effective fist fight. The
fight was non-effective because none of the punches ever hit their
mark because we both were unsteady on our feet due to the amount of
alcohol that we had in us and also because the ground was frozen into
icy ruts causing us to slip and slide at every step. Roger finally
fell into the front seat of his car and went to sleep there. Not
wanting him to wake up and cause any more disruptions, Geremy (one of
my colleagues from the computer room, who, along with his wife, was
ringing in the new year with us) and I stood in the doorway watching
Roger sleep. This is when I succumbed to the temptation to smoke a
cigarette (on Geremy's advice that it would ease the tension),
something I hadn't done in over two years, and which got me started
smoking again for a while. Rose was in our apartment lamenting the
fact that her Roger, a medical student - of all things, could become
so crazy. Geremy's wife went home because she had to let her
babysitter go home. We couldn't let Rose go home alone, nor did we
want to let her go home with Roger in the state he was in. Rose had
confided that he kept a large kitchen knife in or near his bed in
case someone would break in during the night and she was afraid of
him at this point.
Sometime
after midnight Roger woke up, looked uncomprehendingly at Geremy and
me, brushed past us up the stairs and went straight for our bedroom
where he flopped across the bed, fully clothed, and resumed his
sleep. Ingrid, Rose, Geremy, and I sat up all night, drinking coffee,
not knowing what to do. Finally, toward morning, Roger emerged from
the bedroom, much more rested than we were, and announced: “Come
on, honey, let's go home!” Rose jumped to her feet and exclaimed:
“OK, honey,” and they departed without another word. It was
getting light out when I drove Geremy home, since his wife had taken
their car when she went home. By the time I got home and into bed it
was fully daylight out. I had been asleep for barely an hour or two
when the telephone rang. It was Rose calling, asking if we had found
any of the buttons which Roger had torn from her coat during his
crazy spell - I could have killed her!
That
evening Rose and Roger came to our house (I don't remember if they
called first). Not to apologize, but to bring us all their alcohol,
which consisted of a couple of partial bottles of Manischewitz kosher
wine, since, as they claimed, Roger was unable to hold his liquor and
to pick up the buttons to her coat, which we had retrieved from the
parking lot. They were all “lovey-dovey” and holding hands, only
the bloodstain on Rose's coat revealed that her nose had bled earlier
that day when Roger slapped her in the face. Roger never said that he
was sorry, I'm not sure if he even remembered all that happened. That
would have been OK, but neither one of them made any mention of the
fact that they had ruined a new years party and inconvenienced two
couples, not to speak of the worry that we were subjected to when it
was unclear what Roger would do when he woke up after sleeping in the
car or our bedroom (at one point we had contemplated calling the
police and letting them take him home, but Rose objected because she
was afraid Roger would be kicked out of medical school). The parting
was rather cool and I never spoke to Roger nor Rose again, I avoided
running into them. Ingrid saw Rose daily at work, but no mention was
ever made of that fateful new year's party.
Juggling
Careers
Ingrid
had to be in her office at 8 A. M. When I worked a night shift I got
off at 7 A. M. That gave me enough time to get home and to let Ingrid
have the car. Many times she stood in the doorway to the stairwell in
our apartment house. Then I did not even shut off the engine, I got
out and she got in and drove off. If I needed the car during the day,
I drove her to work and then went back home to sleep. When I worked a
day shift, Ingrid had to drive me first, then go to her work, and
pick me up again in the afternoon. I worked very few evening shifts
because I traded them away so that I could attend evening classes.
Because
Ingrid dressed up for the office, she many times wore high heel
shoes. But driving the car with high heels was cumbersome for her, so
she some times wore house slippers for driving and carried her high
heels in a bag. One day Ingrid got into the car in the morning and
drove off. I had just laid down in bed when she came back and told me
that she just had an accident down the street. Someone had rear-ended
her because she had suddenly decided to make a left-hand turn one
block down the street and the person behind her failed to stop
(traffic flowed quite rapidly by our apartment building). The reason
she suddenly decided to turn left soon after leaving our parking lot
was that she realized that she had forgotten her high heel shoes and
wanted to return home to get them. After all, she would have looked
pretty silly in her house slippers. We got a check from the other
person's insurance and never had the damage repaired.
The
Corvette
In
the apartment next to us lived a young couple, about our ages, who
owned a Corvette. I envied them for their car and claimed that if I
had a Corvette “all my troubles would be solved” (what troubles?)
So, one day I saw a white 1964 Corvette with red interior for sale
somewhere in Omaha. When Ingrid and I took it for a test drive, the
salesman came along. Because the Corvette was only a twoseater,
Ingrid had to crunch into the space behind the two seats where the
luggage normally went. As we drove along I jokingly said that with my
luck, now that we were about to get a car with only two seats, Ingrid
would probably become pregnant. It turned out that she already was
pregnant and didn't know it.
Old
Acquaintances
Some
time during the year, a couple of the people from the weather station
in Heidelberg were assigned to the weather central on Offutt AFB. One
of them was Brian who had the nickname “Abe,” the origin of which
I have described when I discussed my barracks mates at the Heidelberg
AAF. Brian had gotten married after Ingrid and I had left for the US.
Neither one of us knew his wife Annegret until we met in Omaha. Brian
and Annegret became our good friends, Annegret being from Heidelberg
and as it turned out, Ingrid's mother knew Annegret's grandmother.
Brian
was an adventuresome type. Although he was a few years younger than
I, he involved me in several of his activities. Although he was born
and raised in Los Angeles, he had developed a taste for the outdoors.
He had been a “chummer”
on a charter fishing boat, he took up skiing while in Germany, and he
somehow added hunting and fishing to his activities. He took me out
into the fields of Nebraska in the fall or winter to hunt rabbits.
Where he got the shotguns I don't know, maybe he owned them. We
(Brian) shot only one rabbit, I believe, which Brian then fixed and
cooked. I don't think that it turned out to be a gourmet meal, I just
remember biting on some pellets from the shotgun shell that killed
the rabbit.
Then
Brian took me ice fishing on a frozen sidearm of the Missouri river.
We drove there, on the Iowa side of the river, in our two Corvettes.
Mine was a white hardtop and his was a red convertible (sports cars
have to be red, according to Brian). We left the cars at the edge of
the ice and walked out some ways to chop a hole. Much to our
surprise, the ice was so thick that we could have safely driven our
cars on it. Because I had worked a night shift without getting any
sleep before going out on the ice, I took a sleeping bag into which I
eventually crawled to get a couple of hours of sleep. The weather was
good, but cold. We had to keep clearing out our hole in the ice to
keep it from freezing around our fishing lines. We caught a few
smallish fish, drank some beer, and I slept for a few hours. At the
end of the day we raced each other down the deserted interstate
highway in Iowa to settle the question of whether Brian's three-speed
transmission or my four-speed transmission would make any difference
in the top speed the Corvette could attain. When we reaching 125
miles per hour and were still going side-by-side we decided that the
difference in the transmissions was not worth examining any further
and eased back to the speed limit. Brian did say afterward that his
tachometer was just about at the red area whereas I swore that mine
was still well in the green.
In
June of 1966 I was promoted to the rank of Staff Sergeant, a big step
on the career ladder since promotions to this rank were particularly
hard to attain. The fact that I had been attending college courses on
my own time for a couple of years gave my supervisors something other
than normal job performance to write up in my periodic efficiency
reports, report cards of sorts, that are used by promotion boards to
make their determination who deserves promoting. Unfortunately, this
led to some envy by those in the unit with whom I had traded shifts
so that I could go to school while they preferred part-time jobs and
subsequently did not get promoted when I did.
Finally
I had nearly enough college credits accumulated to apply for AECP,
for which I had been preparing myself for the last three years. Again
it was Brian who gave me the impetus to actually formally apply. It
took 30 credits to apply and I was still not finished with the last
of the courses and therefore did not yet have the completed credits,
but Brian pushed me to apply at the same time he did (where he got
the required college credits I don't remember). His motto was to get
the application started and to fill in the details later. I was
reluctant to start the application process before I had all the
requirements met. As it turned out, the Education Office on base that
handled the AECP applications was eager to submit applicants and the
fact that not all the requirements were not formally met yet didn't
bother them.
AECP
We
were both accepted and a few months later we departed in different
directions to start attending different colleges, Brian went
somewhere out West, maybe the University of Oklahoma, to study
Engineering, whereas I went to Pennsylvania to attend The
Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) to study meteorology. I
had chosen to apply for a degree in meteorology because I knew what
life in US Air Force weather stations was like and was happy to be
able to continue working in that environment after obtaining my
degree and becoming an officer. Why Brian chose to get out of the
weather career field I do not know. I never saw him again.
OMA
Registration
for the summer semester at Penn State was the 10th of June 1967. Our
child was due to be born in May. This would have given us time to
make a smooth transition to Pennsylvania. However, Christina decided
not to come into this world until the 16th of June. This meant that I
departed for Penn State and left Ingrid in Omaha to have the baby.
However,
Ingrid was not alone. Ingrid's mother had decided, with our
encouragement, to visit us in Omaha and to be present for the birth
of our first child, her second grandchild. Sometime in May I had
driven back to Connecticut to visit my mother and sister and then
went to New York City to pick up Ingrid's mother (Oma). Originally I
had planned to take Oma to meet my mother and sister, but my mother
wasn't feeling well, so we skipped the visit and started driving
toward Omaha in my Corvette. The first evening after picking up Oma
we ended up somewhere in Pennsylvania. Because it was getting dark
and Oma had been traveling for quite a few hours, we stopped at a
motel, and rented a room for the night. I had pulled up to the motel
office to rent the room and when I tried to start the car again to
move it to the section of the building where our room was, the car
wouldn't start, just a click emanated from the starter. We were tired
and it was getting dark, so I decided to leave the car there and to
worry about it in the morning.
We
had a pleasant breakfast, after which I still couldn't get the car
started. But since the motel sat on a small hill and the parking lot
conveniently slanted down toward a gas station across the street, I
was able to let the car roll down to the gas station. Upon my
request, a mechanic at the gas station listened to the click
emanating from my starter and determined that the solenoid on the
starter had gone bad and that it needed replacing. However, they did
not have any such thing in stock for a Corvette, therefore, it would
take a day or two to fix the problem. We couldn't wait a day or two,
not with a mother-in-law who just got off an airplane, and a wife
about to give birth in Omaha. I knew that once I got it started, the
Corvette didn't need the starter anymore.
Therefore,
I filled the tank with gas, asked the mechanic and his helper to give
us a push, and intended not to shut the engine off until we got to
Omaha. We drove through the rest of Pennsylvania, through Ohio,
Indiana, and into Illinois without shutting the engine down. Whenever
we stopped I filled the tank while the motor was running and Oma and
I took turns going to the rest room with one of us sitting in the car
with the motor running. But someplace in Illinois, it was getting to
be late afternoon, we decided that we had to go into a place and sit
down and have a decent meal. That meant shutting the engine off. I
looked for a place with a little grade that would allow us to roll
the car downhill and thereby start it. But, Illinois isn't exactly
known for its steep grades. The best I could do was a Shaky's Pizza
Parlor with the slightest of grade to its parking lot. I backed the
car up to the side of the building, hoping to get it rolling, and
then to jump in to start the engine. After we had finished our pizza
it was time to test my plan. It didn't work! The grade was too small
to get the car moving, besides, I couldn't push the car and then jump
in because I had a hard time getting into the low sports car even
when it was standing still, let alone when it was moving. There we
came to rest in the middle of this parking lot in Illinois. Now it
was my mother-in-law's turn to push the car with me in it. Needless
to say, we couldn't get up enough speed to turn the engine over and
we had run out of the tiny grade that the parking lot had at the side
of the building. Fortunately, Americans are extremely helpful! Along
happened a man who got out of his car, saw Oma pushing the Corvette
and immediately lent a hand. That was all that it took, the engine
roared to life. We thanked the nice man profusely and were on our way
to Omaha.
A
few hours later, still in Illinois, it was getting dark and I was
slowing down to enter a ramp to another interstate when at the same
time I decided to turn on the headlights. The Corvette's headlights
were hidden, that is, the headlights were rotated from the closed
position to the open position by electric motors. When the electric
motors were activated they apparently took all the “juice” from
the spark plugs, which stopped firing, and the engine died. No amount
of pumping the gas pedal helped, since I was not aware that
activation of the headlight motors was the problem. I managed to let
the car coast to the breakdown lane and there we sat, in the middle
of nowhere. Every now and then a car went by, mostly on the other
side of the highway. It was starting to get dark and my mother-in-law
looked quite uncomfortable in this situation. Later on she confessed
that scenes from Western movies she had seen came to mind and she
expected wild Indians to come riding across the flat terrain at any
moment. As I said before, Americans are extremely helpful! A car went
by us, stopped and backed up. It must have been a traveling salesman
because the car was plain, with very little chrome, such as traveling
salesmen used to have. He asked if he could be of assistance and I
asked him if he could stop at the next service plaza and ask to have
someone come out with a wrecker to tow us to the nearest garage that
could fix our problem. For some reason I didn't think a push to get
us started would do the trick anymore, I feared massive failure of
the engine since it seemed to die in mid stride. The nice man said
that it had been his experience that the rest area garages would not
send a wrecker unless the owner of the disabled vehicle himself came
to request it, since in the past, by the time they got to where the
disabled vehicle was supposed to be, it was gone and they had been
sent on a “wild goose chase.” He invited me to ride with him, but
I couldn't leave Oma on her first full day in the US alone on the
highway, I couldn't send her because she spoke no English, and I
didn't want to leave the car with all our luggage alone. So, the nice
man said he would see what he could do, but made no guarantee. He
departed and we waited some more.
Some
time thereafter a state police car came by and when the policeman
saw, us pulled up in back of us. It was dark by then. I explained all
that had happened to the nice state trooper who confirmed what the
traveling salesman had said the wrecker will most likely not come
unless the owner of the disabled vehicle goes there in person - or if
he, the policeman, would call them. He was quite willing to do that,
but he suggested that we wait a while to make sure the traveling
salesman was not successful. He invited us to sit in his air
conditioned cruiser, but Oma refused, she was totally intimidated by
her experiences in America by now. The state trooper acknowledged her
refusal with the statement that he understood that she was afraid of
him since Germany was a police state. I tried to assure him that it
wasn't anything personal, all that had happened was just too much for
her on her first full day in the new world. He and I sat in his
cruiser listening to the chatter on the police radio and talked about
the recent race riots in Los Angeles and in Chicago where he had been
called to assist, when, lo and behold, the traveling salesman came
back. As I later determined, he had traveled what I estimated to be
about 30 miles to the next service plaza, asked to have a wrecker
sent for us, and when the gas station refused, came all the way back
past our location to the next available exit so that he could then
change directions, and come back to us to tell us that the wrecker
would not come. Now that is what I call helpful! I thanked the nice
man profusely who then went on his way, his good deed had cost him
about 60 miles worth of gas, wear and tear on his car, and a good
hour of his time. If cell phones had been invented none of this would
have been necessary. Meanwhile, the state policeman (who had remained
at our sides) and I made plans of what we would do next. He called
for a wrecker to come, then he was going to go with the wrecker and
us to find a Chevrolet garage, deposit the Corvette there (it was
pitch dark by then), and take Oma and me to a motel.
Some
more time later the wrecker came. By this time it was past 9 P. M. I
explained all that had happened with the car since the night before
in Pennsylvania, but, before lifting the Corvette unto the wrecker,
the wrecker crew wanted to look at the problem. I opened the hood,
the driver of the wrecker undid one of the battery terminals, got out
his pocket knife, and did a little scratching on the battery
terminal. After he reconnected the battery cable he asked me to try
starting the engine, and much to my surprise, the engine started, and
the headlights worked. There had been nothing wrong with the starter,
the solenoid, or the engine - only the battery connection was bad
because the battery terminal was corroded. I paid the nice man $25 (a
stately sum in those days), thanked the nice state trooper and we
were on our way after about three hours delay. We sped through the
night, we were both worn out from the day's events, but close enough
to Omaha to not make it worthwhile to stop for the night. Besides,
now that the car was running again I was reluctant to shut it down
for fear it would not start again. We reached Omaha at about 1:30 A.
M. and saw Ingrid sitting in the window of our apartment looking out
for us. Again, the days before cell phones kept people guessing when
an expected arrival would turn up. To stop and call using a pay phone
apparently never entered my mind.
Oma
had come by airplane, but had booked her return trip on a ship so
that she could relax and enjoy the amenities of an ocean voyage. If
all had gone according to plan, Oma was going to be present for the
birth of our child, then we would all have traveled to State College,
Pennsylvania, where I would start school and Oma would then have left
for Germany from New York City. But, since the baby was three weeks
late, I left for Penn State, and Ingrid and Oma stayed behind in
Omaha. I drove back to Pennsylvania, enrolled at Penn State and found
an apartment. Because we couldn't determine when the baby would come
I couldn't make arrangements to have our furniture shipped from Omaha
to State College because Ingrid and her mother needed a place to
stay. Ingrid eventually made the arrangements to have the furniture
picked up.
Christina
Soon
thereafter, on a stormy evening when tornado warnings sounded all
around Omaha, Christina was born. Christina wasn't allowed to travel
on an airplane until she was at least 10 days old, so Oma, Ingrid,
and Christina stayed in Omaha until Christina was old enough. I was
still living in a motel room when I received news that Christina had
been born. That weekend I drove to Connecticut to announce the event
to my mother and sister and returned with the Corvette filled with a
folded-up baby carriage, a folding cot, and some other odds and ends.
State College, Pennsylvania
When
the three of them arrived, I had an apartment, but no furniture
except for the baby carriage which became Christina's bed, the
folding cot which became Oma's bed, a foam rubber pad which became
Ingrid's and my bed, a small plastic table, and a small folding
chair. If I hadn't squeezed the baby carriage and the folding cot
into the Corvette Christina and Oma wouldn't have had beds. As for
the foam rubber pad, when you laid on it it was just like laying on
the floor because the one inch foam rubber collapsed to nothing under
the weight.
The
furniture didn't come and didn't come. I contacted the transportation
people through the ROTC detachment which handled our administrative
paperwork and they referred me to the carrier, Cartwright Van Lines,
who put me off time and again with excuses such as, “driver
abandoned truck in Ohio.” Apparently this happens when a driver who
doesn't own the truck gets a cash payment for a load and decides to
disappear with the cash and just leaves the truck with whatever is in
it at the side of the road. I couldn't imagine what had happened to
our furniture. In addition to not having any furniture or cooking
utensils (we bought a few items to tide us over) there was another
problem. Oma had packed all her good clothes that she was going to
wear on the ship with our furniture because when they flew from
Nebraska they just took what they could carry and most of that were
things for the new baby. When it came time for Oma to leave we took
her to Williamsport and put her on a bus to New York City. If she had
taken a bus from State College she would have had to change buses at
Williamsport, therefore we took her to Williamsport so that she
wouldn't have to change buses. We also gave her a card which said,
“please take me to Pier such-and-such to the ship such-and-such,”
so she could take a taxi in New York City. She made it to the ship
with the help of a nice taxi driver and ended up wearing one of
Ingrid's maternity sun suits to lounge on the deck of the ship on her
way home.
Our
furniture arrived after about six weeks - on a Sunday. I got a phone
call from the driver of the moving van that contained our furniture
who wanted to know if he could deliver right away since he was
anxious to get on the road home - he was from the state of
Washington. I got special permission from the manager of the
apartment complex to move furniture on Sunday, which normally was
against the rules. But when I told her that we had been without
furniture with a newborn baby for six weeks she allowed it if we
asked our neighbors in the stairwell. They all agreed to let us get
our furniture and were appalled at the fact that we hadn't said
anything, they would have let us have some spare furniture.
Meanwhile, the driver who was alone in the truck tried to hire
someone to help him unload our furniture. He usually got his helpers
by calling off-duty firemen and policemen, he said, but no one was
interested in working on such short notice on a Sunday. I told him
that we were so anxious to get our furniture that I would help him.
Although it was against the van line's rules to have the owner help,
he relented when I suggested that he pretend that I was an off-duty
something and he could pay me. I had found out that he owned the
truck and was under contract to Cartwright Van Lines and that he had
no knowledge of the excuses they had given me. He had had several
smaller loads on his truck and delivered them one after another - we
were the last batch in the truck. He was heading home empty after
this stop. I felt sorry for him, he had been on the road for four
weeks and had nothing to do with the run-around I had gotten. We
unloaded our furniture in about four hours, fed the driver some
sandwiches, and I declined to take any money from him because he was
just a struggling entrepreneur. As it turned out, we could have
bought all the necessities of life we needed and the Air Force would
have reimbursed us for it - too dumb to ask!
The
Pennsylvania State University
There
were a number of Air Force students at Penn State. Some were newly
commissioned second lieutenants who had degrees in other disciplines,
usually some kind of engineering, who were receiving one-year
meteorology training to become Weather Officers. Then there were
Weather Officers who had served in that capacity in the Air Force for
a number of years and who were back to complete a Master's Degree in
meteorology. And there were those of us who were enlisted men who had
qualified for the AECP and who were there for 24 months to complete
our bachelor's degrees, not all in meteorology, some in computer
science, math, and engineering, with the commitment to go through
officer training, becoming second lieutenants, and then serving as
officers for at least four years after commissioning. We were at
various stages of completing our credit requirements. Some only
needed 12 months to complete, others the maximum allowed, 24 months.
When I met with my faculty adviser for the first time, I was shocked
to find out that Penn State had not accepted all the credits that the
Air Force had accepted for application to the program. I had to
double up on the course load several terms (Penn State was on the 10
week term system then) and I had to request, and received, a three
month extension to make my stay at Penn State 27 months.
There
were six of us at the same level of completing our degrees, four in
meteorology, who went through the courses together until graduation.
The first term we were all apprehensive, certain that somewhere along
the line we would fail and would have to return to our old
occupations in disgrace. So, when we all successfully completed the
first term we had a big blow-out where we celebrated our success. The
successful first term boosted our confidence and we never had any
more doubts about completing the degree and it was relatively smooth
sailing from then on. Initially we didn't take the same courses
because not everybody took the same elective subjects or had already
fulfilled a basic requirement, but we all took the pure meteorology
courses together. We studied together for exams and generally spent
most school days together.
The Wasp
During
one term break, it was Labor Day, we had a picnic on the playground
at our apartment complex called Nittany Gardens. We had eaten and
were playing badminton and drinking beer. When there was a pause in
the play I, for some reason, switched the racket into my left hand.
When I grabbed the handle again with my right hand an ugly wasp,
which we called “mud dauber” in Connecticut, stung me in the palm
of my hand because I had squashed it when I grabbed the racket. I
initially flung the racket away, brushed the crushed beast from my
hand, took another sip of beer, picked up my racket and continued to
play. After a few minutes I started to feel funny. I felt weak, I
started to itch all over and hives were forming on my arms. When I
stopped playing and said that I felt funny, some of my companions
thought that I was joking and laughed and said, “you look funny,
too - ha, ha!” Their laughter soon subsided when Ingrid took me
upstairs to our apartment because she saw the hives and the fact that
my eyes were starting to swell shut. She called the hospital and they
urged her to bring me in right away. Ingrid and one of my fellow AECP
students, Jim Lyon, drove me to the town of Bellefonte, which was 12
miles away, where the nearest hospital was. By the time we reached
the hospital I was barely awake. I had this overpowering urge to just
go to sleep. They practically carried me inside the hospital to the
emergency room. A nurse put me on a table and a doctor gave me a shot
after which I started to feel better almost immediately. The doctor
left because in another area of the emergency room they had some
traffic accident victims and he told Ingrid not to let me go to sleep
(pass out). To help her keep me awake he gave her some ammonia
capsules and told her to break one and hold it under my nose if I
looked like I would pass out. Because I was feeling better, I relaxed
a little and closed my eyes in relief. Ingrid thought that I was
passing out and broke an ammonia capsule under my nose. Just then I
took a deep breath because I felt better, and I caught a good whiff
of the ammonia which made me sit straight up on the table.
It
was shift change at the hospital and one nurse was briefing the
incoming nurse about what was happening and she mentioned the “usual”
traffic victims and “the big guy who was knocked out by a little
bitty wasp!” They kept me overnight for observation and flushed my
system with some intravenous fluid. By the way, my sister was rushed
to the hospital in a police car with siren and lights after she was
stung by a wasp while gardening. She almost died.
Going
on to Bigger and Better Things
While
many of the civilian students spent four years in college, thoroughly
enjoying their first time away from home, for us it was another
assignment. We had to submit our grades to our program manager at
Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio, and had to attend a meeting each term
with the ROTC commander. We wore civilian clothes to school, but we
had to wear uniforms to the term meetings to remind us that we were
still in the military. Although life as a student had less of the
negative aspects of life in the military in general, all of us wanted
to finish the degree as quickly as possible because the next step,
that is, becoming an officer, meant a great deal, not only in
prestige, but in monetary reward. I can remember that I dreamed of
the day my monthly pay would increase by $210, which made it almost
double of what I received as a Staff Sergeant.
Graduation
was a fantastic event. It was the culmination of years of working
during my free time to attain enough credits to apply for AECP, 27
months of extended hours studying, during which the young family
could have used more attention at times, and the threshold to a more
rewarding career in the Air Force. We received our diplomas in
uniform, albeit not during the large graduation ceremony in June, but
during a smaller ceremony at the end of the summer term 1969, because
all of us still needed to complete courses during the summer term.
Friends and neighbors surprised us with a small reception that
concluded my initial college career.
Officer Training School, Lackland Air Force Base,
San Antonio, Texas
The
next step was to go through Officer Training School (OTS) to become
an “officer and a gentleman.” OTS was on Lackland AFB in San
Antonio, Texas, where I had started my Air Force career about eight
and a half years earlier.
We
decided that Ingrid and Christina should fly to Germany after my
graduation from Penn State, rather than come down to Texas with me.
It would have meant finding a place to live for three months and I
wouldn't have had much time to spend with them anyway. It turned out
better this way, a family in the area just distracted those who chose
to bring one along. The first three weeks we weren't allowed off base
at all, after that those who had families could leave the base on
Saturday afternoon, but had to be back by Sunday evening.
A
fellow AECP student and I drove to Texas in my VW. Along the way we
stopped for a short visit at my next duty station at Fort Riley,
Kansas. We also spent the night with my friends Dale and Doris Hall
in Norman, Oklahoma. We then proceeded to San Antonio where we met up
with the other AECP students from Penn State who had graduated with
us. We spent the night in a motel room drinking beer, and chasing
cockroaches off our beds. We reported to OTS in the morning.
OTS
was just another step in the right direction for me, as it was for
all of us who had gone through the Penn State program together. We
all had gone through basic training and this was a similar training
situation, except that officer trainees (OTs) were treated better
than basic trainees. OTs were addressed with “Mister,” whereas
basic trainees were addressed as “troop, basic, yard bird,” or
worse. We wore officer uniforms without the officer rank insignia,
but with shoulder boards that reflected the rank within the OT
structure and the length of time already in training. For the first
three weeks we had one thin stripe, then for three weeks two thin
stripes. After six weeks we became the upper class and changed to
broader stripes, according to our OT rank, on the shoulder boards.
More
Humiliation
As
in basic training, the first thing we received was a total haircut.
The head wasn't exactly shaved, but all the hair was removed with
clippers down to the bare skin. This served to remove any kind of
distinction based on hair style, abundance, color, etc. As in basic
training, it was amazing to see how much hair, or the lack of it,
alters a person's look. A practical aspect of the total haircut was
that we didn't have to worry about washing or combing our hair, which
made getting ready in the mornings easier.
OTS Life
The
formal training was conducted by officers. After duty hours,
especially in the dormitories, the upper class had the responsibility
to see to discipline and the housekeeping chores. Officers rarely
showed up in the dormitories after hours, it was all left to the
upper class. All of OTS was organized in a military structure like
the real Air Force with a student wing with several squadrons under
it. The upper class occupied the various positions in the wing and
squadrons such as commander, operations officer, etc. The lower class
got to do the chores. We had to keep the dormitory clean and
polished, and had jobs assigned for that purpose. My job was to wipe
all the water spots from the inside of the shower stalls and the
plastic curtains. The tiles inside the showers weren't too difficult,
but the shower curtains were the problem. One had to make sure not to
leave any wipe marks that would be revealed when the curtain was held
at an angle up to the light. At first no one succeeded in satisfying
the inspector, that was to show you who was boss and to let you know
that no matter how well you thought you cleaned, you could not
satisfy him.
My
roommate, had the responsibility to keep the “Halsey-Taylor”
spotless. This was the drinking fountain in the hallway, called
Halsey-Taylor because that was its brand name. In addition to keeping
it spotless, Joe had to compose a poem with the Halsey-Taylor as
subject every day. He wasn't asked every day, but when an
upperclassman demanded it, Joe had to come up with a few lines of a
fresh poem.
The
dormitory was constructed in the shape of a capital “H,”
therefore it was referred to as the “Hilton.” Each leg of the “H”
housed an upper class flight and a lower class flight, each
consisting of 15 to 20 men, in my flight we were 17. The upper class
occupied the rooms on one side of the hallway, the lower class the
rooms on the other side. Every morning before the upper class and
lower class flights went their separate ways, the lower class flight
had to announce to the upperclassmen the “LSD.” Some claimed that
that stood for “lock setting digit,” but more correctly it stood
for “last sh***ing day!” The lock setting digit was the number
you left the dial of your combination lock set on your security
drawer after locking it, which was the number of days left until
graduation - the LSD. The announcement was a chant that went like
this: “05 men (their class number was 70-05, therefore the “05”,
ours was 70-07), 05 men, listen up! Your LSD is 15 (for instance if
their last day was 15 days away).” This was done in unison and
loud, and according to the upperclassmen was never done
satisfactorily and had to be repeated a number of times. On the day
of their graduation it was done satisfactorily and then the
upperclassmen announced the lower class' LSD because they now became
the upper class.
Some
of the new upperclassmen were selected for positions within the OT
structure depending on their grades and evaluation by their
instructor. The officer trainee selected to be a commander of a
squadron or higher got a private room, others with a position still
had to share rooms, but were exempt from any menial tasks. Those who
held positions were designated as distinguished graduates (provided
they graduated) and were offered regular rather than reserve
commissions after graduation. I had the position of Squadron
Operations Officer. I accepted a regular commission when it was
offered a few months after graduation. The OT squadron commander was
designated an OT Major, we on the squadron staff were OT Captains,
and the rest were OT Lieutenants. My roommater, who initially had a
few hard times, ended up being an OT Major, but outside the chain of
command because he was the Catholic Chapel Representative. He fit the
bill because he was a very soft spoken, religious person.
The
fact that I was assigned to a room with him was unusual. We both had
degrees in meteorology, except that he had no prior service, e. g.,
was not steered toward it by the Air Force, but had studied
meteorology on his own free will. Maybe when the room assignments
were made someone decided to put us into the same room based on our
mutual professions. Not having any prior experience with basic
training such as I had, he had a few moments of despair when the
pressure of the indoctrination became too great. Early on when we
were being harassed and chased around changing uniforms and meeting
formations, I think I heard him sighing in his pillow one night. I
tried to discretely comfort him in days to follow by assuring him
that “they are not allowed to hit or kill you.”
The Wedge
My
roommate also shook like a leaf when we were standing at parade rest
in our rooms waiting for the arrival of the “wedge” inspection.
The “wedge” inspection team consisted of four upperclassmen. To
increase the terrorizing effect, the team members had small metal
wedges inserted into the edges of the heels of their shoes. When they
came marching down the hallway of the dormitory in step it sounded as
if the Gestapo was coming to get you. The wedge team did not enter
every room, but randomly picked rooms so that no one knew who was
going to be inspected. The team actually marched past the room they
had picked to inspect next, the last man on the team hit the door
with his fist, the team stopped, do an about face and entered the
room. The occupants had to call the room to attention and remain at
rigid attention while the wedge team did its inspection.
The
inspection was a “white glove” affair. The inspectors wiped for
dust, looked for dust, and looked for anything else they could
criticize. The sheets and blankets on the beds had to be stretched so
tightly that a quarter bounced back into the air when dropped from
about a foot above the bed. Any speck of dust was called a “gross
woolly,” anything out of line became “grossly misplaced,” etc.
One time one of the inspectors took our waste basket, which of course
had nothing in it and had been wiped clean, turned it upside-down,
threw it into the air, slapped it's sides as it came down, and
proclaimed, “gross dust in air.” The proclamation of the offense
was followed by the phrase, “write it!” This meant making note of
a demerit, commonly called a “gig,” on an Air Force Form 341, a
discrepancy report. Gigs could be handed out for just about any minor
transgression such as not answering with “sir,” or being in an
unauthorized place. Accumulating a certain number of gigs in a week
(I think it might have been five) resulted in having to march them
off on the parade field on Saturday. The OT had to march around the
parade field at attention, a half hour for each gig. Neither my
roommate or I ever had to march.
Daily
Life
The
day started with one of the upperclassmen who had the night duty in
the orderly room (each squadron had an administrative office called
an “orderly room” where someone was on duty around the clock)
bellowing: “Gentlemen, the time is 0530, the uniform of the day is
... (whatever uniform was dictated by the training office for that
morning, it changed several times per day)!” down the hall. Getting
dressed, making up one's bed, and standing at attention outside the
room in the hallway took no time at all. Then followed breakfast,
classes, marching, physical training, accompanied by several changes
in uniform depending on the type of activity scheduled.
Wherever
we went, we went in formation, especially during the first three
weeks. Then we were allowed to go alone or in groups during off-duty
hours, but always marching at attention. Those of us who had cars
weren't allowed to drive the cars for the first three weeks and then
only on weekends if we had permission to leave the base. When you
became an upperclassman the daily routine basically remained the
same, except that you could let your hair grow out (you still had to
get a haircut to clean up the sides) and could move about freely from
noon on Saturday until quiet hours on Sunday.
The
only time we were allowed to “slouch” (not walk at attention) was
when we had to perform “greenies.” Greenies were called that
because we then wore our green fatigue uniforms for the purpose of
cleaning (policing as it is called in military jargon) the area
around the dormitory. This was done by the lower class on Saturday
mornings and consisted of picking up any foreign objects, of which
there were almost none to begin with, tearing off the tops of the
blades of grass if they stuck up higher than their neighbors, and
throwing the accumulated handful into the dumpster while loudly
announcing one's profession, such as, “I am an engineer,” or, “I
am a meteorologist.” Just another form of harassment that became
enjoyable because one could move freely here and there looking for
things to pick up.
Meals
were eaten in a large dining hall which was absolutely silent except
for the occasional clanking of a dish or silverware. We didn't
exactly eat “square meals,” as has been reported from the
military academies, but we had to sit at attention looking straight
ahead. Ushers in the aisles, who directed you to an empty seat
because you could look only straight ahead and could not look around
for one, admonished you for “eyeballing” if you just diverted
your eyes without even turning your head.
After
the evening meal there was free time when you were allowed to go to
the laundry to take or pick up your uniforms, or to the local Base
Exchange to buy personal items, or to stay in the dormitory and
relax. From 8 P. M. to 10 P. M. were “quiet hours” during which
time we could study, write letters, but quietly. “Lights out” at
10 P. M. concluded the day.
Those
of us who already where in the Air Force wore our old uniforms with
the rank stripes taken off, but eventually we had to buy new
uniforms. The trainees who came straight from civilian life were
given a set of uniforms, but then had to buy more. We all had to buy
the so called “mess dress” uniform, a formal uniform similar to
the civilian tuxedo, to be worn to formal occasions. Everyone had to
have one for the graduation banquet. When we were allowed to leave
the base in our cars, it was customary to go to one of the uniform
tailor shops in San Antonio on Saturday afternoon to be fitted for a
mess dress uniform. This required several trips on succeeding
Saturdays. To attract customers to his tailor shop an entrepreneurial
tailor decided to provide free beer while you waited to be fitted.
Other shops followed suit and provided televisions to watch the
football games on Saturday afternoon. While there waiting to be
fitted or afterward we bought additional uniform items, spending many
hundreds of dollars altogether.
What
sometimes seemed as harassment or contrived discipline had the
purpose of molding individuals into a team that worked together for
the common good. If someone fell behind, others helped him because it
affected them in the long run by extending the training session until
everybody performed satisfactorily. When one of my Penn Sate
classmates, had a hard time keeping up during the mile and a half
run, two of us took him in between, supporting him so that he could
finish the run. We were taught that “all officers are brothers,”
a lofty goal that in later life was not always attained.
There
was no hazing as it has occurred in other military schools or even
college fraternities, but there was an uncertainty as to what might
happen next. During the last half of the training we accepted, and
could smile at, some of the seemingly childish harassment, but to
some the pressure seemed unbearable early on. Although we were all
older than the average basic trainee in the Air Force and had gone
through a college education, some found that they were unable or
unwilling to put up with the stress. There was a way out available
although it had a distinctly negative connotation: Self Inflicted
Elimination (SIE). All it took was to go to the orderly room and say,
“I want to SIE.” After that there was no retracting the statement
and the door to a career as an officer was forever shut. What the few
who chose to go that route (I can remember one case in my class)
didn't realize or think about was that the process of quitting took a
few days and until all the paperwork was done they had to continue to
participate in all the training activities, but with the added burden
of being considered an outcast. In addition, everyone entering
officer training had to enlist in the Air Force for the normal four
years. Upon completion of OTS this enlistment was canceled and one
received an obligation to serve for four years as an officer.
However, whoever did not finish OTS, be it because of SIE or other
deficiencies, was required to serve out his four year enlistment.
That meant that those who had no prior service had to go through
basic training, which was much more demeaning than OTS.
Our
class, 70-07, was fortunate in that we started on the 5th of October
1969 and were scheduled to graduate in the first week of January
1970. But, because Christmas fell into our three month training, our
course was shortened by two weeks and we graduated on the 22nd of
December, in time to get home for the holidays. Graduation was rather
short and to the point. The evening before graduation some of the
upperclassmen were thrown in the shower by the lower class. I managed
to avoid this humiliation and on the following morning we
upperclassmen announced the LSD for the lower class. Then we
assembled in our classroom where our instructor gave us the
commissioning oath and we removed our OT shoulder boards (we had our
second lieutenant bars underneath). We then marched to the parade
ground where some family members, guests, and onlookers in uniform
were assembled. We stood in formation listening to some farewells,
words of praise and encouragement, and then were dismissed as
officers. After we threw our hats in the air and congratulated each
other we were on our way as fast as possible to get away from
Lackland Air Force Base. But not before the onlookers in uniform, who
were airmen stationed on Lackland, and who were aware of the
graduation ceremony taking place, and who were familiar with the
ritual that called for a brand new second lieutenant to pay a dollar
to the first person who saluted him, descended upon us. I had wanted
to save my dollar for some unsuspecting airman some time later, but
was trapped immediately.
Visit to
Germany, December 1969 – January 1970
Immediately
after the graduation ceremony I jumped into my car which I had
already packed the day before and headed north toward Oklahoma City.
It was a long drive, but I enjoyed every minute of it because of the
sudden freedom I felt after three months of strict discipline and the
fact that when I glanced over my shoulder I could see my uniform
hanging in the back with the shiny new second lieutenant bars. I
arrived late in the evening at Dale and Doris Hall's house where I
spent the night. The next day, the 23rd of December, I left my car
with the Halls and flew to New York City and then in the evening on
to Germany. I arrived in Frankfurt the next morning, took a train to
Heidelberg, and was met at the train station by Ingrid and Christina,
who at first looked at me as if she was seeing me for the first time.
After all, she was only two and a half years old and hadn't seen me
for three months.
One
of the first things I did when we reached the apartment was to show
Ingrid in what good shape I was by doing 25 push-ups. Then I went to
bed and slept a few hours because that evening, the 24th of December,
we celebrated Christmas.
After
the first of January Ingrid was getting pretty big (she was pregnant
with Kathleen) and was advised to get to where we were going soon,
because the airlines would refuse to let her travel if the projected
date of the birth would come much closer. So we departed Germany and
flew to Oklahoma City, retrieved our car and drove to Junction City,
Kansas, home of Fort Riley.
Fort Riley, Junction City, Kansas
Custer
Fort
Riley is one of the oldest US Army posts in existence. Custer was
stationed at Fort Riley before he rode out further west where he was
killed. The house that Custer occupied on Fort Riley was still there
and, ironically, an Air Force captain with his family lived in it
while we were there. To me, other than the historic aspect, the house
held no attraction. Although it had been remodeled with modern
conveniences, it was small and located at the edge of the parade
field which was subject to occasional masses of soldiers marching. It
also was across the street from the Post Exchange which experienced a
good deal of traffic even on weekends.
When
we arrived on Fort Riley I was told that there was no chance for a
second lieutenant (brand new at that) to get quarters on Post. I put
my name on the housing list anyway and within a short period of time
I was notified that since we had a child and another one on the way
we qualified for on-post housing (normally second lieutenants were
either single or had a wife but no children). We were offered another
“gem” of a house. This one dated from sometime after Custer's
time, but was located next to the Post Headquarters building where a
canon was shot off twice a day, to mark the start and the end of the
duty day. In addition, the front porch of the house adjoined the
semicircular drive that brought those that worked in the headquarters
and all visitors - high or low ranking - to the building practically
day and night. When I declined the quarters there was a general
raising of eyebrows in the housing office, apparently it had never
happened that a second lieutenant refused living quarters that were
offered to him.
House in
Junction City
So,
we went looking for a house off post. There were lots of houses for
sale because about a year before we got there the 24th Infantry
Division which had been stationed on Fort Riley was ordered lock,
stock, and barrel to Vietnam. After all, the Vietnam war was still
going on. Because of the departure of about 25,000 troops and their
families a lot of houses were empty and available very reasonably.
Some soldiers just wanted to get out of the house payments without
trying to recoup any of their equity. After a short time we found a
house for sale in the better part of Junction City that suited our
purposes. The house was listed at $16,500 (when we visited Junction
City in 2009 that same house was up for sale again, albeit somewhat
renovated for over $200,000!), or $1,500 down and taking over the
monthly payments of less than $300. Even though these amounts seem
paltry nowadays, we had to think hard before we got a loan for the
$1,500 down payment and were worried that the monthly payments would
be too much.
The
house had belonged to a policeman in Junction City, who had passed
away, not a soldier. Because the policeman apparently was afraid of
being ambushed, he had a cover built over the garage window so that
no “potshots” could be taken at him when he left the house and
entered the garage. Furthermore, there was a light in the back yard
that no one else had. The house was bland looking, with pale green
exterior, when we got it. We painted it barnyard red, added
decorative (fake) shutters to the front windows, trimmed the yard,
and immediately the house presented an entirely different picture. It
had an attached garage, a living room which was open to the dining
area and kitchen, and three small bedrooms. One of the bedrooms was a
little bigger, it was the master bedroom. Of course there was a
bathroom. But, other than the built-in closets and the garage there
wasn't much storage space since the house didn't have a basement.
Luckily because the house was small we didn't have to buy much
additional furniture except for some baby furniture.
Kathleen
About
two months after we arrived in Junction City, Kathleen was born.
Ingrid had been going around with her little suitcase which contained
some essentials in case she had to go to the hospital on short
notice. So, early one evening she announced that I'd better not put
the car into the garage, that she was having a feeling that this
might be the night to go to the hospital. We waited until later in
the evening when the labor pains seemed to become more frequent,
although not definite enough yet, and took Christina to my commander,
his wife, and their small daughter to spend the night. I then took
Ingrid to the hospital where I was told to go back home, they would
keep Ingrid, but it would be many hours yet before anything would
happen. I went and got Christina back, took her home, laid her in bed
and started to watch the Late Show with Johnny Carson when the phone
rang. It was Ingrid announcing that I was the father of another baby
girl. Both were well, but I felt cheated, in a way. I had missed
Christina's birth when I had to start college and now I was again
deprived of pacing up and down with other expectant fathers in a
smoke filled waiting room. At least that was my impression of what
expectant fathers were supposed to do, as seen on numerous TV shows,
and movies. I didn't go to visit until the next day because I could
not take Christina and I didn't want to wake up the commander and his
wife.
Living
in Junction City
Being
first-time house owners, we were very sensitive to, and nervous
about, every little thing that went wrong with the house. A short
time after we moved in some of the tiles over the bathtub started to
peel off and fall into the bathtub. They were just plastic tiles that
were glued on the wall. Water had gotten in behind the tiles causing
the glue to let go. The more tiles that fell off (which I tried
gluing back on) the more water got in because this was the place
where the water from the shower hit the wall. Consequently, the wall
behind the tiles started to rot, so that we finally taped a piece of
a shower curtain over the damaged area. For some reason I thought
that re-tiling the wall would be very expensive and put off getting
professional help. With this problem looming we imagined all kinds of
other problems developing with the furnace, etc.
As
spring rolled around, tornado season started. In the afternoon huge
thunderstorm clouds started building to the southwest and passed
through our area. Sometimes I was on standby in the evening or early
morning hours and ha to go to the weather station to monitor the
radar and possibly put out severe weather warnings. The threat of
damage to our house and the anxiety about my family added to the
discomfort I felt about living in the house. Furthermore, the
previous owner, the policeman who did not die in the line of duty but
of a heart attack, must have had a reason for fearing an ambush. It
turned out that Junction City, because of its geographic location (if
you take a map of the US and fold it from east to west, Junction city
will be just about in the crease, that is, it is in the middle of the
country), was a major crossing point for illegal drug traffic and one
Sunday afternoon there actually was a shootout Western style on the
main street of town. All this caused some uneasiness in me.
At
about the same time we met another couple from Germany, Dieter and
Edda, by chance at the swimming pool of the Officers Club. Dieter was
a Warrant Officer and was administrative
officer at the Legal Office (Army lawyers) on Fort Riley. Dieter
almost immediately started to extol the virtues of living on post.
You don't have to worry about repairs, utilities, etc., they are all
taken care of. The quarters allowance we received was deducted and
covered everything. He showed us their quarters which were in an area
called Custer Hill, a relatively quiet area of the post. I put my
name on the housing list again and within a short period of time we
were offered a set of quarters, which we turned down again because
they weren't in the precise area of Custer Hill that we wanted. Again
some eyebrows raised, but not long afterward we got what we wanted,
just like Edda and Dieter had across the street. The houses actually
were four-plexes with four houses connected in a row.
So,
we put our little house up for sale without going to a real estate
agent and were able to sell it in short order. Just before we decided
to sell the house I had asked a tile-layer to look at our wall in the
bathroom and had actually agreed to have him repair the wall. But
when the sale came through so quickly I canceled the repair job which
didn't make the tiler too happy. When the person who was going to buy
the house looked the house over I showed him the bathroom wall,
expecting him to become disinterested in buying the house under my
terms, he just shrugged his shoulder and said: “That's OK.” My
terms had been that I would get $2,300 in hand and the buyer would
take over the mortgage payments. By asking $2,300 down I was trying
to recoup some of the investments we had made in the house. Being
inexperienced, when asked who would pay the costs to have the deed
and mortgage transferred, I generously agreed to pay them. It turned
out that these closing costs were just about $800 and we ended up
with what we had paid down for the house. But we were rid of a
perceived headache and lived happily and maintenance-care-free on
Custer Hill.
Marshall
Field Weather Station
Fort
Riley is built on several hills with intervening valleys. The
airfield at Fort Riley is called Marshall Field and is adjacent to
the fort itself in a flat valley where in the olden days the cavalry
trained, and polo was played. The unit I belonged to was Detachment
8, 16th Weather Squadron. There were just two officers, the commander
(a Captain) and I, and about 10 enlisted men. The commander did all
the administrative duties and worked straight days. There were two
forecasters, a Technical Sergeant (TSgt), and I. The weather station
was open from 6 A. M. until 6 P. M.on weekdays, and on Saturday from
6 A. M. until noon. We split the day up between the two of us, one
week one of us had the early shift and the other the late shift and
the next week we switched. Whoever had the late shift didn't have to
work on Saturday, but on weekdays had to be on standby from the end
of his shift until next morning. Because the weather station was
closed at night, the early shift forecaster was supposed to start
work an hour before opening time to sort and analyze the maps that
had come in over the fax machine during the night and to prepare the
early forecast.
The
TSgt trained me in my first job as weather forecaster. I always had
the feeling that he didn't take the job too seriously. Part of it was
that I was a new second lieutenant, gong-ho, ready to do great things
and still under the influence of my training at OTS. I always tried
to stick to the preparation time by arriving at the weather station
shortly after 5 A. M. One night I even slept in the weather station
because of an expected blizzard which might have delayed me from
going in on time (it turned out not to be that bad after all). But
the TSgt, I found out, arrived at the weather station at or just
before 6 A. M.
What
really shocked me was when I attended a so-called “seasonal weather
briefing.” These were mandatory briefings for all pilots, given at
the start of each season to alert them to the possible dangers
associated with the upcoming weather. This was my first experience of
this sort. Assembled in a large room were maybe 20 to 30 Army pilots.
Most were quite young, warrant officer helicopter pilots, and a
captain or first lieutenant or two. The TSgt presented the briefing
in his normal nonchalant way, but professionally, until he came to
mentioning tornadoes and what to do if one approaches. “When a
tornado is imminent find a solid desk,” he stated quite correctly,
“get under it, tuck your head between your knees,” again good
advice, “and start kissing your a** goodbye!” I couldn't believe
my ears. But when I heard the roar of laughter rather than a general
outrage I was somewhat reassured that we hadn't lost our credibility
totally. It was then that I decided that maybe the TSgt's approach
wasn't that bad after all. By the way, I have given many seasonal
weather briefings myself since that day and have never failed to
smile when I think of that first one. I have never used the TSgt's
tornado safety rules in a briefing (maybe I never had to warn of
upcoming tornadoes), but I have told the story of when I heard them
the first time many times for (mainly) my and for other people's
amusement.
During
tornado season, when I was on stand-by, I frequently had to leave
home in the evening to go to the weather station to monitor the
development of the thunderstorms that accompanied tornado outbreaks
and to issue warnings when appropriate. Some nights as I was driving
to the weather station the lightning was so intense and frequent that
I didn't need headlights. But living in government quarters made me
feel more at ease when I had to leave my family during violent
weather. Warnings not only had to be issued for possible occurrences
of tornadoes, but also for high winds, flooding, and hail. These
warnings had to be taken seriously and couldn't be issued without
good reason because they caused the post to take certain actions,
such as tying down airplanes and helicopters, sheltering equipment,
or preparing to take shelter. All these measures caused people to be
called out at night and caused a great deal of costs and discomfort.
Therefore, if too many warnings which didn't verify were issued, our
credibility sagged and we were accused of “crying wolf” too many
times. However, as can be imagined, if any of these severe weather
conditions occurred without a warning being issued, the consequences
would have been even worse than for an erroneously issued warning. I
never issued a tornado warning although over the three tornado
seasons I was there, several tornadoes were reported in neighboring
counties, but none ever threatened Fort Riley directly.
The
Midwestern states of the US certainly are rich on spectacular weather
phenomena. In the winter there are blizzards whose strong winds pile
snow into drifts that can block entire roadways. One year a neighbor
of ours on Custer Hill, commander of an engineer company, had to call
out one of his men with a huge bulldozer to clear out the parking lot
in front of our quarters so that we could go to work. In the spring
and summer there are spectacular thunderstorms with fascinating cloud
formations such as giant Cumulonimbus clouds with threateningly
protruding Mammatus pockets, each pocket potentially capable of
spawning a tornado. In addition to the visual phenomena there are
accompanying physical effects such as strong winds, torrential rain
showers, or large hail stones. The winds blow down trees and power
lines, the rain showers cause “gully washers” that flood streets
and intersections and the hailstones, ranging from less than pea-size
to softball-size, make cars look like they had been worked over with
a ball peen hammer, flatten corn and wheat fields, and cause other
structural damage. The fall is relatively calm, weather-wise,
however, the wind seems to blow all the time.
Heidi
A
year after Kathleen was born, almost to the day, Heidi was born. The
situation before Heidi saw the light of this world was almost
identical to when Kathleen was born. I don't remember what
arrangements we had made about Christina and Kathleen when Ingrid had
to go to the hospital, but I apparently took Ingrid to the hospital
late at night, went home and then got up as usual to work the early
shift (6 A.M. To noon). Shortly after arriving at the weather station
I received a call from Ingrid telling me that I was the father of
another girl.
REFORGER
The
term REFORGER is an acronym for “Return of Forces to Germany.”
This acronym referred to a political decision made in the late 1960's
whereby it was decided to remove a part of the US Army forces from
Germany and to station them at Fort Riley, with the stipulation that
they would be able to be returned to Germany quickly in case they
were needed. The Cold War was in full stride and the possibility of a
confrontation with the Warsaw Pact forces along Germany's border was
a constant possibility. To keep the soldiers at Fort Riley prepared
to operate in Germany the American road signs on Fort Riley were
replaced with German road signs.
The
concept of REFORGER was that two brigades of the 1st Infantry
Division would be pulled back to the US, while the third brigade
stayed in Germany. If the situation warranted, the two brigades were
to be airlifted on short notice to Germany to reform the complete
division. Furthermore, the plan called for the 1st Infantry
Division's tanks, vehicles, artillery, and other tactical equipment
to be stored in Germany so that only the soldiers with their
individual equipment had to be airlifted to Germany. After landing in
Germany, the troops were to pick up their stored items from several
“pre-positioning” sites and were to be ready to fight within
thirty days. Our weather detachment had formed a weather team
consisting of a forecaster, four observers, and myself, specifically
for this concept. I was the leader, along with that came the title
1st Infantry Division Staff Weather Officer.
This
return of forces to Germany was practiced every year. The first
REFORGER exercise was conducted in the fall of 1969. I participated
in REFORGER II and III, conducted in 1970 and 1971, respectively. We
were bussed the approximately 60 miles from Junction City, Kansas, to
Topeka, Kansas, where Forbes AFB was located. There we boarded US Air
Force C-141 and C-5 cargo aircraft which took us to various locations
in Germany, depending on where the equipment for that planeload of
troops was located. We were bussed from where we landed to the
pre-positioning site where we received our vehicles and then convoyed
to the prearranged assembly point.
Following
assembly, the division then conducted a several weeks-long maneuver,
simulating a campaign against the “bad guys” from the East. At
the end of the maneuver the division went to the Grafenwöhr training
area to fire their guns, in which we Air Force people were not
involved. That gave us about a week to take sightseeing trips. I went
to Heidelberg to visit Ingrid's relatives and I took along the rest
of the team to show them Heidelberg. One of the observers on my team
even took a train to Italy to see his girlfriend.
Other
Maneuvers
Throughout
my 28 months on Fort Riley I participated in numerous other Field
Training Exercises. Fort Riley possesses a large range where the 1st
Infantry Division regularly conducted two- to three-day maneuvers
called Field Training Exercises. While at Fort Riley, the weather
team did not have its own tactical vehicles such as jeeps or trucks,
nor did we have permanently assigned weapons or tents. So, to be able
to fully participate in the exercises, I had to rely on my network of
friends, such as Dieter Kohler (mentioned earlier) and on Captain
John Cobb, a neighbor, who was an MP company commander. Dieter
provided us with a tent, a generator and the wiring for lights in our
tent. On several occasions John loaned us the weapons (M-16's), so
that we could look the part, and a jeep with driver. These acts of
kindness on the part of friends were appreciated. But,
understandably, we were not provided with the highest quality
personnel when it came to drivers. One time John didn't tell me
beforehand that the driver was a demoted MP who was not allowed to
perform police duties. I had become suspicious of him when he
constantly kept to himself in a one-man tent and I suspected him to
be smoking pot there. After another exercise another driver took me
back to my living quarters on the main part of the fort. Since he
didn't know where I lived I was giving him directions as to when to
turn, etc. As we were approaching a four-way intersection with four
stop signs I said, “straight through this intersection,” which
the driver did - without stopping for the stop sign. When I asked him
why he hadn't stopped for the stop sign he said, “well Sir, you
said to go straight through the intersection.” I had meant to go
straight ahead after properly observing the traffic sign and he had
interpreted my direction as an order.
Thinking
about the Future
For
most of my time on Fort Riley I was one of two officers in the
weather station. The commander was a captain and besides being the
head of the 1st Infantry Division Weather Team, I was in charge of
the entire weather station when the commander was absent. I took my
job seriously and enjoyed being able to interact with the staff of
the 1st Infantry Division. There was a lot of planning and training
to be done in preparation for the annual REFORGER exercises. I had
more responsibility than was normal for a lieutenant, first as second
lieutenant and after 18 months as a first lieutenant. Because our
weather team was one of only two groups of Air Force people among
approximately 25,000 Army troops, we stood out and most of the senior
staff members knew me by name. On field exercises I briefed the
commanding general at the daily briefings about the weather. On an
exercise right after I pinned on first lieutenant bars, the
commanding general happened to be driving by with a group of his
assistants. He had his driver stop the jeep and he stepped out and
personally congratulated me when he saw that I had silver instead of
gold bars on my collar.
But,
after the novelty of the position wore off a bit, I started to think
about the future. I was in contact with some of my former fellow AECP
mates, notably Jim Lyon. Jim had decided to apply for a Masters
Degree. That gave me the incentive to look into the possibility of
returning to Penn State for graduate school. The first thing I had to
do was to take the Graduate Record Exam. It was administered at the
Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, which was only a short
distance from Fort Riley. After I took the exam I was sure that I
didn't do well because I didn't seem to know enough of the answers or
I ran out of time because I had to think hard about the answers. Lo
and behold, when the results came back it turned out that I placed in
a high percentile, meaning that others who took this qualifying exam
were able to answer even fewer questions than I was.
Fortunately,
the Air Weather Service was looking for officers willing to go to
graduate school because of the technical nature of our jobs and the
innovations that were constantly being made with computer and
satellite technology. Therefore I was able to get my choice of
schools, Penn State.
Penn State, June 1972 – February 1974
Someone
once said, “you can never go back!” I found that to be true upon
our return to Penn State, less than two years after leaving it. Not
that the area, the town, or the university had changed, but
everywhere I went I expected to see the familiar faces of the fellow
AECP friends from the previous time at Penn State. However, as time
went by I made new friends and new challenges made the memories of
the previous time at Penn State recede into the background.
As
graduate students we had a desk in a room at the Meteorology
Department which we shared with two or three others. There we did our
studying, our research, and got acquainted with each other. Because
we Air Force students were randomly assigned to the rooms and
therefore were intermingled with non-military graduate students, the
tight clique of Air Force students that had formed during my first
tour at Penn State was nonexistent. Nevertheless, I made the
acquaintance of some Air Force students whom I encountered again in
the future and made some lasting civilian friendships.
One
ritual that we practiced on my first tour at Penn State and which was
carried on during the second tour, mainly by the military students,
was the weekly happy hour at the Post House Tavern, a small bar just
off the campus. But I recall that during the first time at Penn State
the camaraderie at the Post House Tavern went deeper than it did the
second time around. The reason probably was that we were older, had
bigger families, and were on our way up our individual career
ladders, whereas the first time around we were leaning on each other
for support because we were on an unknown path into the future.
After
about a year of taking courses, teaching some courses,
and starting to do research, a much dreaded, all encompassing exam
had to be taken. For Masters Degree students it was called Candidacy
Exam, for students going for a doctorate it was called Comprehensive
Exam. The Candidacy Exam was a day-long written test by which the
student's comprehensive knowledge of the science of meteorology was
tested. Doctorate students, if they passed the written exam, had to
additionally pass an oral examination by a panel of experts in their
specific specialty.
The
Candidacy Exam was dreaded because without passing it (two tries were
allowed) it was no use going further with the pursuit of a graduate
degree, because it could never be obtained. As with the Graduate
Record Exam, I was doubtful as to whether I had answered enough of
the questions correctly to pass. But, as many other times, my
pessimism was misplaced, because I passed with a creditable score.
Now
I was ready to proceed with writing my thesis, a document in which
graduate students describe research in a specific area that needs to
be clarified. It usually is something that interests the student's
adviser and is a small contribution to the more theoretical research
the adviser, usually a senior professor, is involved in. My adviser
was Professor John Dutton who liked to project a rough image which
made many graduate students nervous, but I realized that this was
just a front and that, despite popular belief, he was interested in
having each of his graduate students leave Penn State with the degree
that they sought.
Professor
Dutton was an expert in atmospheric energetics. In vastly simplified
terms, he studied the energy in the atmosphere, where it came from,
where it was transferred, and where it was dissipated. My research
consisted mainly of “number crunching,” that is, I analyzed data
generated by a computer model. The data were computer-generated
predictions of wind speeds at various altitudes from the earth's
surface up to the top of the troposphere. I drew some graphs using
the data and wrote up a conclusion of my findings. Professor Dutton
made some corrections to my text, but essentially agreed with my
findings. During my first tour at Penn State an Air Force graduate
student told me that writing his thesis was the hardest thing he had
ever done, I believe he didn't finish it before his time at Penn
State was up. I had his remarks in my head as I started to write my
thesis, but I found writing my thesis relatively easy, even
enjoyable.
Writing
a thesis and actually receiving the degree was not required by the
Air Force, what counted was that one had the 18 months of graduate
education. Therefore, many Air Force graduate students never finished
their thesis, if they ever started, and went back to their Air Force
occupations without being disadvantaged thereby. The actual diploma
was a bonus for those of us who received it. I received my Masters
Degree in Meteorology on the 9th of March 1974, albeit in absentia,
because I had already left for my next assignment in February.
We
had decided that Ingrid and the girls should stay in State College,
Pennsylvania, because Christina had started school and Ingrid had a
number of friends who could assist her if she needed it. My next
assignment was to Korea, an unaccompanied assignment, that is, I
could not take my family with me.
Before
I left, we moved to a smaller apartment where Ingrid had closer
neighbors than in the townhouse in which we were living. The
apartment was just a few hundred yards down the street. The Air Force
paid for the move. The moving company came, packed everything up as
if we were going across the country, and loaded everything on a large
moving van. Trying to be jovial with the moving men when they packed
up, I had told them not to fuss too much with packing our furniture,
after all, we were just going down the street. There were only two
items that were near and dear to my heart, I told them, and that was
the glass coffee table and the bookshelf I had built with my own two
hands, a hammer, and a chisel. They made a great show of carefully
padding and packing the glass table top and put it and the bookshelf
into the van last, separating them from the rest of the load, lest
the load shifted and damage what I considered my two most valued
possessions.
While
I was at the university making arrangements to have my thesis
printed, the movers were to drive down the street to our new domicile
and to start unloading. When I returned to our new apartment several
hours later I was astonished that the movers had just started to
unpack the truck. Another thing that caught my eye was the carton
which held the glass top of our coffee table. The carton seemed to
still be closed, but it was dented and crushed and was laying on a
pile of snow. As I walked up the stairs I met the leader of the
movers. When he saw me he immediately started to retreat backwards up
the stairs with his hands defensively in front of him saying, “now
sir, don't get excited, something happened.” I still didn't make
the connection between the dented carton on the snow and what he was
saying. As we reached the top of the stairs and he couldn't back up
any more, I got the full story: Even though we only moved down the
street, the van had to be driven over a scale to determine its weight
for billing purposes. Unfortunately, the appropriate scale was across
town. As they were crossing one of the busiest intersections in the
town of State College, a slight bump in the road caused the back
doors of the van to swing open - someone had not closed them
properly. Since my two most valued possessions had been put on the
van last, they fell out first; actually, nothing else apparently fell
out. To make matters worse, the moving men did not notice that
anything was wrong until they wondered why people were honking their
horns at them and pointed at the back of their van. The driver of the
van finally looked in the rear view mirror and saw the back doors
flapping in the wind upon which he stopped the van and they
determined that some items were missing. When they returned to the
intersection, some construction workers working on a building on the
corner of the intersection directed them to a pile of snow on the
side of the road where they had deposited the carton with the
hundreds of pieces of what used to be a glass table top and my now
scratched, dented, and totally out-of-whack, handmade bookshelf. To
add insult to injury, the workmen yelled, “you'll never move us,”
I was told.
How
could I be upset at such a good story? I had to laugh when I
visualized the comic chain of events and I saw the fear and obvious
humiliation in the face of the head mover who kept saying over and
over, “we'll pay for everything.” Eventually, the glass for the
table was replaced and I fixed up my bookshelf myself.
Kunsan Air Base, Kunsan, South Korea
I
had known all along that I was due for an isolated
tour. My only overseas tour had been to Germany which, although I was
unmarried until the last few weeks, was considered an accompanied
tour. Since the Vietnam war was winding down, I thought I'd be sent
to Thailand where we still had considerable forces. I actually looked
forward to going to Thailand because I had never been in a tropical
environment. However, I was assigned to Korea instead. Since I had to
have a short tour, as unaccompanied tours were also called, Korea
would fill the bill and although it wasn't a tropical climate, the
experience would be interesting because it also was in Asia, where I
had never been. I tried to read up on the culture, even got a
Korean-English dictionary.
So,
in February of 1974 I departed for San Francisco where I had a few
hours to do some sightseeing by taking the cable car to Fisherman's
Wharf. Then it was off by bus to Travis AFB outside San Francisco.
From there I flew via Anchorage, Alaska, to Osan AB near Seoul, South
Korea. After spending the night there I flew a short distance south
along the Korean coast to Kunsan
AB where I was to be stationed. This portion of the trip was done by
chartered airline in a Boeing 727 which had three engines, therefore
in the parlance of the airmen stationed in Korea it was referred to
as the “three-holer,” or “freedom bird” because it also
transported them back to Osan AB for the return flight to the US when
their tour was up.
Culture
Shock
At
first I was excited about learning all about the Korean culture
because it was so different from what I had experienced in the United
States and in Europe. But soon my enthusiasm gave way to a sort of
culture shock. I didn't know whether to be happy that our life style
seemed so much better or whether I should feel sorry for the
inhabitants because of some of the primitive conditions I saw there.
The dirt suddenly seemed to be dirtier than in either the US or
Germany. The roads were either muddy or dusty, depending on the
season. The country roads had sewage ditches running alongside them.
The entire country seemed to smell of charcoal smoke, which was
understandable because most Korean houses were heated by charcoal
fires under the floor of the houses. I recall, that there also was a
constant slight smell of “kimchi,” the common side dish served in
Korea, and of garlic, which is used a lot in Korea, in the air.
There
were rice fields next to the base where I saw the farmers wading knee
deep in the muddy water, first planting the seedlings and then
harvesting the rice, all in a bent-over posture that makes my back
ache just thinking about it. In the summer the sweltering heat may
have been bearable for the (mostly) women who worked the fields with
their bare feet up to their knees, and their arms up to the elbows,
in the mud and water, but in the fall the icy wind and the cold water
must have made the work extremely unpleasant - at least in my eyes.
At one part of the base, the rice fields came right up to the fence
so that from the road along the inside of the fence I could see
close-up what the work entailed. Because this road was frequented by
people on the base, there often were young boys gathered at the edge
of the rice paddy, sticking their hands through the fence and
shouting “ten won” (Korean money), at the then-exchange rate of
$1 to about 400 won, a mere pittance.
The
most pleasant weather in South Korea occurs in the spring and in the
fall. The summers are hot and humid and the winters are cold with an
incessant wind, which originates in Siberia, blowing from the north
over China. In the summertime it was so humid, especially at night,
that when working in the weather station, the maps and papers we
worked with stuck to our forearms. The large fans we set up to
provide circulation added to the discomfort by blowing the papers all
over the room. For the winter we were issued heavy parkas which were
authorized to be worn with civilian clothes because many airmen
didn't bring sufficiently warm outer garments. The local population
apparently was used to the climate because I don't recall ever seeing
anyone as heavily clothed as we Americans were. I recall seeing a
civilian employee on the base, whose job it was to deliver food from
the cafeteria to the officer and airman housing areas by bicycle,
fight a strong wind that was coming from his side, with his baseball
cap plastered to the side of his face against the icy blast. The wind
was so strong that he didn't have to hold the cap in place, the wind
did that for him.
South
Korea is theoretically still at war with North Korea, there still is
only an armistice in effect. In 1974 this situation was aggravated by
the Cold War and incidents along the demilitarized zone and in the
waters around South Korea kept the tension high. Therefore, there was
a strictly enforced midnight to 6 A. M. curfew during which time all
persons, including US military, were not allowed on the streets
unless they had a special pass. Important facilities were guarded
night and day, and the roads were guarded at night. We were warned
that the Korean Army guards might shoot first and then ask for a
pass. If we were inadvertently away from the base, we were advised to
seek shelter for the night in a house (many of the bars that
Americans frequented stayed open all night just for that purpose) or
to turn ourselves over to a Korean policeman, if possible, but not to
attempt to get to the base by ourselves.
Cultural
Differences
Whenever
newcomers arrived at the base they were given a lengthy briefing
about some common dangers in Korea. One danger that was stressed was
the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning. Since many Korean
houses were heated using fire under the floor (which one can imagine
makes it cozy to sit on the floor), cracks in the floor could let the
fumes from the fire seep into the living area. Carbon monoxide is a
colorless and odorless gas which is deadly if inhaled for a
sufficient amount of time, such as while sleeping at night. We were
advised to be cautious when spending time in a Korean house. The
other danger stressed was hygienic in nature. We were warned not to
eat raw vegetables or fruit without thoroughly washing them,
preferably in a solution of Clorox bleach. The reason for this was
that Koreans (as did my farmer neighbors in Dachau) fertilize their
fields using human waste. Bacteria are thereby spread from one
generation to the next. Also, we were warned never to drink water
(other than on base) or anything else that didn't come in a bottle.
The water was also contaminated due to the use of human fertilizer.
The usual question posed by newcomers was: “How can the Korean
population consume the fruits and vegetables and drink the water and
not get sick?” The answer was that their systems were immune to the
bacteria in the unclean foods and the water because of long exposure
to them. This, of course, meant that we were discouraged from eating
at off-base restaurants. To satisfy the desire to try the local
cuisine, the base established an authentic Korean restaurant,
supervised by the base health officials, called the “Oriental
House.” It was actually a part of the Officer's Club, but open to
all. I ate there several times, my favorite dish was Bulgogi, which
is marinated, barbecued beef. Another danger or custom (although not
practiced by everyone, only those so inclined) that we were advised
to pay attention to was that items if left unattended could suddenly
“grow feet” and “walk away.” We were told that property that
is being watched, even by a small child usually will not disappear,
but if something is left unattended, then the owner apparently
doesn't need it badly enough to guard it, therefore, it can be taken.
Several
cases to illustrate the point come to mind. One incident was when one
of the other officers in our detachment one day left his new leather
gloves on the counter in the forecast section of the weather station
while he was a few steps away behind a partition at the radar set.
When he returned to the forecast counter, his gloves were gone. The
only other person in the weather station at the time was a Republic
of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) weather observer who was watching the
phone. When the officer asked him what had happened to his gloves,
the observer just shrugged his shoulders. Thereafter the officer went
to see his friend, a lieutenant of the ROKAF weather detachment and
told him about the incident. Soon thereafter, when the officer
returned from another short time at the radar set, he found his
gloves where he had left them originally and the ROKAF airman still
had the same innocent expression on his face.
Another
incident involved me personally. Sometime into my one year tour I
started smoking cigarettes again. When working in the weather station
I had the habit of laying the pack of cigarettes on the counter next
to where I was working. Every day I said to myself that I should cut
down on my smoking because I was forever low on cigarettes until I
realized that the ROKAF airmen were helping themselves to my
cigarettes when I wasn't watching. They never took any cigarettes
from a nearly full pack or an almost empty pack because that might be
too obvious, but in between the loss wasn't immediately noticeable.
The GI expression for people who indulged in such petty thievery was
“slicky-boys,” slicky being the term for stealing in the American
military vernacular.
The
third incident did not involve me directly, but indirectly. On my way
to work one Sunday morning as I was walking along the perimeter road
where the rice paddies came right up to the fence, I saw that there
were no wires running between several telephone poles next to the
fence. Upon looking closer I saw that on each of the poles short
pieces of wire still hung down. Obviously, someone had cut the wires
between the poles and removed them. At first I thought that the base
was doing repairs, but then I discovered a sizable hole in the chain
link fence near the spot where the wires were missing. The wire was
probably made of copper, seemingly unprotected (although Korean
guards patrolled the base perimeter regularly), and therefore worth
stealing. I reported it to the Security Police. Shortly thereafter
new wires were strung.
Another
incident involved me again. As I was walking to my quarters after
work one afternoon, I saw what looked like a picture of a camera
laying in the murky water of a drainage ditch. Upon closer
examination it looked like a real camera rather than a picture of
one. Sure enough, when I rolled up my sleeve and stuck my hand into
the murky water up above my elbow, I came up with a Japanese 35
millimeter reflex camera, albeit without a lens. Why would anyone
throw away what looked like a brand new camera? Then I recalled that
a week or two earlier there had been a break-in at the base exchange.
I took the camera to the police station and after the policemen were
satisfied that I was not possibly a suspect I was told that the
“slicky-boys” had mainly taken cameras during the break-in and
this camera most likely was one of them. Why they threw away this
camera I do not know, maybe because they hadn't “slickied” a
suitable lens for it.
Much
of the life in Korea took place on the streets. When I had the
occasion to travel by bus one early morning I saw men and women of
all ages and children, stripped to the waste, performing their
morning grooming such as washing themselves and brushing their teeth
on the sidewalk. Mechanics worked on cars and even disassembled
engines on the sidewalk. Pedestrians walked in the roadways thereby
causing an almost constant cacophony of horns from cars and buses. In
those days, only very few of us stationed at the Air Base had cars.
When we traveled it was done by taxi or bus. It was my impression
that the local population did not have too many private cars, but
there were many taxis and buses.
A
curious sight for us foreigners was that at bus stops men and women
squatted (resting) while waiting for the bus. One could also
occasionally see women squat at the side of the road with their
skirts hiked up, not waiting for a bus but relieving themselves.
Toilets in general were a curiosity, to put it mildly. Many times men
and women shared the same bathroom - men at the urinals at the
entrance and women in the stalls in back. Women walking in and out
while I was in there was bad enough, but I found it most
disconcerting to be standing at the urinal while a woman was fixing
her lipstick, hairdo, or makeup at the mirror right next to me!
The
Weather Station
We
shared the weather station with ROKAF weathermen. We (the US) took
the observations, made the forecasts, and briefed the US crews. The
ROKAF weather people briefed the Korean air crews. I had the feeling
that the ROKAF weathermen considered us as strange. We never went to
sleep on duty, we didn't spit in the waste basket, and we didn't beat
our subordinates. I had the feeling that I was particularly curious
to them. To make the time go by I tried to keep busy. Since I was the
chief forecaster I felt that it was my duty to be more thorough than
my comrades. I also saw to it that the weather station had a
professional appearance by tidying up whenever I saw something that I
felt was untidy. The Koreans just sat there and observed. Since they
used all our products such as observations, teletype reports, radar
reports, fax maps, etc., they had very little to do. On a night shift
the ROKAF forecaster (a sergeant) on duty ordered the ROKAF observer
(a lower ranking enlisted man) on duty with him to set up a folding
cot. They then turned out the lights in their section of the room and
the forecaster went to sleep on the cot. The observer sat at his
counter by the telephone, laid his head on his folded arms on the
counter, and went to sleep. They got very few phone calls during the
night, once or twice the ROKAF observer had to wake the forecaster,
both of whom promptly went back to sleep after the phone call.
I
can't say that I ever saw anyone beating a subordinate, but stories
to that effect were told. I was told that one day a ROKAF cargo plane
landed and that when it came to a stop at the terminal building, the
senior person (presumably a general) lined the entire crew up in
front of the airplane and one by one beat them on the head or
shoulders with his swagger stick as he went down the line, all the
while yelling at them. Presumably he was unhappy with some aspect of
the flight.
During
the day the commander of the ROKAF weather detachment, a captain, and
a lieutenant were also present. The captain did not have an office
and because the weather station was small, he sat in the passenger
terminal reading magazines. Occasionally he walked through the
weather station or made a phone call there. The lieutenant only
worked day shifts.
Lieutenant
Pak and his Sister
In
our detachment, besides the commander (a captain when I arrived who
was replaced by a major) and myself (a captain), there was one other
officer, a first lieutenant. Ted had made friends with the ROKAF
lieutenant, by the name of Pak. Lieutenant Pak had a sister who was
planning to go to the United States to study nursing. She had learned
some English in school, but to help her with her conversational
English, Lieutenant Pak had asked Ted if he would have some
conversations with her. Since Ted felt that he would run out of
things to say, he asked me to participate. Ted set a date and time
with Lieutenant Pak for us to meet his sister. Of course, since
Lieutenant Pak and his sister came from a respectable family, his
sister would never have a conversation with strangers, let alone
foreigners, unless another member of her family were present,
therefore, Lieutenant Pak joined us. In addition, for moral support
on her side, Lieutenant Pak's sister brought along a girl friend. Ted
and I met Lieutenant Pak at the base and the three of us went, by
bus, to his home town of Kwangju (Gwanju) where we met his sister and
her friend. They showed us around Kwangju, I have pictures of a
temple and a park overlooking the city. Then we went to a restaurant
(which we had been advised against) and had some typically Korean
food. We sat on the floor around a round table with a “lazy Susan”
laden with a multitude of small dishes of local delicacies, the
origins of which Ted and I mostly avoided to inquire about. I just
remember that one dish contained octopus. Ted and I had decided
before the meal that in the interest of good foreign relations we
would show proper respect for the local delicacies and take our
chances with the aftereffects, hoping that the base hospital would be
able to set things right again.
The
purpose of the whole thing was to carry on an educational
conversation in English. In this we failed dismally. Most
conversations with people one doesn't know usually start with a
question. How do you carry on a conversation when all you get is
“yes” or “no” or some other monosyllabic response for an
answer? But no matter how many questions we thought of, the
conversation never went beyond the answer yes or no or such. The
reason for this was not that they didn't like us or that we asked too
many questions, it was that these nice people were Asians. Even
Lieutenant Pak wasn't very outgoing, the less so the women. In some
cultures women only speak when spoken to, that must have been the
case with Lieutenant Pak's sister. Trying to involve the girl friend
in a conversation was even less fruitful because she didn't speak
English at all. Ted and I tried our best, but many times Lieutenant
Pak had to translate what we were saying to his sister upon which he
translated the answer. I wondered how the poor girl would fare in the
nursing school in Chicago, I never heard anything more. Ted and I
made our way back to the base and suffered no ill effects from eating
the local cuisine.
Made to
Order
One
could get just about anything made to order in Korea. The base had
concessionaires that offered tailoring, embroidering, printing, shoe
making, framing, photography, picture painting (of loved ones from a
photograph, from playboy centerfolds, etc.) services for a very
reasonable price and fast. I had several uniform shirts, uniform
pants, uniform shoes, a suit, a shirt, a leather jacket, and a
jogging suit made. You were measured one day, returned for a fitting
the next, and get the finished product one or two days later. The
uniform items I had made on base because they had the right material
and the specifications for them. The leather jacket, shirt, suit, and
jogging suit I had made downtown at a tailor shop. There they had
reams and reams of cloth from which I could choose. For the style
they had piles of magazines and newspapers from which I could pick
whatever I wanted. It so happened that when I ordered my suit, Sonny
and Cher were getting divorced and I saw a picture of Sonny Bono in
the Stars & Stripes, the newspaper for US Forces, standing on the
steps of the courthouse just after the divorce proceedings, being
interviewed by a group of reporters. I liked the suit he wore. It was
a light colored summer suit with a slight flare at the end of the
sleeves. I pointed to the picture and the tailor nodded and took my
measurements. I was proud of my suit and of my leather jacket until I
was told by Ingrid when I came home with them that she thought the
linings in both were hideous and that the legs of the pants were too
narrow and that the buttons on the leather jacket didn't match the
rest of the jacket! None of the items lasted very long, because as
everybody knew who had clothes made practically overnight in the Far
East, the thread, stitching, and buttons did not survive many
washings.
Saving
Face
Koreans
and many other peoples of the Far East hate to disappoint others.
This must have something to do with “saving face.” Rather than
disappointing a stranger they will resort to what we might call
“little white lies,” or an artificial effort to produce whatever
it is that is the object of the disappointment. For instance, I had
two stacks of envelopes printed, one with Ingrid's address and my
return address, the other with my address and Ingrid's return
address, so that we could just stick our letters in an envelope and
mail them without writing the addresses each time. Everybody that I
knew on Kunsan AB did that. Each stack of envelopes contained 20 or
30 or more envelopes, that is, they were stacks several inches high.
When I went to pick up my envelopes at the printing concessionaire,
the clerk made a hissing sound and started to lift sheets of paper
that were piled on the counter and looked under them one by one.
After he lifted several papers that were laying flat on the counter
under which two stacks of that many envelopes could not possibly be
hiding, I realized that he was afraid to tell me that the envelopes
were not ready, but he made a herculean effort to look for them. He
finally said, “not ready,” with an apologetic face. This was the
only time something was not ready practically overnight.
The
Oriental Bath
There
also were other services available on base such as hair cutting, shoe
repair, laundry, etc. In addition there also was an oriental bath
house. This basically was a place where one could get a steam bath
and a massage. I had no desire to go there because such
establishments had a dubious reputation. This steam bath being on
base, controlled and inspected by base personnel, did not live up to
the reputation of its off-base counterparts. Still, I would not have
gone there if a lieutenant colonel who was at our detachment for an
inspection had not asked me to go there with him. He was curious and
since he was the leader of an inspection team that was checking us
over if we were following all regulations, providing good service,
etc., I felt that I had to honor his request to create a good and
cooperative image, not only of myself, but of the entire detachment.
The
bath house was a small building located in one corner of the base,
with several small rooms. In each of the rooms was a metal box, much
like a large clothes dryer, and a massage table. A door allowed entry
into this box which, when the door was shut and the guest was seated
on the bench inside, enclosed the entire body except for the head.
The attendants were young Korean women, one of which appeared once
the guest was undressed and covered with a towel ready to enter the
box. The attendant then turned on the flow of steam into the box. The
“steaming” took place for about 30 minutes, as I recall, after
which a massage by the young lady followed. Everything was on the “up
and up” except for a little trick the young ladies thought of to
take advantage of us curious and naive foreigners. The trick was:
When my massage was about to end, the nice young lady came into the
room and announced that my friend in the next room wanted to stay
another round in the steam bath and massage and asked if I didn't
want to do the same. I pictured myself sitting in the waiting room
for another 30 to 45 minutes waiting until the lieutenant colonel had
his two rounds of steam bath and the massage, therefore I decided I
might as well wait for him in the box and take another turn too.
After we were all done, had paid, and were on our way back to our
quarters, the lieutenant colonel asked why I had requested a second
turn in the steam bath and I told him that I was told that he was the
instigator - we realized that we had just been tricked. The bath and
massage were cheap, we felt clean and an experience richer, and had
something to tell the rest of the inspection team.
Mid-Tour
Leave
This
tour to Korea had been a 12 month tour when I first received the
assignment, but by the time I got to Korea the rules had changed and
it now was a 13 month tour, with the possibility of taking a 19 day
leave to be able to fly home sometime during the tour. During the 12
month tour flying home was not allowed because it took too long. The
19 days allowed for four days travel time (two days each way), and 15
days at home, therefore we had to stay an extra month to make up for
it. I took my leave sometime in the summer. I wore my Sunny Bono suit
and the shirt I had made especially for it. When I transited the
Pittsburgh airport I could smell the aroma of hot dogs and sauerkraut
emanating from the fast food counter and I knew that I was back in my
culture - no charcoal smoke and no smell of garlic in the air!
My
family greeted me at the Philipsburg airport near State College,
Pennsylvania, where Ingrid and the girls were living. We had a
wonderful, but short, two weeks together with many hours at the pool
in our apartment complex. But, all good things come to an end and I
had to return to Korea. On the way back I had to spend the night in
Tokyo due to the curfew in Korea which did not allow traveling at
night. We would have arrived in Seoul in the middle of the night. On
my return to Kunsan AB a big letdown took place, I sometimes thought
that I maybe shouldn't have taken the leave because it was hard to
get back into the routine, and the end of the tour seemed even
farther away.
Fighter
Pilots
The
air base was shared with a ROKAF fighter wing which flew
Korean-war-vintage F-86 “Sabers.” The “Saber” was my favorite
airplane while I was growing up in the mid to late 1950's. When the
ROKAF F-86's took off, hardly any noise and very little smoke were
generated. When they went down the runway it seemed as if they were
taxiing a little fast and they used almost all the runway to get off
the ground.
The
USAF fighter wing flew F-4 “Phantoms.” The F-4, as stated by one
of the pilots, “turns lots of jet fuel into lots and lots of noise
and smoke.” When a flight of two F-4's took off side by side and
then kicked in their afterburners, the air virtually vibrated with
the thundering noise. The pilots flying these machines were highly
motivated
and mostly young. The leadership, of course, consisted of older
pilots who had earned their positions by surviving the rigors of
being a fighter pilot. For many this included several combat tours in
Vietnam and Thailand during the previous years when the Vietnam war
was in full swing.
The
rigors of being a fighter pilot included not only the dangers posed
by flying airplanes and the dangers encountered in combat, but one
had to be able to hold his own in the company of his peers (as far as
I remember, in those days no women were trained to be pilots, at
least not in combat aircraft). As on any team, there was a strong
bond between the members of each of the two squadrons that comprised
the fighter wing. Understandably, this was fostered by the
leadership. For instance, each squadron had a mascot, each squadron
had its colors, and each squadron had its own table in the dining
area of the officers club. It was an unwritten rule that no one else
could sit at one of the tables. The rest of us found seats elsewhere.
Members of each squadron gathered daily in the officers club, mostly
at their tables, except a few who sometimes mingled with others at
the bar or in the dining area.
Heavy
alcohol use was common, not only among the pilots, but also among the
rest of us. During in-processing we had been warned about
“situational alcoholism,” which referred to the daily consumption
of alcohol that resulted from being away from the family and in an
environment that offered little recreational alternatives. We
officers were forced to go to the officer's club because that is
where we took our meals and then it was easy to end up at the bar all
night. The bar was our living room, so to speak. We met our friends
there. There were some game machines available
and a single black and white TV set which showed re-runs of “I Love
Lucy,” dubbed in Korean. These were the days before multiple TVs
simultaneously running several channels could be found in bars and
restaurants as is usual now.
Over
the years, certain rituals and rules had emerged in Air Force clubs,
mainly officers clubs, to foster “esprit de corps” and to relieve
the tensions of combat during times when the next mission might have
drastic consequences. Many of the rituals originated during the
Vietnam war and were carried over to other areas, mainly at places
where the tours were unaccompanied and there was nothing much to do
but to gather at the clubs. The rules governing these seemingly
sophomoric rituals, were posted on the wall in the bar and were
called “Rules of Engagement” in reference to the rules governing
aerial combat.
One
of the basic rules was that no one should enter the bar with his hat
on. A sign read: “He who enters covered here will buy the bar a
round of cheer.” There was a big brass bell hanging over the bar
which the bartender, Mr. Kim, rang when someone entered with his hat
on. It was also against the rules to lay your hat on the bar. This
lead to a loud chant around the bar: “Hat on the bar,” and Mr.
Kim would ring the bell, resulting in a round of drinks for all at
the bar.
Almost
everybody at the bar smoked. There were ashtrays all around. In
addition, Mr Kim and his assistant, Mr. Kim (Kim being a common name
in Korea, both were named Kim and not related, we called the
assistant who was younger, little Kim), served peanuts in their
shells as a snack. Part of the peanut shells ended up in the
ashtrays, which was no problem, one of the Kims periodically emptied
the ashtrays. But when they were busy, the smokers had to compete
with the peanut shells for the ashtrays. Occasionally the shells
started to smolder and sometimes caught fire. Then, if some
unsuspecting individual poured part of his drink into the ashtray to
douse the fire, or if one of the Kims handed him the small fire
extinguisher that they kept behind the bar, and that individual then
started to extinguish the fire (as our newly arrived lieutenant did
one day), one of the Kims reached under the bar and placed a
fireman's hat on his head and announce that he now was an honorary
fireman and then immediately “ringy gongy,” as the Kims called
it, because he was wearing a hat at the bar, which cost him a round
of cheer. Then if he took the fireman's hat off and put it on the bar
it cost him another round because hats were not allowed on the bar.
Then
there was the ritual of “Dead Bug.” This ritual or game
definitely had its origin during the Vietnam war when fighters and
fighter bombers where flying over North Vietnam under constant threat
from heat-seeking surface to air missiles, so-called SAMS. One way to
escape an approaching SAM, apparently, was to “dive for the deck,”
meaning to make a sharp turn and dive toward the ground thereby
avoiding the missile because it could not turn as sharply. Where the
term “Dead Bug” came from I don't know, maybe it means that if
you don't do something quickly, you're a dead bug. The main rule of
the game was that when someone uttered the words “Dead Bug,”
everyone in the bar was to drop to the floor, the last one to hit the
floor was the dead bug and had to buy a round of drinks for the bar.
This sounds harmless enough, but in order not to be the last one on
the ground, people sitting on chairs just pushed themselves over
backwards, chair and all. This practice was particularly dangerous
for people sitting on high bar stools. Needless to say, this game
resulted in considerable damage to the furniture and caused many an
injury. But rather than forbidding the game, the club (and I am sure
with the blessing of the wing commander) had a new bar installed
which was only half as high as the one before and all the chairs and
bar stools were replaced with very low lounge chairs, which didn't
suffer as much as dining room chairs or bar stools and the fall with
them was not as dangerous. There were two additional rules to this
game, one was that the game was only played in the bar
and the other was that if you didn't want to participate you didn't
have to, but you had to sit still, even flinching could be
misconstrued as having participated, resulting in the penalty.
The
situation became particularly raucous when other fighter pilots were
visiting. Occasionally air crews from other air bases or even from
the Navy and the Marine Corps spent the night on Kunsan AB. They had
to be suitably entertained and impressed with the prowess of the
members of the “Wolf Pack,” as the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing
called themselves. There was much drinking, some “Dead Bugging”
and as the evening progressed, a game, probably originated by Navy
pilots, called “carrier landings,” was played. For this, two long
tables were put end-to-end, beer was poured over them, and then the
participants took a running start and dove unto the tables, sliding
on their chests and stomachs until they came to a stop. He who could
slide the furthers (best was to slide clear off the “deck” at the
far end) won. I don't know what the point was, whether bets were
placed or if the looser had to buy a round of drinks, but the
laughter, and apparent enjoyment were great.
All
this was tolerated and even to some degree encouraged by the
leadership. That the safety and good health of a pilot whose training
costs taxpayers a tidy sum were disregarded baffled me. For most of
the Air Force safety had highest priority. For instance, our command,
Air Weather Service, and I believe the rest of the Air Force, had a
standing rule that any officer who rode a motorcycle would be marked
one block lower in the category of “good judgment” on his
periodic evaluation. This could be the “kiss of death” as far as
a career was concerned. Several of the fighter pilots had motorcycles
on base. Once, when confronted with that fact during a staff meeting,
presumably by safety specialists, the operations officer for the wing
stated that he wasn't about to tell his pilots that riding a
motorcycle was too dangerous when they had to strap themselves into
contraptions with two jet engines, full of highly volatile fuel,
bombs and missiles hanging from the wings, and 20 millimeter cannon
ammunition all around them, and then fly at more than 600 miles per
hour 50 feet off the ground. Fighter pilots had to be a “different
breed of cat - every man a tiger.”
Speaking
of different breeds, these were the times of the streakers, when it
wasn't too uncommon to see someone run nude across a football field
or similar venue with a large audience. I was sitting in the bar at
the Kunsan AB officers club on a Sunday evening. The bar was almost
empty except for Mr. Kim, Jr., two Korean Officers with their wives
and maybe one or two other people. Suddenly a streaker entered the
bar, yelled: “Huh, huh, I'm a streaker,” jumped up and down a
couple of times and disappeared again. Those of us at the bar looked
at each other speechlessly. So did the Korean officers and their
wives and in typical Far East fashion went about their conversation
as if nothing had happened. The streaker had a nylon stocking over
his head to hide his identity, but I claim that I know who it was
because I recognized his somewhat rotund body (I think I saw him in
the shower room in the gym). I suspected that it was a lieutenant
colonel, one of the squadron commanders, who frequently came into the
weather station for a weather briefing.
Another
episode which I did not witness personally, but the tale of which
circulated around the base, involved the operations officer, the
colonel who would not forbid his pilots to ride motorcycles, and the
head nurse at the hospital. It was said that at the base movie
theater before one of the shows, this colonel and the nurse, both
nude, rode a motorcycle into the theater through one of the exit
doors, across in front of the screen and out another exit. Both of
these incidents must have been done to settle bets, I hope. Still, it
is hard to understand what motivated this “different breed of
cats.”
Non-pilots
did not participate in any of these antics as far as I know. Even
among the pilots there were some that behaved entirely differently.
There was a captain who was not assigned to either of the fighter
squadrons but was assigned to the base as a test pilot. It was his
job, whenever an airplane was overhauled or repaired for some
malfunction, to take a test flight to see if everything was working.
He was easy to talk to and told about his picture-taking hikes
through the Korean countryside. Another pilot I will never forget was
a second lieutenant by the name of Willie Mays (not the Willie Mays
of baseball fame). Willie frequently joined us non-pilots at a table.
He was the only second lieutenant in either of the flying squadrons.
Furthermore, he was an aircraft commander, not a weapon system
operator who sat in the back of the F-4, highly unusual for a second
lieutenant, which meant that he was an exceptional pilot (referred to
as a “hot stick” by his fellow pilots). Willie was one we could
ask what it was like to fly an F-4. He spoke enthusiastically about
flying. Among other things he explained to me how a pilot could get
out of a disabled F-4 when the ejection seat didn't work. Much to my
dismay I learned in 1982 that a Captain Willie Mays, a member of the
Thunderbirds, the US Air Force aerial demonstration team, and three
other members of the demonstration team were killed during a training
flight while practicing a line abreast loop. They followed their
leader who misjudged his distance to the ground and all four crashed.
I am not 100% sure that this was the Willie Mays that I knew, but all
evidence points to that fact, only the best pilots are chosen for the
Thunderbirds and Willie would have been the right age, also.
Living
Quarters
Even
in the assignment of living quarters for officers there was a
distinction made between pilots and non-pilot (support) officers.
Pilots were assigned to air conditioned buildings and had
semi-private bathrooms, whereas we support officers lived in older,
non-air conditioned buildings and had to share a common latrine and
shower down the hall. The rooms we had were small and the walls were
thin. The pilots had spacious rooms that were well insulated. The
reason for this discrepancy supposedly was that pilots had to have
more comfort and had to be well rested for their flying activity. Be
that as it may, each floor of our building (and others as well) had
several Korean maids, each of which took care of several rooms. We
each paid our maid for cleaning the room, making the bed, doing our
laundry, and polishing our shoes. The items that needed to be
pressed, starched or dry cleaned we took to the laundry. The maids
were a must, they came with the territory, but they were cheap - I
seem to remember $10 per month, plus we had to provide the laundry
detergent.
The
Weather Detachment Commander
Shortly
after I arrived on Kunsan AB we got a new commander in our
detachment. At first glance I could tell that hard times were about
to begin for us, judging by the critical look on his face. He was a
major who was out to further his career. He critically analyzed all
aspects of the weather station operation, correcting where he felt
correction was needed. The atmosphere in the weather station went
from easygoing to a more strict regimen. Even to the point that we
had an “open ranks inspection” where all the enlisted men were
inspected for personal appearance. At first there was resentment,
even among us two other officers in the detachment, but after a while
we acquiesced and I learned a lot from the major. He was by no means
a nice person, but he was a good commander. He would say, “nice
guys don't win ballgames.” He showed that a commander had to stick
his nose into every aspect of weather station operation. He called it
“supervisory attention to detail,” a concept I tried to remember
from then on. He told me about things he did while working as a staff
officer at some headquarters. He would go into the office early and
look through his superior's inbox to see what actions were going to
come up so that he could have answers as soon as he was tasked to do
something about one or two of the actions. If you disregard the
breach of privacy, not a bad way to do a good job in the eyes of your
superiors, and to get ahead.
Because
of his attention to discipline, it was easy for me as second in
command, he took care of all the disciplinary problems, not only in
the weather station but elsewhere where he encountered them. When he
was around I was relieved of the responsibility to correct
infractions, he did it without hesitation. For instance, when we
walked down the street together at the end of the day and some airman
failed to salute us, the major stopped the airman and asked in his
Brooklyn accent: “What's the matter fella, your arm broken?”
We
had a reserved parking space outside the passenger terminal in which
we had our weather station. The parking space was for the pick-up
truck assigned to the unit so that our weather maintenance people
could drive out along the runway to inspect and repair our weather
equipment. The major used this pick-up truck to go to the daily
operations briefing where he presented a weather briefing. One day he
returned from the briefing and found that a Security Police vehicle
occupied his parking space. He parked the pick-up behind the police
car, blocking it in and went to his office. Soon a young Security
Police airman appeared at his door and asked if that was our truck
and when he was told it was, he told the major to move it so that he
could get his police car out. The major apparently exchanged some
words with the airman, picked up the phone and called the commander
of the Security Police squadron and told him that his airman had
parked in his parking space and that the airman had shown a lack of
respect by not answering with “yes sir” or “no sir,” just
“yes” and “no.” When that Security Police airman left he
looked liked a beaten dog.
Consequently,
we had very little discipline problems within the weather detachment
except once when I happened to be on shift, from 4 P. M. to midnight.
At about 6 P. M., it was still light out, I happened to step outside
the back door of the weather station to get some more ammonia, which
was used in a machine that reproduced large weather maps, from a
locker kept outside. Next to the building, near the back door, our
radar tower was located. As I was getting the ammonia out of the
locker an empty beer can came tumbling down from the radar tower,
almost hitting me on the head. As I looked up I saw one of our
weather equipment maintenance men looking down at me and I heard
other voices coming from the enclosed dome. When I yelled up asking
what was going on there, the sergeant in charge of the maintenance
men and several others looked down and said, “nothing, sir.”
It
seemed to me that they were having a party 90 feet up in the air. I
wasn't about to go up there because I didn't like the height and,
besides, I was on duty and could not leave the weather station. I
deliberated about what to do. If I ignored the incident and the major
found out about it we all could be in a lot of trouble, on the other
hand I feared what the major might do to the maintenance men for what
may have been a harmless incident. Finally, I decided to call the
major who was having dinner at the officers club. He told me to tell
the maintenance men to stand by, he was coming to the weather
station. When he arrived he took the binder that contained the
Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the rules that govern
discipline in the US military, opened the binder to the section that
covered dereliction of duty, put a paper clip on the appropriate
page, and closed the binder. He placed the red-covered binder that
everybody recognized just by its color in the middle of his desk,
told me to call in the maintenance men, and to take a seat on the
side and to observe. Three or four sad looking individuals came in
and lined up in front of the major's desk. The major asked what was
going on up in the radar dome and was told that since they had been
working late, the sergeant in charge had brought up a couple of beers
for his men. The major then, without commenting on the confession,
opened the UCMJ binder to the marked page and read the appropriate
paragraph. He asked the men if they had understood what he had read
and they acknowledged that they had. The major then told them that he
would think about an appropriate punishment, but for now they were
dismissed. They left, I was impressed by the coolness in which he had
handled the situation and when I asked him what he might impose as a
punishment he said: “Nothing, let them think that I am thinking
about a punishment.” We had the tamest maintenance men, usually a
fairly independent group, from then on.
Summary
I
learned a lot and I saw many new and interesting things while in
Korea. But all in all it was a lost year for me because of the
separation from my family and the disappointment I felt because of
the apparent disparity between the treatment of air crews and support
personnel. I came back somewhat bitter and it took a while before I
realized that a fighter wing such as the one I had been attached to
was not representative of the US Air Force at large.
Scott Air Force Base, Illinois
Ever
since leaving Germany in 1964 I had tried to get another assignment
to Germany. For various reasons I was not eligible. It was clear that
when I left Korea I would get a stateside assignment and would have
to try to get an assignment to Germany from there. The major in
command of the detachment at Kunsan AB had given me the advice that
if I wanted to influence my assignments I should try to get assigned
to Scott AFB where the Air Weather Service assignments were made.
That I did and I did get assigned to Scott AFB in Illinois. This was
not a bad move because not only Air Weather Service headquarters was
there, but also the next higher headquarters, Military Airlift
Command (MAC). Getting exposure to major headquarters could be a plus
as far as one's career was concerned.
I
joined my family in Pennsylvania, made arrangements to have our
household goods shipped, and we drove to Illinois. Apparently we
didn't get to see too much of the countryside when we arrived because
the next morning when Ingrid opened the curtains in the guest
quarters where we were staying, she exclaimed: “Flat as a pancake!”
Most of Illinois is pretty flat but I tried to gloss over this
apparent flaw in our new surroundings by pointing out that that meant
that it was good bicycle riding country. We received quarters on
base, Christina was enrolled in school and we settled into our new
life.
15th
Weather Squadron
I
was assigned to the 15th Weather Squadron which had all the weather
detachments at MAC bases under it. It also provided weather support
to MAC headquarters where Air Force airlift activities were planned,
controlled, and monitored. Because I had written my thesis about the
results from a computer model I was considered a computer expert and
received a “C” in front of my job code. Consequently I became a
Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS) plans officer.
WWMCCS was a command and control system which had recently been
initiated. It was a computer based data storing and communicating
system that was to allow commanders at all levels to have access to
information about the status of their forces, logistics readiness,
and much more. Weather data was to be included in this system. But
since the system was still in its infancy and many commanders and
their staffs didn't know yet exactly how to implement it, I had very
little to do as WWMCCS plans officer, therefore, I was assigned to
the Weather Support Unit (WSU) that provided daily briefings to the
commander of MAC, a four star general, and his staff.
Briefings
Command
Briefers, usually captains who represented their specific specialty
such as operations, logistics, weather, etc., presented the
briefings. Each briefer briefed the generals about the status of his
particular specialty. When I became a Command Briefer I basically
gave the generals a report about weather conditions world-wide
wherever MAC aircraft were underway or stationed. The briefing took
place every weekday morning at 7 A. M. in the operations center to
the entire staff, and on Saturdays at 9 A. M. in the MAC Commander's
office to only the principal staff when many of the generals appeared
in their golfing attire because they were on their way to the golf
course. I was actually only on loan because of a shortage of the
briefing staff which consisted of two captains. This job could
further a career or it could ruin it, depending on the performance of
the briefer, and how well he was received by the generals. Some of
the high ranking generals had their favorite briefer whom they took
with them when they were reassigned. That is how the vacancy occurred
which I filled temporarily.
Colonel
Otto Jenista was the commander of the 15th Weather Squadron. I had
heard from the major at Kunsan AB that Colonel Jenista sometimes was
referred to as “Crazy Otto.” But since I had survived “Jack the
ripper,” as I had sometimes called the major in Korea (not to his
face), I wasn't worried. Colonel Jenista appeared as stern and
demanding as the major in Korea, but it soon turned out that when he
gained confidence in someone's work, he showed a big heart and was
very accommodating. He attended every morning briefing except on
Saturdays. At first he read every one of my scripts (we had to write
down what we were going to say) and critically viewed the slides that
were to accompany my speech before the briefing. He made corrections
to the contents if he felt it necessary. But soon the corrections to
my briefings became fewer and fewer and finally he didn't even come
by the WSU, but go directly to what was called the “balcony”
where 20 to 30 generals and colonels sat to listen to the briefing.
The
briefing took place in a large room with a high ceiling where the
representatives of various specialties that made up MAC, which was
comparable to a large airline, sat at consoles with telephones and
“walkie-talkies” (desk top computers and cell phones were not yet
invented) communicating with various parts of their domains to be
able to provide the headquarters with the latest information about
the status of all aspects of the fleet.
On one end of the room was a stage with a podium behind which was a
large schematic map of the world, with routes and bases where MAC
aircraft were located, posted on it. This was all done manually.
Above the map a screen on which the slides that accompanied each of
the briefings were projected. This was all quite primitive compared
to today's capabilities. The slides were hand drawn on transparent
plastic and projected by overhead slide projectors from the back of
the screen. The slides had to be in the correct order, and be
delivered well before the briefing to the projectionist.
The
“balcony” where the audience sat had a soundproof glass front.
The briefer had to speak into a microphone on the podium so that the
generals could hear him and if the general in charge wanted to speak
to the briefer he had to press a button and talk into a microphone as
well. This was so that the generals could discuss something without
everybody in the operations center hearing it. The briefer did not
see his slides because they were projected behind and above him, but
he could see their reflections in the glass enclosing the “balcony.”
To tell the projectionist to go to the next slide another button had
to be pushed. This arrangement took a little getting used to. After
my first few briefings my immediate boss, a lieutenant colonel, said
that he wished that I didn't look like I was announcing the opening
of the next concentration camp, meaning that I looked stern and
stiff. The reason for that was that I had to concentrate very hard to
read my script and push the right buttons. After a while I relaxed
and loosened up a bit.
Some
time after I arrived, the 15th Weather Squadron was upgraded to a
wing and became the 7th Weather Wing. More briefing officers were
assigned and I returned to my old job as WWMCCS plans officer, mainly
doing “odd jobs” such as writing the wing history, being Equal
Opportunity Officer, Safety Officer, etc.
Squadron
Officer School
Soon
after I arrived at Scott AFB, I was chosen to go to Squadron Officer
School (SOS) which was a three month school at Maxwell AFB in
Montgomery, Alabama. This school was intended to teach lieutenants
and captains management, leadership, as well as public speaking
techniques, to prepare them for bigger responsibilities. Not
everyone was chosen to go there, and if one did, it was a plus for
his or her career.
The only drawback was that it meant another three month family
separation so soon after having been away to Korea for a year. But it
was good experience and Ingrid and the girls came to Alabama to
visit.
My
class, 75-B from 4 April to 18 June 1975, consisted of almost 800
officers, some from foreign countries, split into classroom size
sections consisting of 12 officers each. My section had ten captains
and two first lieutenants. One of the captains was a female. In the
classrooms we learned leadership principles and team work by playing
little games such as making a prescribed figure out of pre-cut pieces
of paper, like a puzzle, without speaking to one another, but by
communicating with actions. There also were other tactical problems
such as acting together as a command post which controlled a number
of airplanes during a crisis in a fictitious South American country.
Daily lectures which all sections attended together were held in a
large auditorium which was windowless and had blue walls. When it got
warm outside in the afternoon it was pleasantly cool in the air
conditioned auditorium causing many of the students to nod off.
Consequently the auditorium was known as the “blue bedroom.”
The
lectures were the most interesting part of the curriculum because
some high ranking and/or famous people spoke there. One was Ira
Eaker, famous aviator and World War II general who led the bombing
campaign over Germany. Another was a former prisoner of war in North
Vietnam who as a colonel was the highest ranking prisoner and who
lectured about leadership in a prisoner of war situation.
Project
X
Besides
classroom work we also did a lot of sports and had to solve tactical
problems in the classroom and on the obstacle course. The obstacle
course was called “Project X” and consisted of a series of
problems that had to be solved by each section. Each obstacle had a
scenario as its basis which required the members of the section to
come up with a plan to get all the members safely over it. One of the
scenarios was that we were all escaped prisoners of war and were
being hunted by the enemy. The obstacle was a pool of water with
cement several pillars of various heights standing in the pool. We
also had a board, a barrel which could float, and a rope. The object
was to get everyone across the pool using the pillars, the board, the
barrel, and the rope without going into the water. The other
obstacles were similar in nature and we were graded by the
instructors as to cooperation and leadership, such as who came up
with the successful plan or who was the main force in solving the
problem. Getting past the obstacles required a lot of close bodily
contact and some did better at this than others.
Sports
Along
with being encouraged to become part of the “50 Mile Club” by
running at least 50 miles during the three months at SOS, sports and
competitive games were on the agenda. To more or less equalize the
ability among the students to do well in the sports, the sports
chosen for us to play were not the traditional American sports such
as baseball, softball or football, but relatively seldom played
sports in the USA such as soccer or volleyball and one which
apparently was invented by the Air Force - flickerball. Flickerball
is a combination of American football and basketball and is played
with an American football. There is no body contact allowed, the ball
cannot touch the ground, passes are only allowed forward or
laterally, not backwards, and you cannot run more than three steps
when in possession of the ball. To score a goal the ball has to be
thrown through a square hole in a basketball backboard. Another game
that only few had played before was soccer.. Here the foreign
students had an edge because many had played soccer before. The third
game was volleyball. Many of us had played volleyball at a picnic or
at the beach, but never with such strictly enforced rules. We played
each sport for a number of weeks and then moved on to the next one,
always in competition with other sections. The best part was that
after competitions the instructors brought beer, soft drinks, and
snacks to the fields. Family members who were in the area could come
and we had a party (we all chipped in for the refreshments).
WWMCCS
School
To
add to this renewed absence, however, came another three month
absence, this time to Keesler AFB in Mississippi to attend a WWMCCS
programmer's course. The course was not really meant to make
programmers out of us, but was intended to familiarize future
leaders, due to the recent proliferation of computers, with what it
takes to make them useful in daily applications. The methods were
crude by today's standards, we were given instructions in the basic
programming steps in the programming language called “COBOL”
(short for Common Business Oriented Language) and then as exercises
we had to solve simple problems such as printing out a list names or
items. The programs were punched onto so-called “80 column cards”
which were then delivered to the computer room where an operator
(such as I had been at Offutt AFB) tried to run the program and then
made the output available to us. In most cases some error right at
the start aborted the program so that we never really got the feel
for solving a problem with the computer. We never got to touch the
computer which was a huge box (bigger than the computer I operated at
Offutt), sitting in an old hangar.
The
Austin-Healey
To
alleviate some of the boredom (we went to class from 6 A. M. to noon
and had the rest of the day off) and the loneliness, I bought a 1963
Austin-Healey 3000, sports car. I think I paid $2300 for it. It was
not in top shape, but it ran and I had fun with it. One of the first
things I did was take it to a friend's house (Dave Danielson, who had
been an Air Force graduate student at Penn State with me and now was
an instructor at the Weather Satellite Interpretation School at
Keesler) to change the oil. We changed the oil in Dave's driveway and
when I started the engine all the oil came running out from under the
car - we had not screwed the oil filter on properly. We tried to soak
the oil up with rags, but Dave had an oil spot on his driveway from
then on.
There
were some other disappointing moments with this car. On the way back
to Illinois, when I stopped for something to eat, the engine wouldn't
start. Luckily I recognized the symptoms, the same ones I had
experienced when I drove with Ingrid's mother from Pennsylvania to
Omaha. A “click” was all I got out of the starter, but a cleaning
of the battery terminals and a tightening of the battery cables
solved this problem.
Another
problem surfaced when I changed one or more of the tires at the base
hobby shop on Scott AFB. When I tightened the knock-off lugs again
and wanted to drive away, the car didn't move although the
speedometer showed that I should have been moving. The problem was
that the axles which drove the rear wheels, which originally had
grooves on them where they interacted with the wheels, had been worn
smooth and were just rotating inside the hubs of the wheels. When I
tightened the knock-off lugs forcefully, essentially “fusing” the
axle with the wheel, this cured this problem but caused another one
which didn't surface until later - the force exerted by the wheel
lugs sheared the bolts that held the wheel on the axle housing
causing the wheel to come off and with it pulling the axle out of the
casing that enclosed the axle.
This
became most embarrassing when I went to sell the Austin-Healey to a
dealer in Saint Louis who had shown interest on the phone in buying
it. As I was looking for the dealership, one of the rear wheels
started to pull out as it had done before. I quickly turned into a
supermarket parking lot and made the necessary repairs. Ingrid had
followed me with our other car with all the kids and the dog in the
car. As I wiped the grease off my hands and tried to see where we
were, I discovered that the dealership I was looking for was right
across the street with a perfect view of the supermarket parking lot.
They apparently weren't in the habit of observing what went on in the
supermarket parking lot, because the owner never mentioned seeing me
working on the car. They bought the car for $1700. I had to sell it
because we had orders to move to Germany and I didn't want to ship
it. I decided that I had $600 worth of fun with it and was glad to be
rid of the problems it periodically revealed.
Scott Air
Force Base Life
The
selling of the Austin-Healey didn't occur until almost two years
later. Meanwhile back at Scott AFB life went on. In 1976 I received
orders for the WSU at the US Army Headquarters in Europe in
Heidelberg, Germany. An assignment to Heidelberg was a dream come
true for which I had lobbied and which had been the sole reason for
me to ask for the assignment to Scott AFB so that I could influence
my next assignment. It promised to be a similar position as that
which I had when I first arrived at Scott, briefing high-level staff.
We made plans, but since the date for the move was still some time
away, no concrete steps had been taken, when one day, I received a
call from the captain who did the assignments, asking me to come to
his office. I had a feeling that he wasn't going to give me good news
and I was right. He had to cancel my assignment because I would not
be able to obtain the level of security clearance required for the
position I was scheduled to take. I had a Top Secret clearance, but
that wasn't good enough, this position required an additional level.
The reason I could not be awarded the higher clearance was that
Ingrid was still a German citizen and the rule was that if the spouse
was a citizen of the country in which the prospective position was
located, the clearance could not be granted. If we had been assigned
to any country other than Germany I would not have had a problem
getting the security clearance. It had something to do with relatives
living in the foreign country being liable to be put under pressure
to force the clearance carrier to reveal classified information.
Needless
to say, we were very disappointed. All the past years we had hoped
and even planned on an assignment to Germany. I had bought a Volvo in
1973 partly because I thought it would be easier to drive in Europe
than the big Buick we had at that time. We had put off getting a dog,
which I had always wanted, because of the uncertainty of whether we
could take a dog, and how the living conditions would be in Germany.
So, when the assignment was canceled, I decide that I had put off too
many things in the expectation of getting an assignment to Germany
and decided to get a dog. It was a boxer puppy that we got from a
family in Saint Louis. We named him Koko in honor of the Koko I grew
up with in Connecticut. We never regretted getting Koko, he became
part of the family, even though he presented us with a few trying
moments which I have written down in a book called “A Dog's Life.”
Meanwhile
we had made many friends in our neighborhood on base. One of the more
memorable friends was a first lieutenant by the name of Horace Moss,
known to those who knew him closer as “Whistler.” Where that
nickname came from, I do not know. Whistler had two motorcycles, one
for himself and one for his wife. His wife never rode her motorcycle.
I don't know if she ever did, at least she never touched it while we
were neighbors at Scott AFB. Since Whistler didn't like riding alone
he offered to let me ride his wife's motorcycle. I practiced riding a
little in the parking lot, went and got my motorcycle license, and
Whistler and I rode through the Illinois countryside. Since these
motorcycles were so-called dirt bikes, we did most of our riding in
the woods and in abandoned quarries or strip mines where the
excavated earth had been piled into little hills. These hills and
their associated valleys had been turned into a course by other
motorcyclists and were fun to ride.
Looking
back it is a blessing that nothing ever happened to me because I was
doing this without the knowledge of my superiors. As I said before,
the Air Force took a dim view of its members riding motorcycles
because of the dangers involved. Anyone who wanted to ride a
motorcycle had to attend a safety course given by the base.
Therefore, one's superiors could be informed, resulting in having
one's judgment questioned on the next Efficiency Report, a periodic
“report card.” I never attended a safety course and didn't tell
my superiors that I was riding a motorcycle. But all went well.
Sometime
in 1976, Colonel Jenista, the wing commander with whom I had
developed a good relationship, was transferred to Germany as
commander of the 2nd Weather Wing on Ramstein AB, Germany. In 1977 I
decide to give him a call and ask him if he didn't have a position
for me there at Ramstein. I figured, Ramstein, about an hour's drive
from Heidelberg, was better than no assignment to Germany at all.
Colonel Jenista checked with his personnel specialists and called me
back with a line number for a position on his staff as WWMCCS
officer. I took that line number to the assignments captain and
received orders to move to Ramstein AB, Germany.
This
time the assignment was not canceled. In late June 1977 we had our
household goods packed and shipped, took a short trip to Connecticut
to visit my mother, Sylvia and David, and headed for McGuire AFB in
New Jersey to fly to Germany. But first I had to take Koko to
Bayonne, New Jersey, to have him shipped separately. Koko was a
little over a year old and didn't know what was going on when someone
took his leash and disappeared with him in another room. The parting
was purposely done abruptly so as not to let any emotions from either
the human or the animal interfere with the transfer.
It
was July and it was hot in New Jersey. The terminal building was
being renovated so there not only wasn't any air conditioning, but
also some of the walls were missing letting the hot air from outside
flow in. After a long wait we were finally in the air on our way to
Germany.
Ramstein Air Base, Germany
Because
there was a housing shortage around Kaiserslautern, Germany,
the families of people assigned there were not automatically allowed
to come over at the same time as the military member. The military
member had to first find a place to live, either in base housing or
off-base, before his or her family was allowed to join him or her.
But if one had relatives living in Germany where the family could
live while the military member looked for quarters, simultaneous
travel was allowed. This was our case.
Ingrid's
sister picked us up at Rhein-Main AB, the Gateway to Europe, and took
us to Heidelberg. After we picked up Koko, Ingrid and the girls
stayed with Ingrid's mother while I went to Ramstein AB to sign in.
Every new arrival was assigned a sponsor who was working in the same
or similar capacity and whose job it was to help the new arrival to
get settled, find his way around, find a place to live, etc. I was
extremely fortunate that I had an excellent sponsor, Major Charles
Tracy, who not only performed the usual sponsor's duties, but loaned
me his second car so that I could get around and even drive to
Heidelberg on weekends. He became a real friend and mentor. I worked
with him in the Plans section of 2nd Weather Wing (2WW), went on
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Tactical Evaluations
with him and he was instrumental in getting me the prestigious
position of Executive Officer to Colonel Jenista, the 2WW commander.
The
position of Executive Officer was not an official position, but
prestigious because one worked directly for the wing commander and
acted as his aide. The job was largely administrative, making
arrangements for the colonel's travels, making reservations when
necessary, scheduling meetings, etc. Since I had built up good
rapport with Colonel Jenista, I had an easy time (as opposed to my
predecessor) during my tenure and that continued when Colonel Jenista
retired and he was succeeded by the Vice Commander, Colonel Lynn
LeBlanc. (We have kept in touch with Otto and his wife Kaye over the
years; we have visited them in Phoenix, Arizona, and they have
stopped by in Heidelberg several times when they were touring
Europe.)
Hochspeyer
After
some weeks of searching, we found an apartment in a small village
outside of Kaiserslautern, called Hochspeyer. Again it was Charley
Tracy who lived on Sembach AB who was instrumental in us moving to
Hochspeyer because he recommended that we send our children to the
American school on Sembach AB which was a smaller base than Ramstein
AB and had better schools because of the small size. Furthermore,
since we hoped to eventually move to Sembach AB when quarters became
available, the girls would not have to switch schools since
Hochspeyer was in the Sembach AB school district. (For a short time
Christina went to a German school in Kaiserslautern but returned to
the American school because the German children were much farther
advanced in their learning process and she had a hard time making
friends since her classmates had been together for a long time and
had become very cliquish.)
We
found an apartment from a landlord who had been suspended from doing
business with Americans. The suspension (the reason is unknown to me,
maybe he was charging too much rent for substandard apartments) was
temporary and had just been lifted. At the same time a German family
had just vacated one of his apartments because they had built a house
across the street and we were able to get their old apartment for the
same price that they had been paying. The apartment was one of the
nicer ones that he rented and was worth what we paid for it. It was
also very convenient because just a few steps at the end of the
street was a meadow and behind it the forest where we could take Koko
for a walk. I spent many hours walking through the woods with Koko
and sometimes with his female companion, Kola. Kola was a female
boxer belonging to a young lady who lived down the street. She was
studying to be a teacher and lived at home with her widowed mother.
Since Koko and Kola got along really well, we took turns taking the
dogs for a walk. Across the street from us there were two more
boxers, brothers, who also played with Koko, but when Kola joined
them, the males started fighting and since the two brothers teamed up
against Koko, he ended up being the loser.
Ingrid
quickly made friends with the neighbors, both German and American.
Several other American families with children were living in the
neighborhood. The children became playmates of our children and
shared the bus ride to the Sembach school with them. Christina made
friends with a German girl in the neighborhood with whom she is still
in touch today.
Getting
used to Life in Germany
When
we first arrived in the Kaiserslautern area I was quite disappointed.
I hadn't been in Germany since 1972 and then it had just been a short
visit. I was astonished at how much everything had changed, the
hectic pace, the traffic, the difficulty in finding a place to live
(which was way below the standard we had been used to) so that I
suffered somewhat of a culture shock. For a brief period of time I
was sorry to have left a relatively comfortable life in the US. But
that changed after a while as I got used to the situation. We didn't
have a telephone for over a year because the section of the village
in which we lived didn't have enough lines available until new
telephone lines were laid. Ingrid went to the local post office to
make phone calls --she became well known to the attendant there.
Ingrid's
mother came to visit frequently, taking the train from Heidelberg,
and Ingrid picked her up at the Hochspeyer train station. One time
her mother did not arrive with the train on which Ingrid expected
her, therefore, Ingrid went home. When her mother arrived on the next
train and was looking for Ingrid, the station master told her that
her daughter was there earlier but had left, but he would call her to
have her come back. That is how well-known we had become.
But,
all along I had an eye on an assignment to Heidelberg. The 2WW had
several squadrons under it, all geographically located elsewhere in
Germany and other parts of Europe. Among them was the 7th Weather
Squadron (7WS) in Heidelberg. I had been stationed at one of the
detachments of the 7WS, at the Army airfield in Heidelberg, when I
met Ingrid in 1964. At my current rank of captain it was virtually
impossible to get an assignment to that detachment, but 7WS
Headquarters was also in Heidelberg where there were several
positions which were suitable for my rank. I made my desire known
that I would be willing to transfer to the 7WS Headquarters in
Heidelberg and in 1980 several fortuitous circumstances worked in my
favor and I received a consecutive overseas tour to the 7WS
Headquarters in Heidelberg. The fortunate circumstances were that my
current tour at 2WW was going to be finished in June of 1980. Also, I
had recently been promoted to major and a major at the 7WS
Headquarters had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and was looking
for a more suitable position commensurate with his new rank, and such
a position was available at 2WW headquarters. Therefore, I was able
to take his position and to move to 7WS headquarters and he moved to
2WW headquarters in the summer of 1980.
Heidelberg, Germany
The
Headquarters, US Army, Europe (USAREUR) and 7WS headquarters were
located on Campbell Barracks, which had been a German Army casern
before and during World War II. After a short wait, during which I
lived with Ingrid's mother during the week and drove back to
Hochspeyer on weekends, we received government quarters right across
the street from Campbell Barracks, where I worked. The housing area
was called Mark Twain Village, named after the American writer who
had visited Heidelberg nine times. The quarters were in an apartment
building with two stairwells. Each stairwell led to six apartments.
The apartments were large, had two or three bedrooms (we had three
bedrooms) and each had a maid's room in the attic. The apartments
were especially built for US forces in the late 1940s and early 1950s
when Americans could afford maids.
The
high school was a short walk across the street, just like my
workplace. I could go home for lunch and we didn't need a second car.
Since we lived so conveniently, our house was a favorite gathering
point for our girls' friends after school. For a while Kathleen and
Heidi went to a German school called Englisches Institut. But just as
was the case with Christina when we were in Hochspeyer, the girls
were far behind the German kids their age so that we took them out
again after a while. Kathleen made some friends and actually started
to get grades that could be recorded, before that her test results
were so low that they couldn't even be assigned a grade. Heidi never
reached that stage, except in English, which the German kids learned
as a foreign language. Additionally, the girls missed the activities
and their friends in the American school. When they returned to the
American school they became involved in sports and other after-school
activities. Both Kathleen and Heidi were on the gymnastics team,
additionally, Kathleen was a cheer leader, and Heidi a swimmer.
Christina was more the studious type and received the second highest
average in her graduating class.
NATO
Ramstein
AB, besides having US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) Headquarters also
had two NATO headquarters, Allied Air Forces Central Europe (AAFCENT)
and 4th
Allied Tactical Air Force (4ATAF).
On Campbell Barracks there was the headquarters of the NATO ground
unit, Central Army Group (CENTAG). Just about the time I moved to
Heidelberg, 4ATAF also moved to Heidelberg. 4ATAF was the air arm
associated with CENTAG and it was thought that coordination between
the two headquarters would be better if they were co-located.
Therefore, 4ATAF moved to Campbell Barracks. The building 4ATAF was
to move into was the building where 7WS had been housed for many
years. But, since the entire building was to be renovated for 4ATAF,
7WS had to move to temporary quarters for a few months. I arrived
during the middle of the temporary displacement. We were able to move
back into the newly renovated facility, but instead of being confined
to the basement as before, we were now relegated to the attic. That
is the way it usually went: The weather people were always sort of
stepchildren, being placed in facilities that were left over after
everyone else had been accommodated.
NATO
insisted that the entire building be secured, with only one entrance,
where guards checked the access badges of authorized personnel.
Because classified information was openly handled in the offices, the
whole building had to be classified. This made going in and receiving
deliveries cumbersome. The nice part was that no outsiders could
surprise us because they had to call from the guards at the door to
be escorted in.
The
4ATAF people (who were all from one of the allied air forces
including Dutch, Danes, Germans, Belgians, Americans, Canadians, and
maybe one or two other nationalities that I have forgotten) treated
us as equals, but they had some practices that made us envious. For
instance, since the holidays celebrated by the different nations
didn't always coincide, they took all of the holidays off out of
deference to the various nations. NATO also believed in enhancing
cooperation and good working relations through frequent socializing.
Each Friday afternoon at 3 P. M. the smell of food permeated the
entire building. Heavy snacks and drinks were served in the
conference room on the third floor, and since warm air rises, we in
the attic got more of the luscious scent than those on the lower
floors.
Another
nicety that NATO provided as a reward for the international
cooperation occurred when 4ATAF first moved to Heidelberg. Because
many of the 4ATAF staff members could not be expected to relocate
their homes and families to Heidelberg right away, NATO provided a
bus that brought 4ATAF people who still lived in the Ramstein area to
Heidelberg in the morning and took them back again in the afternoon,
roughly a one and a half hour drive each way. Of course, these
roughly three hours counted as work hours. The bus left Ramstein at
7:30 in the morning, arrived in Heidelberg at about 9 and left again
at 3 P. M., allowing the staff members to be in the office for six
hours, one hour of which was lunch hour. Some claimed to do work
while on the bus, but before the days of cell phones, lap tops, and
satellite computer communications, I doubt that very much work was
being done. However, the socializing got a boost. We envied the 4ATAF
people, but did benefit somewhat in that some of us got to
participate in their headquarters exercises during which we were able
to partake of their generous rations, and from other social events to
which some of us were periodically invited.
7th
Weather Squadron
Initially
my position at 7WS was that of Technical Services Officer in which
capacity I was to monitor the technical accuracy of the forecasts
provided by our 12 to 16 detachments and to render technical
assistance to them if necessary. This involved analyzing monthly
statistics which were derived from verification data of the
individual detachments and forwarding them to higher headquarters.
Researching climatological data and proving statistical data for
plans and contingencies were also part of the job. In addition,
periodic visits to each detachment had to be made to look first hand
at instructions and standard operating procedures. After about a year
I was given the position of Current Operations Officer, which was a
step up, when the incumbent moved up to be Operations Officer. My new
position entailed a similar interaction with the detachments as that
of Technical Services Officer, except more geared toward day-to-day
operations rather than to the pure technical aspect.
Squadron
Commander
When
I first met the 7WS commander, a colonel, while I was at 2WW
headquarters, I judged him to be a friendly, easy-going person. After
I moved to 7WS I saw a different picture. He was a politician, if not
to say opportunist, who was always on the lookout to make himself
look good and to advance his career. For instance, the Air Force and
its subordinate commands such as our Air Weather Service had
established a number of periodic (usually annual) awards that could
be presented to deserving individuals. Some had to do with job
performance, some with humanitarian actions such as saving someone's
life other than in the line of duty, and still others rewarded
outstanding courageous actions in combat situations. The colonel had
us submit nominations for almost all awards, even though many did not
apply to any of our people or we had to stretch the truth
considerably to come up with a plausible justification for the award.
The colonel obviously wanted to stand out as one who commanded
outstanding people and who took great pains to recognize his people.
In fact very few of these awards were ever awarded to any of our
people, but the colonel led the submission statistics. He called this
kind of enthusiasm for anticipating and fulfilling perceived higher
headquarters requirements as “leaning forward in the trenches.” I
was the squadron Awards Officer who had to come up with the
candidates and the appropriate write-up for the awards.
This
commander left for another assignment and was followed by Colonel
John Taylor, a much better commander and human being whom I had first
met in 1963 or 1964 while I was an observer at the Heidelberg AAF and
he was a second lieutenant at one of our operating locations.
Planning for a Life after the US Air Force
During
the three years at 7WS headquarters I started thinking about my
future and that of my family. We had been in Germany for more than
five years and had become accustomed to living in Germany. Since we
had moved to Heidelberg we had been accepted into a circle of friends
who either were old friends of Ingrid's or whom we had met through
her sister.
The
question of whether to leave the military and stay in Heidelberg was
on my mind at least since being assigned to Heidelberg, if not
sooner. What occupation to pursue after leaving the Air Force was the
big question. There were no private meteorological firms in Germany
in those days. All weather forecasting and warning was done by the
government. The meteorologists working for the German weather service
were civil servants which required them to be Germans citizens. I had
given up my German citizenship and was not about to give up my
American citizenship to obtain the German citizenship, because I
would have lost my military retirement pay,
besides the process of obtaining German citizenship could take as
long as ten years.
So,
I started to look elsewhere for my future endeavor. One thing in my
favor was that I had learned some computer programming in college and
as part of my WWMCCS Plans Officer training. Therefore, I decided to
pursue a masters degree in Computer Information Systems, which Boston
University was offering in Heidelberg, to broaden my knowledge of
computers and their application. For almost three years I went to
evening and weekend classes and graduated in January of 1983.
Management Information Systems were the buzzwords of the day and I
wanted to get in on that technology. How and where I was going to
practice my new skill was uncertain. Most likely were American firms
under contract to the US Army in Heidelberg who were developing ever
increasing numbers of computer systems that were supposed to manage
the masses of information that the military, the US Army in this
case, produced. That these first projects would lead to everyone
having one or more computer screens on their desk and wireless
connections to portable computers, etc., was undreamed of.
Another
factor that influenced my thinking was that the higher in rank I rose
in the Air Force, the less I enjoyed the work. I had decided to stay
in Air Weather Service because I liked working in the weather station
and to be around flying activities. The headquarters jobs were purely
administrative and not very creative. I didn't like to go on visits
to detachments and to have to chastise people for their performance,
or lack thereof. Adding to my discontent was that I encountered some
strange people who worked with me at the 7WS headquarters and about
which I could do nothing, but had to endure because I wasn't in
charge.
For
one, there was a nice German lady, a typist, who had worked for 7WS
for a long time, but who always wore a long white gown with a scarf
over her head and had her face painted white as if covered by a thick
cream. Why she did this no one ever found out. It was rumored that
she had been assaulted by men and was hiding her identity, or that it
was a religious thing. She spoke very softly and usually only when
spoken to and no one had the heart to ask her why she dressed like
that. She was very nice. She put a red rose on the desk of anyone
departing and was a good typist. But she sometimes scared visitors or
new arrivals because she had the habit of appearing at one's desk
under some pretense, such as bringing a letter or picking up
something, while one was talking to a visitor or a new arrival. I had
the feeling she checked the person out.
The
second annoyance was a sergeant who constantly cleared his throat and
often spit into his handkerchief. He was an excellent administrative
NCO, but his habit was not only annoying, but sickening. On an
inspection visit with him and several others we were sitting in a
German restaurant when he constantly cleared his throat and people
around us started to look and frown at us. I tried to ignore the
situation but finally had to tell him to stop. His feelings were hurt
for a while, but he stopped long enough for us to finish our meal and
make an exit. Granted, he had a problem with sinus drainage, but the
leadership ignored the problem and acted as if everything were
normal.
The
third irritant in my eyes was the supply sergeant who was obviously
overweight. He was placed on a mandatory weight control program, but
too late. His weight had created a problem for his feet so that he
could only wear sneakers. This made us Air Force people look bad in
front of the Army people: A sergeant in uniform with sneakers on. He
did have an excuse from the hospital which allowed him to wear
sneakers instead of regulation boots, but that wasn't obvious to the
casual observer.
I
just had the feeling that I didn't want to be part of people like
that. The general dissatisfaction with this and future jobs like it
and the newly gained knowledge about computer systems aided the
feeling that I didn't want to “do this anymore.” In addition,
favorable circumstances aided my decision about what to do with my
future. One was that I already had over 22 years of service, 20 were
required for retirement. The other was that my current overseas tour
was coming to an end. The third was that my active duty service
commitment because of the last promotion
was coming to an end at the same time. That meant that there was
nothing that stood in the way of my retirement and the start of a
new career. Staying in Heidelberg had an additional benefit, perhaps
played up in my mind to help me make my decision not to go to another
assignment, and that was that our girls were enrolled in the American
high school in Heidelberg, had friends there and were doing well. I
saw no need to make them move to some place that was strange to them.
I
retired from the US Air Force on 31 October 1983 with 22 years, 7
months and 16 days of service.
So
ended life number four.
Epilogue
At
the time of my retirement from the US Air Force I wrote the
following, mainly to myself:
As
the crow flies, it is roughly one mile from Detachment 3, 7th Weather
Squadron on the Heidelberg Army Airfield to Headquarters, 7th Weather
Squadron at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany. In the early
1960's the squadron headquarters seemed a long way from Detachment 3.
As it turned out in my case, it was a considerable distance. When I
arrived at Headquarters 7th Weather Squadron in 1980, it had been
almost 16 years since I had left the detachment at the Heidelberg
Army Airfield. In that sense it was the longest mile I ever traveled.
Because I will be leaving Air Weather Service soon, I am tempted to
do some reminiscing about what has happened to the US Air Force, Air
Weather Service, and me during the last 20-odd years.
It
is hard to believe that 22 years, 7 months, and 16 days will have
gone by since that dreary late winter morning in 1961 on which I took
the train from New London to New Haven, Connecticut, to take the oath
of enlistment in the US Air Force. At the time it only seemed to be
the start of another adventure, I didn't dream that that enlistment
ceremony would be the start of a rewarding career in blue for me.
Visions of becoming a fighter pilot, Steve Canyon-style, danced in my
head as I began my first four years in the Air Force. Those visions
were quickly and rudely dispelled by the realities of basic training.
The Aviation Cadet training area (although also on Lackland Air Force
Base and still operating) was not “...just a hop, skip and jump
from basic training...” as the recruiter had indicated to me! There
were only two ways to leave basic training: Wash out or graduate.
"Hopping, skipping or jumping" over to become an aviation
cadet was not one of the choices. But, as it turned out later, not
getting into flying was not such a bad deal after all. By pure
coincidence I was assigned to go to weather observer technical school
after basic training. My first permanent station was overseas in
Heidelberg, Germany, at Detachment 3, 7th Weather Squadron, at the
Heidelberg Army Airfield.
A
lot has happened since that day in 1961, not only to me, but to the
Air Force and Air Weather Service as well. Most of the changes were
good, some of them not so good. Some changes were reversed again as
time went by or when new requirements became known. It has often been
said that the world moves in cycles, and in a sense, so does the Air
Force and Air Weather Service. In some respects I am reminded of a
non-stop movie that plays over and over and the viewer leaves when
the part that he or she has already seen comes up again.
Here
are some examples. In the early 1960's Air Weather Service had a lot
of Representative Observation Sites (ROS). But, because of money and
manpower constraints, many, if not most, of the ROS were eliminated.
Lately we have been seeing more and more ROS being reestablished.
Also, in the early 1960's the Air Force made a big splash with the
5BX physical fitness program that was modified and largely abandoned.
Lately, another physical fitness program that strikes me as being
destined to go the same way as the 5BX has been publicized. Then we
eliminated a lot of units here and there and some squadrons and
wings. Some of my last actions at 7th Weather Squadron involved
preparations for reactivating some of the units closed earlier. I
understand that times, requirements, and the availability of
resources change - nevertheless, this is where I came in.
Not
all the innovations we have seen in the last 20 years have been
transient. Some very good and lasting programs were initiated. One
was the Airman Education and Commissioning Program, of which a lot of
us availed ourselves. Also, there were the many improvements made in
the living conditions and benefits for junior airmen and their
families. No one wants to see those changes reversed. Then there were
the many improvements in the quality, style, and ease of maintenance
of the uniforms. How many remember the old 1505's? Or even then bush
jacket, the pith helmet and shorts?
But
all the good programs in the world don't make a system work, people
make it work. That is where Air Weather Service always seemed to have
been very fortunate - with its people. Sometimes I wonder where they
are now and what they're doing, those comrades from earlier
assignments, especially from that first permanent assignment to
Detachment 3, 7th Weather Squadron. Where are you Bob, Brian, "Honest
Abe," Harry, "The Honeybear," Willy, Doug. Some have
left Air Weather Service and some have left the Air Force. Others
are still around.
So,
as my Air Weather Service career comes to a close, I look back with
only fond memories. I started my career at the Heidelberg Army
Airfield and I'm ending it at Headquarters, 7th Weather Squadron,
barely a mile from where I started. But while traveling that mile,
Air Weather Service and the US Air Force have been good to me. They
have made me what I am, given me all that I have. They took a college
dropout and gave him the opportunity to earn a bachelor's degree, a
commission, two master's degrees, and best of all, some lasting
friendships and fond memories.
Now
it is time to move on
and to say "so long" to Air Weather Service and the US Air
Force. It is a dreary October day in 1983, almost like the day in
March 1961. It is a good time to remember...
Career
Progression
1961-1964
Weather Observer, Detachment 3, 7th Weather Squadron, Heidelberg
Army Airfield, Germany. Duty: Shift Observer
1965-1966
Weather Observer, Detachment 10, 6th Weather Squadron, Goodfellow
AFB, Texas. Duty: Shift Observer, RAWINSONDE Operator
1966-1967
Weather Observer, Detachment 1, 3rd Weather Wing, Offutt AFB,
Nebraska. Duty: Computer Operator
1967-1969
Airman Education and Commissioning Program, Penn State University.
Duty: Undergraduate Student
1969
Officer Trainee, Lackland AFB, Texas
1970-1972
Weather Officer, Detachment 8, 16th Weather Squadron, Fort Riley,
Kansas. Duty: Shift Forecaster, Chief Forecaster, Staff Weather
Officer to US Army 1st Infantry Division
1972-1974
US Air Force Advanced Degree Program, Penn State University. Duty:
Graduate student
1974-1975
Advanced Weather Officer, Detachment 8, 10th Weather Squadron,
Kunsan AB, Korea. Duty: Shift Forecaster, Chief Forecaster
1975-1977
Advanced Weather Officer, Headquarters, 15th Weather Squadron
(later 7th Weather Wing), Scott AFB, Illinois. Duty: WWMCCS Plans
Officer, Command Briefer
1977-1980
Advanced Weather Officer, Headquarters 2nd Weather Wing, Ramstein
AB, Germany. Duty: WMCCS Plans Officer, Assistant NATO Plans
Officer, Executive Officer
1980-1983
Advanced Weather Officer, Headquarters US Army in Europe,
Heidelberg, Germany. Duty: Technical Services Officer, Current
Operations Officer
Awards
and Decorations
Meritorious
Service Medal
Commendation
Medal with one bronze oak leaf cluster
Army
Commendation Medal
Small
Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon
Armed
Services Expeditionary Medal
Good
Conduct Medal with one oak leaf cluster
Longevity
Service Award with four bronze oak leaf clusters
National
Defense Service Medal
Outstanding
Unit Award with two bronze oak leaf clusters
Footnotes
rning
sun shining on the faces of the presidents on Mount Rushmore - and we
saw the morning sun on their faces, from far away already. It seems
that you can't escape the great men's solemn gaze if you are anywhere
within several miles of Mount Rushmore in the direction that they are
facing. The detail of the sculptures is amazing, even the rim of
Theodore Roosevelt's glasses can be seen and the eyes seem to be
alive because of the light effect in the hollowed-out pupils. It was
a monumental job (if you pardon the pun) to carve these, to me,
perfect likenesses. Many tons of stone
had to be blasted away at the cost of millions of dollars, an
enormous engineering feat in itself, as can be seen by looking at the
photograph of what the mountain looked like before it became the home
of these distinguished heads of state (pun intended). Having said
that, I can't suppress the question that came to me while looking at
the great work of art: Why? No doubt the great men for whom this
monument was created deserve our respect and admiration, but that is
already being done in a myriad of ways, even in daily life.
Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln we encounter daily as we handle
our money and "Teddy" Roosevelt is present in almost every
home that has children, in the form of the Teddy Bear. From reading
the information posted at the Mount Rushmore Memorial this
undertaking was a private effort, financed by donations and federal
money. But, I could not help getting the feeling that there were some
people involved, including the artist, who were mainly interested in
their own aggrandizement. I can't say any more about this, it is just
a feeling I got from reading the narratives associated with
photographs of the initiation, progress, and dedication of the
project. Furthermore, what for me was distracting from the solemnity
that could a
ccompany
a traditional site such as this was the bombastic architecture that
makes up the memorial. A huge parking garage system (buses one way,
vans and trailers another, and cars yet another), heavy stone arches
with rows of flags - reminiscent of sites where Nazi rallies took
place - and a huge cafeteria that could hold many busloads of
tourists formed the core of the memorial. It is run by a private
enterprise and therefore only the view of the presidents is free and
that one can get from miles away, as I said at the beginning.
Actually, there is no entrance fee to the memorial, only a $10
parking fee. So if you are hardy and like to hike, you can walk to
the memorial from some distance away because there is no parking
allowed for some distance on the road leading to the memorial. We
stayed only a short time, you can only take so many pictures and look
up at the great men so many times, so that we were able to depart the
area just as the masses of tourists started to arrive. As we drove
away the great men kept watching us, especially since we then toured
Custer State Park which lies within viewing distance from Mount
Rushmore. ...”
