Back in the day, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was a border between East and West Germany. This was a real, by-gosh, barbed wire, minefield infested, machine gun covered, don't-you-dare-get-near-it border. There was a 5 kilometer strip on the west side of the border that was prohibited to US personnel. The Fulda Gap and a portion north and south of it was responsibility of the 14th Armored Cav...we sat in border camps on the edge of the 5K zone and patrolled the border and sat in watch towers and watched the East German border guard watching us. It was a tense place...we were the force that would be first to engage the Russian hordes if they decided to cross that border with evil intent. We called ourselves the first line of defense. The Russians called us a speed bump. On later tours in Germany I noticed that the 5K zone had become a 1K zone. I don't know why. But in the days when I was a border surveillor, the 5K zone was a strictly enforced "off limits" area for us...posted with big signs in a bunch of languages that said so.
Told you all that so I could tell you this. Ray was one of my room mates, he met a girl at a dance one weekend at the big Tanzhalle, the Schweizerhof.. She was a sweetie and a darn good example of what a German girl could look like. Ray immediately forgot about the girl back home and started keeping serious company with his fraulein. One Saturday afternoon after work, I was getting ready to head into town when Ray hit me up for a couple bucks. I guess he felt guitly about it so he invited me to go over to his girl's village with him and we could go out together...she could introduce me to a fraulein or two. We were on the way. After a long bus ride involving a couple of exchanges, we pulled into the town of Mellrichtstadt. German Towns all have a little sign at the entry and exit, telling you where you are and when you leave you get to know where you are going and how far 'til you get there. Mellrichtstadt had an extra little sign...the 5K warning sign...the whole town was in the off limits area. I couldn't believe my eyes. I turned to Ray and excitedly pointed out to him that we could go to jail if we were caught here. His answer was smooth...who would catch us? No US personnel are here...the Germans don't care...no problem.
We got off the bus and started walking to his girl's house, I was mulling over what he said and was just about to convince myself of the logic of it, when I heard a vehicle brake next to us, it sounded a lot like a jeep. I quick took off my Army issue glasses and turned to see an MP jeep with two big MPs on board. They had already started talking to Ray, I didn't catch what they asked him but he was busy doing his "No comprede" act (actually it was a "nicht verstehen" act). I don't know what his plan was if they started speaking German...I knew Ray's German was good enough to order beer and wurstchen but that was about all. The driver asked me if I spoke English...which, of course, I didn't. Then he smoothly switched to German, asking about the presence of American GIs in town. I could tell right away that my two years of German in high school was going to trump the driver's GI German, so I began a complex sentence vaguely touching on the subject but more to do with one of my favorite conversations from my German text book having to do with Paul und Maria ordering lunch. It worked. The driver gave a disgusted sigh and told the other guy we didn't know nothing. They tossed us a couple of cigarettes and drove off making fun of us in English. I couldn't resist a loud thank you and "Auf Wiedersehen". Ray almost fainted after they were out of sight. I didn't meet any frauleins...well, I met a few but there seemed to be only the one good looking one in the whole town...anyway, that was MY last trip to Mellrichtstadt. But it wasn't Starbucks.
The night of the company party, while Billy and I were on a bus trip to Wurzburg and the rest of the company was battling in the Headquarters Troop Barracks hallway, a thoroughly drunked up and lonely Ray went up to the motor pool and took his 1200 gallon fuel tanker and drove himself right out the main gate, they always stop military vehicles to check their dispatch and make sure there was a TC (shotgun rider) on board...he had neither and they didn't even check him out, just waved him through. Everyone was so distracted by all the other activity that he might have gotten away with it if he had come back in time for bedcheck. He didn't. But that just got him written up for missing bedcheck. It was the MPs that REGULARLY PATROL THE 5K ZONE that found the fuel tanker. There aren't too many places to hide a 2 1/2 ton fuel truck in a German village...narrow roads and all that...They blew the horn and when Ray came out to see who was messing with his truck, they arrested him. The charge sheet was a doozie...but he had a good lawyer...they dropped all the Mickey Mouse charges and just stuck him with Misappropriation, drunk driving, and of course, violating the "off limits" status of the 5K zone. He did ninety days in OCS (Old Coleman Stockade...located on Coleman Barracks in Sandhofen, a suburb of Mannheim). The judge went easy on him...if you drew 91 days or more (which his chargescould have easily earned him) you got shipped off to Leavenworth. I never saw him again. I came down on orders and was out of Germany a week before he was supposed to get out. I always wondered if the MPs who caught him were the same two we had a little sidewalk chat with that sunny Saturday...a wicked part of my little black heart hopes it was.