I told you all that so I could tell you this: one of the most important phases of my education came at the hands of one of the most bigoted, arrogant, self-important men I have ever known. I owe him more than I could ever repay. He saw in me qualities and talent I didn't know I had and dragged me kicking and screaming into his clutches. It began shortly after I arrived at EUCOM Support Activity (ESA) at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany.

I was assigned to the VIP section of the motor pool. ESA's mission was to support EUCOM...the motor pool supplied vehicles to transport officers and others around the city and Germany in general. The VIP section was designated to drive only the senior officials, military and civilian. We had shiny black Ford sedans and wore Class A uniforms every day. It wasn't a bad gig. I had only been there a short time when the whole VIP section was called to the Headquarters building to support a big conference EUCOM was hosting. We were assigned our "principles" and the pick-up points, rounded them up and then had to sit in a basement office in case we were needed to move someone around. The office was the workspace of an E-5 named Bray, who was permanently assigned to work in the Protocol Office. He resented having all the drivers crowding into his room, but he had no choice in the matter. His office adjoined that of the NCOIC of Protocol, a Master Sergeant named Lightfoot. If the invasion was distasteful to Bray, it was absolutely intolerable to Lightfoot. He managed to find fault and make comments and generally gloom the place up the whole time we had to be there. We of the VIP section unanimously agreed that the Master Sergeant was to be avoided at all cost. Each of us made an Herculean effort to stay out of his cross-hairs. In the next few months I had many occasions to share space with Lightfoot, and each was as painful as the first. That is why, on one afternoon when I was busy polishing my assigned sedan, the call to report to Protocol and see the Master Sergeant was troubling to me. There wasn't anything on the schedule that would involve my being around him. I felt a little dread...a big dread.

Not one for beating around the bush, or mincing words, Lightfoot got right to the point as soon as I walked in. Bray was a short-timer and would begin "clearing post" in a few days. A replacement was needed and I was to be it. I was not overjoyed. I was extremely underjoyed. He saw the look on my face and explained that I had two choices: 1) I would accept gladly, and he would call my First Sergeant and make it official and I would begin at 0700 the next morning or 2) I would refuse, and he would call my First Sergeant and make it official, and I would begin at 0700 the next morning. The only difference was the way that Lightfoot would address the rest of my time in Protocol. I gave it my careful consideration for about 5 seconds and "accepted gladly"; in fact, I couldn't wait to start the rest of my gloomy fate.

At first, my duties were limited to the driving aspect of the job. I was only used for visitors to the command who were at least four-star or civilian equivalent. That left a lot of down-time in the office. I thought that it could work out to be a pretty cushy assignment. One day Lightfoot asked me if I could type. I proudly answered that I could. I spent the next three hours typing up a revision to the weekly Distinguished Visitor Report...a document that had to be absolutely error-free because it went to every one of the senior officers at Patch...about thirty folks in all. This was before computers, or even word processors, so a typo meant a whole page had to be retyped...I hated that. I hated that I had opened my dumb mouth and said I could type. But that was just the beginning of sorrows. Gradually, over the next year or so, Lightfoot increased the administrative workload on me. From typing the report, I graduated to compiling, typing, proofing, and distributing the report. I became the booking agent for the VIP suites at the Visiting Officers Quarters (VOQ), scheduling rooms, reporting on suite utilization, and eventually became the point-of-contact for booking overflow into local hotels. One day I was overheard speaking passable German to one of the local workers. The next day I was tasked to make a dozen phone calls to local law-enforcement, security, and military offices to co-ordinate visits by US military personnel who were visiting EUCOM and wanted some interface with German agencies. This was taking place about the time the Bader-Meinhof gang kidnapped a local big shot and became the Red Army Faction. So security and protection became a serious concern. Guess who became the rep for that from Protocol? Since it all dovetailed together so well, I also became the point-of-contact for securing Invitational Travel Orders for folks who were not normally authorized to fly on military flights but had a one-time ride because they were on "official" DOD business. The duties continued to grow. I grumbled and growled with every new step. MamaCharlie got tired of hearing me spout off every week, or sometimes every day, about my ever-increasing work load.

However...on the other side of the coin, MamaCharlie refers to our time at Patch Barracks as the "House of our Hearts". As far as Army stuff goes, I wasn't pulling any duties at all. I worked for Protocol and Protocol only. Sometimes that infringed on evenings and weekends, but I never went to the field, and didn't even have any field equipment. I could walk to work in five minutes. Because of office schedules, I had my own PT program and hardly ever interacted with the ESA folks. I had the newest sedan in the fleet. The kids all walked to school, there was a commisary and PX and theater and gym, a snack bar (that served the best cheeseburgers ever), a library, a pizza parlor, and it was all within a ten-minute walk. Just out the back gate was a forested area for strolling or biking or jogging, there was a huge PX shopping center just across town at Robinson Barracks. The city of Stuttgart is a huge and wonderful city full of all kinds of things to do. Our favorite activity there was to load everyone into the car on a Saturday and drive out in search of adventure. We always found some. Villages and towns with beautiful old buildings, parks, rivers, castles, and wonderful places to eat. Some of our favorite places you would never find on any tourist brochure but they had charm and scenery and the family thrived on being there.

During my more than five years at EUCOM, I met and talked to dozens of interesting people. I drove for some really high-powered, high-profile, big-name individuals. Names you see in the news and never think you would ever have anything to do with them. And through it all, I continued to learn how to manage and move paper through the military system, how to recognize and pre-empt potential problems, how to "fix" things when others broke them, and how to manage my time so that I could get out of the office by retreat every day. Some days were very rewarding and then sometimes...like the day I stood rigidly at attention while an angry Army three-star ripped me from top to bottom for something a Marine Captain had done. The Marine stood there and watched me flame and never said a word. But for the most part, I got recognition for the job I did and even got requested by some repeat visitors who appreciated the way I took care of them when they visited. This is starting to sound a little too braggy. My point is that no matter how much I struggled against it, Lightfoot trained me to be an effective administrator. He even suprised me with a set of orders awarding me a secondary MOS of Administrative NCO. He had kept track of my progress and documented the whole thing as On-the-Job Training for that MOS. It wasn't until much later that I realized the value of my time in that office. For the rest of my career, both military and civilian, I used the skills and knowledge I gained at Protocol.

I never got any kind of diploma from Patch, but I have always felt that I should have. It was an education that prepared me for the most important parts of my career - and life - that were just over the horizon.