We were set up in the woods southeast of Wurzburg. Beautiful spot, rolling hills, farm fields, autobahn cutting through the middle of the area. A perfect place to take the young soldiers out to the top of the tall hill across the autobahn and do a map reading class. The 1:50000 maps the Army uses for manuever are fairly detailed and you could sit on the hill and look out over the countryside and orient the map easily, then point out the terrain features and landmarks. It was a great place...

It has been an interesting year. I have learned a lot of things. How to make them little happy or unhappy faces, ones that wink, even. I learned right away not to type in all caps...the lazy man's method. I feel I have been accepted by many, for that thanks. I learned that some folks try to make a joke out of anything and others have very little sense of humor about anything. I have learned that when I put out what I feel is a heart felt and honest piece, no one seems to notice...but I...

It was the coldest I had ever been in my life...even colder than the railroad platform in Minnesota at three o'clock in the morning, winter of 1954. I was in the cab of my fuel tanker, without a working heater ( driving around during the day, you could get a little heat from the engine compartment coming in through the hole in the firewall that was supposed to be for the heater duct but it didn't stay at all warm once the engine was shut off). We were in the woods on the side of Mount Bal...

I mentioned before that my friend, Dave, passed away recently. And that his wife, Imera, was getting a raw deal from her bank and an insurance company. This is not an update on that situation, that is an ongoing struggle. I don't know what this is. I can't explain it. I am not a believer in supernatural things...I don't do ghost stories...I have only seen one UFO and it got explained pretty thoroughly the same day I saw it. Here's what happened, you figure it out. A couple of us wer...

During a three year break in service, we lived in Phoenix. One of the schemes in my little thinker was to become a breeder of magnificent German Shepherds...with Golf von Haus Schutting as the prize breeding bull. Golf liked the idea, too. The plan got no farther than the first litter, we had a dozen or so dogs at one time...but times were not conducive to raising guard dogs. So the whole enterprise dried up, we sold two of the pups and gave away several, the most beautiful of the bunch, ...

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 ...

Jackson was a country boy. He did not want to be in the Army, did not want to be an Army trucker, did not want to be in Germany, and did not mind telling anyone who would listen all about it. He bunked under Johnny, a totally opposite type of person, adapted into the Army and its environs and so fully assimilated into German lifestyles that when he was on pass in town people were always mistaking him for a German. But this is about Jackson. Jackson spent an awful lot of time in bed. ...

MCB came from Denver. He was older than most enlistees...even older than most of the draftees. In the middle sixties, the draft age average was about 21 and six months. Used to be if you were married you could get deferred...but if you got a divorce before age 32, you went back into the hopper and could get drafted. So the two oldest draftees in the platoon were Mac, divorced at age 30, and Tatum, divorced at age 27. The rest of the draftees were in their early twenties and the enlistees...

The last I heard they were still looking for dad so no one is real sure if he shot his daughters because they had embraced those filthy western ways or if there was some other reason to kill two lovely, bright, popular, happy, young girls (adjectives provided by various friends and news services). Even if they were fat, ugly, malcontent, hated, pig-faced girls...I still can't think of how killing them restores honor to anyone or any thing. I can't think of a reason to kill your daughters......

Watching a commercial on TV about a new imaging process that shows a full size, 3-D image of an embryo in the womb, I heard the announcer say that now you can see the family resemblances in a week or two. And you can know for sure that it is a human life. I know what they were intending...the argument that it ain't people until whenever your favorite formula kicks in. But the way they stated it put the silliness of the whole argument on display. Of course it is a human. Giraffes don't co...

The annual PT test had to be modified because we didn't have all the facilities at Daley Barracks that you needed to do it right. So we did the 40 yard low crawl, didn't have the pit for Run, Dodge, and Jump so we did the inverted crawl instead. We did have a Horizontal Ladder, did that...don't recall what we did for the forth event...but one lap and a little change around the parade field was almost a mile and the Colonel called that good. I was 18. Should have been in the prime of my l...

Hope the new year brings you all you need and then some. Just keep pressing toward the mark for the prize...

Lt Marcus came into the POL office after lunch looking like he'd been visiting with the Commander again. He was muttering under his breath and looking down and went straight into his desk and plopped down without a single punch line. Strong signs of having received counsel from on high. Against my better judgement, I asked what was wrong. Turns out the Commander's wife had to be in Kaiserslautern for a big deal luncheon that day and the Commander had put their car in the shop for an oil...

Merry Christmas, Joe...or Happy Holidays or whatever floats your boat. If you are an athiest, at least thank Jesus for the day off !!

In almost every Army unit, vehicles are required to have a guy in the right seat to be the "TC". Truck Commander? Tank Commander? Not Vehicle Commander because that particular achronym was already taken in Asia. In any case...the duty of the TC is to be in charge, keep the driver awake, help spot landmarks and road signs, perhaps navigate, and make sure the vehicle doesn't get used for anything it isn't supposed to be used for. Some units take the TC job more seriously than others, but...