Sundays

In case you have not yet figured it out, I don't post on Sundays but if you stopped by today, thanks. I'll have a new post for you tomorrow.

Getting Back to Chicago

A friend from high school wrote me a letter while I was in Germany and she told me she thought I was the luckiest person in the WORLD to be stationed in Germany. I felt like it was a curse or a punishment. Lucky? What is so great about this?

She went on to explain the ratio of male soldiers to female soldiers and well, she was right about that. The male soldiers far out weighed the female soldiers. Not too far away were two kasernes Bleidorn and Barton Barracks (sometimes we'd go up there to eat in their mess hall) that were mostly artillery units hence 100% male soldiers. I suppose for a single female soldier stationed where I was would be ideal but well, it really wasn't for me.

I wasn't interested in dating any soldiers and the reason being, I wasn't interested in getting involved with anyone that wasn't from Chicago --because I fully intended to go back there and live the rest of my life there. I couldn't be bothered with anyone from New York or Montana or any place that wasn't home to me. I also wasn't interested in dating any soldiers because I also did not intend to spend not even 20 seconds longer in the Army, active-duty or as a spouse, than my enlistment time. Dating soldiers wasn't really an option for me. I was mostly interested in travel and working and counting the days until I'd be back home.

Its quite apparent in my pictures as most of them are of me and my roommate when we were travelling. That's it! When soldiers would marry, like Medic S, I would think how utterly stupid that was! How do you marry someone NOT from your hometown? How do you reconcile family holidays for the rest of your life? It made no sense to me at all. My grand plans were to do my time in the Army, go back home, meet the man of my dreams and live happily ever after in the Chicago land area. After all, what greater place would there be to live? Hawaiian paradise? Ha! Not me. The warm southern state of Georgia? Unthinkable! Ohio? Huh? Where is that?

I Salute My Comrades in Arms

In the course of writing this blog my memory had bee jogged to many things and recalling people that have not crossed my mind in years. It's been enjoyable for me to revisit all of these things and dig up old pictures. My hind sight has taught me many things.

When I blog about a person such as Tom or Wanda the story is significant because it changed me or at least began a change in me. Of course I met and knew 100's more people --most of which haven been long forgotten. But my encounter with certain people opened my sheltered eyes or broadened my views or changed my heart. It might not have been an instant change but as the seed was planted, I began to grow in new directions. I think that is why certain people or incidents have stuck with me this long. Someone once asked me, since it has been over 20 years, if I really remember these stories as detailed as I'm telling them and the answer is, yes I do however; I do not remember my entire Army career this vividly --just those things that marked something in me, dog-eared a page in my book of life.

It the realm of today's technology, it amazes me to have been overseas with hardly any communication with my family other than US mail. These days its so easy to jump on a computer and send an email, sit and chat on IM or fire off a text message. When I was in the Army we weren't even sending faxes, or at least not sending them in the manner we do now. I think that is what made it so tough being in Germany --just being out of touch and isolated. Certainly, every soldier's experience was not like mine as those stationed in larger cities had more things available to them. I was in the sleepy little town of Ansbach, Germany. There are some things that kept my sanity; letters and pictures from home, packages from home, calls from home, a best friend (I've yet to blog about), good NCO's that looked out for me and the ability to travel a lot --letters from home definitely being top of the list. I'd read them over and over and over gain. The pictures fro home were posted all over my barracks room and work area and they weren't there just for decorations --I looked at each of them every single day. I still have them all packed away in the basement and recently read some of them.

My mother's letters were typical mom stuff, "Are you okay? Are you eating enough? You look too skinny in your pictures. I have not heard from you in a long time. Please write to me and let me know you're okay. Are you going to church? Did you find a church to go to?" My grandmother's letters were short and sweet and usually about another sleepy little town but this one being nestled in the heart of the midwestern United States, East Prairie, Missouri. She'd write about her yard sale, Christmas decorations my grandfather put up or some little thing she was involved in at church or uptown (wasn't much). My sisters were usually the one sending pictures, especially my sister Val who was the only one married and with kids. She often would have Courtney, my niece, color (scribble) pictures for me. Those were hanging up too.

I don't know what its like now for soldiers stationed overseas but I imagine its much different that 20 years ago---I'd imagine their contact with home is via technology most of the time. Even still, I'd also imagine a letter or package from home would still be appreciated.

If you know someone currently serving in the military, why not sit down right now and write them a letter --even if they are stationed state-side. The best way to thank a soldier, or any member of the military, is to let them know they have not been forgotten on the home front.

I salute my Comrades in Arms.

More Crim Law

Part of my Crim Law duties was pre-trial confinement. When a crime warranted a soldier's confinement prior to trial, I was the one to make that happen. The prosecutor would send up a request then I'd have to cut the orders (type out the orders) and set them up for the CG to sign. All pre-trial confinement had to be approved by the CG. Each week, I had to prepare a report on how many soldiers were in pre-trial confinement and how long they had been there because just like the civilian system, their pre-trial time served counted towards their sentence.

I didn't do any post-trial work so I'm not sure how that was handled but I do know if confinement was sentenced, we had to cut those orders. I never went to court or rather, I had only been in court maybe two times so the defendants were just names to me, not people. I had no face to put in front of that name and in my eyes I saw most cases with "prosecutors eyes".

One day I was at my messy desk sitting next to gold dusty curtains, probably breathing in dust mites and carcinogens, just doing my pre-trial work. Never ever had a defendant come into our building and in fact, we were not even located were the trials took place (and we liked it that way, thank you very much). I left my office to do something and there standing at the top of the stairs was a prisoner. It was a male soldier, dressed ever so sharply in his Class A uniform (as was required for court), wearing ankle braces and handcuffs. The sight of him caught me off guard, stopping me dead in my tracks. I didn't mean to gawk, didn't want to stare but aside from being surprised, I was also maybe a little bit scared. There was an armed guard with him and a NCO from his unit. He had just been tried and was on his way to jail. There was something about his confinement orders that was of an urgent matter such as possibly we were coming into a holiday weekend or something of that nature. I don't really remember. What I do remember, and will never forget, is the look on his face.

When I looked at him shame and remorse were written all over his face. He bowed his head and looked down at the ground. Even now tears well up in me recalling this image. My heart was over come with mercy. He didn't look like a criminal to me. He looked like a young soldier, someones son, someones brother. All I could think was here was this young man who joined the Army, serving his country and made some bad and stupid decisions and here he was now. . . on his way to jail.

Here's the part that used to get me most. He was tried on a rape charge and this type of case was very common in our division. A young soldier say --18 or 19 goes downtown to a club has a bit to drink, picks up a German girl and they end up in a "compromising way" that night. Later the German girl has guilt or remorse or whatever or her family finds out (usually through a chatty girlfriend) and then it comes to light that this young girl was under 18. Now we have statutory rape. Does not matter if the girl was 17 and soldier 18. Does not matter if the girl lies about her age (which they often did). Doesn't even matter if the girl produces a fake ID or looks like she's 20! Remember, there was no drinking age in Europe so anyone could get into a club and buy alcohol. So now this dumb soldier goes to jail, Army career over, dishonorable discharge to follow him around for the rest of his life.

Now listen, I understand the concept "If you play with fire, you'll get burned". I do not condone any of the above actions. If you choose to live a certain lifestyle, you must be prepare to suffer consequences of such. I get that. I support that. I believe that 100%. Its like, "Here's a little tid bit, Soldier, if you don't want to go to jail for statutory rape - DON'T SLEEP AROUND!" But it was still hard for me to watch when it happened. My tender heart couldn't bare it sometimes. These soldiers were young and dumb and they'd be just blind-sided when the charges hit because like I said, often times the girls would lie about their age.

Anyway, this was the same charge this particular soldier was found guilty of. I believe in justice. I know justice was served.

I just hated to see it happen right in front of me.

HQ Building

This is where all of the 1st Armored Division magic happened. The Commanding General's office was located here. I was in his office once and it almost felt like I was in the oval office. The JAG building was siutated just to the left of the picture. Our barracks was on the other side of this parking lot so, if you were standing in that parking lot facing the HQ building, our barracks would be behind you. Well, there was the NCO club and then the barracks. This parking lot is where division formations would be held, of course there wouldn't be any cars parked there. The tanks look tiny in this picture (which should give you an idea how large this building was) but if you look closely you'll see one to the left of the flag pole and one to the right. The one on the left side of the picture is the one I painted. A few times I got to post the colors (raise the flag) or retire the colors (take it down) which was kind of ceremonial, patriotic and fun. I didn't really like going to the HQ building because remember, I was terrified of anyone that out ranked me and well, most everyone that worked in this building out ranked me! The CG didnn't use that front door but had his own entrance that was around the corner on the right side. This building was fairly new and modern compared to the other buildings that were on Hindenburg, especially the JAG building which was very old and run down.

Here's a lovely picture of me in my favorite BDU's and combat boots! Go Army! But actually, it's a dumb picture of me and I was only trying to point out how old our bulding was. This was the Criminal Law office --this is where all the JAG magic happened. My desk was behind me to the right of this picture --the messy looking one, somethings never change. You can't really see it here but on my desk was a pice of glass and under that glass I used to keep pictures of my family (mostly Courtney and Morgan) & post cards or letters from home. Directly behind my shoulder you can see the ancient word processor we used to use and look at that old school typewriter and yes, I did have to type documents sometimes. There's nothing too exciting in this picture but you can see the paint peeling off of the walls, the horrible gold curtains. We never opened those because though an outside view would have been nice, the windows were so filthy dirty, like YEARS of dirt, you couldn't see out of them. And those curtains had been hanging so long untouched, dust would actually fly off of them if you touched them. I don't know if you can see but just behind my head is another head, SGT Y, who was the other pre-trial clerk in Crim Law. He was working at the word processor at the time. His desk is the one facing mine, notice how neat it is? There were 3 other desks in this office that are out of the shot to the left. Whomever was taking this picture is standing in the doorway to the office.

This office was on the second floor and as soon as you walked out there was a very wide hallway and stairs. The stairs going up led to a third floor unfinished attic. I LOVED going up there because there were boxes and boxes of interesting things to go through such as; old ROT's (records of trial), personal property left behind by soldiers (some of it quite old), broken or retired office furniture, etc. It was a huge dark, dusty and hot room but I could spend hours up there looking through old things. The door leading to the attic was quite heavy opened with those old fashion skeleton keys. Whenever I'd have to take something up there, usually boxes of old files, I'd linger on.

This picture reminds me how much I hated wearing BDU's. I can't even describe to you how much I hated BDU's. I had bruises all around my ankles from the combat boots, which I thought would be there for the rest of my life --they eventually went away when I stopped wearing boots. At the end of each duty day I would almost sprint back to my room in anticipation of getting those boots off! First thing I'd do when I got back to my room was rip those things off. I hated wearing my hair up mostly because I was so horrible at keeping it up especially when I had to take my hat on and off everytime I went in/out of a building. That collar, which is sporting some Private Frist Class rank (E3), used to get on my nerves rubbing against my neck because it was so stiff from the starch. The drab boring color speaks for itself.

Pay Day Activities

I LOVED Pay Day Activities and not just because it was pay day. We'd only have PDA once a month, the first duty day of the month. Usually, we were required to wear our Class A uniform, the kind of dressy business suit type. We'd have formation and uniform inspection. I didn't like that part so much but it usually went pretty fast. I loved wearing my Class A uniform because it was so girly as opposed to wearing combat boots every day. Our BDU's (battle dress uniform) was the standard duty uniform (shoe-shine boy) so I was ever so happy to have the opportunity to wear heels and a skirt!

I also loved PDA because everyone was in a good mood. People get happy when they get paid, soldiers were no exception. We also got time off, sometimes the whole day, sometimes 1/2 a day or sometimes just a few hours off but any amount of free time was welcomed. The whole premise behind giving soldiers time off on pay day is that they were supposed to take care of their financial obligations --go pay bills. Keep in mind, we didn't have direct deposit so we'd have to go to the bank and if you had German financial obligations such as rent, utilities, etc. you'd have to exchange your American dollars for German marks then go pay your bills in person in cash. So the Army's take on this was that they'd give you the time off to take care of these things so you'd have no excuse for not paying your bills.

The first time I ever got a check from the Army I was surprised because it looked like a tax refund check to me. I didn't realize all government checks looked like that. Some of the guys in the barracks would play pay day poker, which I always found amusing to watch but stupid as ever. They'd play a poker hand with the serial number on their check, winner got all the checks. I told you it was stupid.

What I loved best about PDA was the pay officer. In our barracks, as usually right outside my room door, a small field table would be set up. A finance officer (usually a lieutenant) and a guard (usually a private) would cash your pay check for you. They were both armed, the officer with a 45 on his hip and the private with a M-16. The field table would have stacks and stacks of money --just sitting out in the open. You'd go up to the table, hand them your endorsed check and they'd hand you the cash back. I loved it. I don't even know why I loved it. I guess because it was so different than anything I had ever seen before --money just sitting out like that, not behind a glass or counter or anything. It was kind of comical to me, even now I chuckle as I recall the image of it. The pay officer would stay there until everyone had their checks cashed --he'd then pack up his stuff, the table and left over cash, and head back to the finance office. Oh, I forgot to mention the money would all be stacked into an ammo box, that's how the officer would walk over to the barracks, stacks of cash in an ammo box.

How Army is that?

The Medic

S was another interesting character I had come to know. She was very nice and went out of her way to invite me places and talk to me. I appreciated that however; S and I had very little in common. I really did like her but I am struggling a little bit to explain her.

Let's see . . . . she was drunk A LOT (probably more than Tom) and hung out with guys A LOT --she was ALWAYS upstairs on the male floor, always. If you want to read in between the lines as to why she was always on the male floor, your assumptions would probably be correct. When she drank which again, was quite often, she had the foulest language but when she was sober she was quite different. Guys used her a lot and that made me very sad because I think deep down inside she was just a little girl longing for love and attention --pure love, the kind that lasts. I think she joined the Army right out of high school so she was young. Like Tom, despite S's faults and the divide in our differences, I really did like her. As far as being a medic goes, she was 100% incompetent. In fact, I probably wouldn't have trusted her to so much as dispense Tylenol to me. But here again, I was learning how to look beyond those things and see a person for their core. The created being they were. There were many things I found I liked about S, her sense of humor being one of them.

Back in the 80's AIDS entered the picture in a big way. The Army had mandated every soldier be tested for AIDS. Since this was quite a huge undertaking, for our division we had to go to a big gym on Katterbach where medic stations were set up to draw our blood. It was in a very cattle-like fashion where we were all just ushered into the gym and stood in line to get our blood drawn. All of the medics in the division were called in to help, S being no exception. Those of us from Hindenburg had been bused over to Katterbach --soldiers were arriving in droves. The lines were crazy long & the gym was crazy hot. Each medic had a field table set up with supplies and one by one, soldiers were getting their blood drawn. S's station was empty. Not one person was standing in her line. None of us were dumb enough to let her stick a needle in our vein! I think it made her feel bad because S came over to us and said, "Come on you guys, come over to my line. How come no one wants to get into my line?" When a Sergeant noticed her line was empty he came over and told some of us to get into her line and we all just stood there. Then our First Sergeant came over to us and told us to get into S's line. Again, we all just stood there. The first and only time I ever out right said no to a senior ranking person in the Army was this time. I looked at my 1SG and told him I didn't want to go to S's line. He stood there for a second and then ordered me to go. I just looked at him, scared as I was but still, I wasn't getting in S's line, and said, "First Sergeant, I'm not going to let S put a needle in my arm."

By this time S had gotten some victims --er, I mean --patients in her line. Poor unsuspecting soldiers from other units that did not know her were only too happy to get to the front of a line and spare the long hot wait. I think had no one still yet been in her line, my 1SG might have pressed the issue and then I have no idea what I would have done. But as it was, he looked over and saw a line forming at her table so he let the rest of us off the hook.

One Friday night per her usual, S was upstairs hanging with the guys and getting drunk. I was in my room with my roommates watching a movie and just hanging out. We suddenly heard all this commotion outside of our window so we looked out and saw S lying lifeless on the sidewalk with a huge pool of blood forming around her head. In her drunken stupidity, she had fallen out of the third story window onto the concrete below. I really thought she was dead. It was quite a disturbing and frightening scene. It wasn't long before a bunch of guys gathered around her, each one also stupidly drunk. From our room we could hear more commotion going on outside in the hallway and people were yelling, "Call the medics, call the medics!" So I knew help was on its way. The stupid drunken guys were freaking out and the pool of blood pouring from S's head was getting bigger and bigger. It wasn't long before S was taken away by military ambulance.

We didn't hear anything else until the next day when we saw S walking around the barracks with a big bandage wrapped around her head. She suffered a pretty big head wound but other than that, she was fine. I wish I could write the sound of her voice in because it was so characteristic of her --just kind of crazy. Almost with a hint of pride in her voice she said to us, "Hey you guys, did you hear I fell out the window?"

S eventually married one of the soldiers in our company and no one, not one of us understood why he did. But it was kind of common soldiers married to escape living in the barracks and live high on the hog with that BAQ money coming in (insert sarcasm here). We all suspected this was the motivation behind this odd union as the pair really had not dated, they were as different as night and day. Once married, we saw much less of S and though I think she was probably still drinking quite heavily, it was most likely in the privacy of her German apartment she shared with her newly wed husband. I just hope it wasn't on the third floor.