The world can be an awesome place to experience. I recommend that you learn to travel as early as possible and never give up on experiencing someplace new as often as possible. The things you will learn will stay with you forever.
My Christmas 1968 was spent getting ready to ship out to Germany over New Year’s Eve. That was the reason I joined the Army, (drafted really), to see the world! I was really excited, scared, full of wonderment and solo in the world. If it was to be, it was up to me.
We flew from Washington, DC to New Jersey and then on my first flight across the Atlantic. Imagine, over a hundred, lonely, horny soldiers on an overnight flight with the oldest stewardesses in the world, who would take no shit from loud-mouthed crazies full of testosterone.
When we arrived in Shannon, Ireland for a stopover to Frankfurt, I headed for the can. To my amazement, there was a woman tending the men’s bathroom. Well, not having used a facility with a woman standing within sight of the urinal, I found my bladder unwilling to function under the watchful eye of a matronly observer. Try as I might, I could not go. Finally, out of total embarrassment and frustration, I kind of made a sound like I was going, accepted the towel after washing my hands, dropped some US change on the offertory plate at the door and left, still feeling a need to service.
When I arrived in Frankfurt it was New Year’s Eve and snowing. We were housed in temporary barracks that had a quadrangle in the middle of four buildings. We lined up in the quadrangle and left our duffle bags in rows. We were told to leave them in perfectly aligned order and retreat indoors from the cold.
We were told that we could sign out bedding on which to sleep but would have to return them to the supply room at 4 AM. Nobody wanted to get up that early to then do nothing for hours, so nobody slept on mattresses with blankets that New Year’s Eve. I curled up in my heavy trench coat on bunk bed springs and tried to stay warm. I could see through a small broken pain of glass, out of the building, and across the street to a bar where couples were wandering in and out all night. They were speaking a language I did not understand. I felt alone, somewhat vulnerable, yet so excited for all the adventures I would experience. That was my New Years Eve 1968.
The next morning we had to find our duffle bags under 6 inches of snow. I finally got my orders approved to travel behind the Iron Curtain to Berlin. We rode all night that night and arrived in Berlin the next morning. Somehow I managed to get to the 279th Station Hospital, Berlin safe and sound. What happened next will amuse me for my whole life.
I was assigned to a barracks room in an old German Psychiatric Hospital in the American sector of Berlin. Beautiful old ornate red brick buildings with a 10-foot high wall surrounding the compound. The compound included a large grassy area at one end, which included a bar at the opposite end from the hospital, which I came to know all too well. The beer was 10 cents, a shot was 25 cents, cigarettes were a dollar a carton of ten packs.
When I opened the door to my room, I immediately noticed that the ceiling was painted black, with white silhouettes of stars and half moons at awkward intervals. It was a foreshadowing of what was to come. I unpacked enough to head to a much-needed shower.
When I opened the door to the shower room, I stood there in disbelief facing a beautiful naked girl in the shower. I questioned in my mind whether WACS were also in the same barracks. When I started to leave, she said it’s ok to stay and shower. I ask her how come she was in the shower. She responded that she was living with her American GI boyfriend in the barracks. Welcome to Berlin’s 279th Station Hospital. It turned out to be just like a MASH crazy unit with little discipline or military structure. That was the start of a year and a half tour that was an amazing adventure.
A nighttime picture of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin between the US quadrant and the Russian quadrant.
