Wonderful story by Mostly Cajun:
Something I saw once…
If it’s spring, this must be Baumholder. During my tour in Germany as a young tank commander, springtime was the “tactical” part of our training cycle. One necessary part of this rotation was a trip to Baumholder, Germany. This was a nice trip. We’d get up early one morning, load our tanks and flatcars behind a very businesslike German locomotive, load our own carcasses in passenger cars of the same train, and off we’d go across the countryside, leaving our normal digs in Germany’s wine-producing region, headed for the hills southwest of Mainz, our home base.
Somewhere along the trip we’d swap our nice electric locomotive for something that I hadn’t seen in the States since I was a kid, a real working steam locomotive, and we’d chug on in to Baumholder, where we’d offload our tanks and do a short road march to the motor pool at the training area. Then we’d drag our gear to the transient barracks, put things up, and scurry to one of my all-time favorite places, Kanteen Hoffman, an eatery put there near the transient barracks for our use.
There I’d get the first of many beers and the real treat, eine jagerschnitzel mit frites, or in English, a breaded cutlet slathered with mushroom gravy and a side order of french fries. I and my cohorts would eat and then sit around talking and drinking beer for a while before returning to the barracks preparatory to the training exercises the next day.
Early in morning, in the still darkness we’d break the silence as 17 M60A1 tanks cranked off their 750-horsepower diesel engines. To this day the smell of a cold diesel evokes powerful memories. Anyway, shortly thereafter, we’d head for the hills and valleys of the training area and run simulated exercises.
Caution — be sure not to have any liquids in your mouth while reading the end of this story. You have been warned…
Posted by DaveH at April 14, 2008 08:20 PM | TrackBack