Chapter 1: The Running Discharge

E-5 Sgt. Tom, Second Armored Cavalry, Nurnberg Germany (Circa August 20th 1968 thru March 11th 1970) Note how we as teletype operators spelled Nuremberg “Nurnberg” on Army documentation.

I had arrived after 8 weeks of basic training and 8 weeks of advanced training in communications. I was not assigned to Vietnam and it would save my life, something I would eventually come to understand. I was very lucky. A guy who limped trained to pack a backpack radio on his back in the jungle had little chance of surviving.

I arrived in Germany during the August 20, 1968 Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact troop invasion of Czechoslovakia to crack down on reformist trends in Prague. The Soviet occupation required the entirety of the U.S. Army Second Armored Cavalry, heavy tanks, to advance to the German-Czech border to guard against invasion by the Russian tank army, the largest in the world. Tensions ran very high and I found myself alone in a very large Kaserne known as Merrell Barracks, once the headquarters of one of Hitler’s SS training schools. It felt both ghostly and ghastly.

I spent over two weeks sleeping alone in a giant building full of history. I ate at the mess hall with the two cooks left behind and a clerk gate guard M.P. named Rudy. We were little humans lost in the immense fortress it seemed while our Army was all gone. They would return eventually.

And eventually I found my M.O.S. in teletype, became a Comm. chief sergeant in charge of men. My personal M.O. was not that of a leader but rather an accomplished worker who didn’t spend time chasing crew around, crew who spent most of their time stoned on hashish.

This was the nature in the 1960’s American occupation army, stoned and using various drugs easily made available in a loose military environment in Europe before the 1970 armed forces wide bust - after I’d left the service.

So I found myself befriending others who were straight and sober, not condemning those who weren’t but rather leaving them alone for the most part. I had a VW bus which I was helped to acquire by a good friend who mustered out of the service quite a while before I and I shared ownership with another good friend, Jay.

We spent a lot of time in Munich 90 kilometers, a little over 50 miles, south of Nurnberg in a much friendlier environment, far more international. We met a lot of tourists, Americans, Canadians, Australians, Europeans of all nationalities and people from around the planet including Russians and North Vietnamese. Life was impressive, easy, creative and hands on informative like we would never again experience the rest of our lives.

When it was time for me to take my discharge, after two years service, I opted to do as few others did. I would receive my discharge in Europe and stay driving my VW bus on tour and as it turned out I would probably do it alone. That was my own fault.

I could have done that differently. But at the time I was very disappointed in the loss of a friendship I had made in one person who promised to come with me and anxiety of almost not following up with another person, in fact two to go with me.

But I first opted to get out of town traveling across Germany to an Army post near Heidelberg where I was required to appear in person to receive my final signature from the post commander. Once accomplished I would be a civilian again.

While on duty, Jay, my partner in bus ownership and I traveled together regularly to Munich. He was far more outgoing than I. I was shy by nature but we made a good team in meeting and greeting the people we found, of course primarily ladies who were either traveling or living in place temporarily as students, exchange students.

It kept us quite busy and we never gave thought to how different our lives were from the majority, foot soldiers who were rarely allowed passes off base. We just came and went as we liked while they did daily calisthenics on the parade field with pent up energy, yes horny as heck.

Jay was a surfer from Southern California. His easy going manners and good looks made him attractive to girls and I was there to take notes and learn. My life in the Pacific Northwest hailed me from a part of the U.S. almost nobody knew. Most recently before the draft I’d attended private college in Honolulu, worked and lived the local Hawaiian culture. So, I simply considered myself an enigma. If asked where I was from I would stumble through the litany of places while Jay, talented in small talk, would carry on trying to seduce whichever girl he might be with.

We met an awful lot of people and gave weekend tours of Munich to many appreciative young women. Jay’s entire goal was to have sex with any and all who kept our company and mine was to make friends, to be nice like I was trained in parochial school, a good boy. We obviously came from quite different backgrounds and I learned as his tales of Southern California life style kept unfolding for me.

Somehow things balanced out.

A couple of months before I was to be discharged I started the process of getting signatures to muster out. That required appearing before higher rank individuals, getting signatures, while my goal was to let my hair grow so I wouldn’t look quite so American GI like. It was a trick of both getting people to appear for me and/or forging signatures and not getting caught because if caught I would have to get my hair sheared. Long hair was the fashion of the day.

I had a very good mentor in learning this process and mostly I always worked alone knowing from experience if you were going to cheat do it alone as much as possible.

And while performing one of our weekend obligations to find tourist girls in Munich we sat down at the Hofbrau Haus and met, realized we were with a large group of ladies from Brazil. They were quite friendly. They were so cute. We became an item at the famous bier hall. Two guys, a dozen girls from an exotic place; we thought we were in heaven.

The Hofbrau was like an office space for our work, always the first stop upon arriving in town. We met all kinds while there, a start for our weekend. This new group were exchange students primarily from Sao Paulo and most spoke English as well as, perhaps better than, we.

They were studying at a school near Munich and we were immediately invited to come visit. We did. I sat outside and talked to one person who simply stole my heart by appearances mostly. She was bright and so worldly aware it shocked me. I was still learning of the vast world outside of my U.S., attitude so naive. Not having any land bridges to most of the rest of the planet we were caught without the common knowledge possessed by most world travelers. It was quite an education in very nice company.

We mixed with all the girls and I actually don’t remember how many in total were attending the school, perhaps twenty or more but they were a large group, fun, to be reckoned with outside our experience thus far. They spoke a minimum of three languages which spelled out my inadequacy with one language and just a dash of German.

They liked us anyway.

Somehow in all the fun and relations I ended up with a very cute person named Kristina who had the constant accompaniment of what I would describe as her escort, Ana. Kristina it seems had taken an instant liking to me. She was great company, bright and it seemed as though her commitment to me was immediately accepted by the rest of her group. The fact didn’t cause me much concern at first but I did miss my friendship with the person I’d first had a conversation with. All this was simply like too much dessert all at once.

All the girls from Brazil were so very Catholic. No exceptions perhaps other than the smart person I’d first talked to. Talk with Kristina got around to the fact I’d been educated many years in the parochial way and that cemented her commitment to me as my mind whirled around what I might be getting into. Jay meanwhile was doing his thing trying to have sex with all of the rest of the students, had no religion and wasn’t really getting anywhere. But he had faith, the faith of a southern California surfer chasing women, business as usual.

Kristina and Ana, at my invite, came to Nurnberg and I got them a pension just outside the south wall of the kaserne. I didn’t really know what we were going to do. Nurnberg wasn’t exactly any fun compared to Munich but we hung out and I invited a buddy I worked with in communications, Mike. He was from California as well, West Covina. He was a shoe salesman who wore pointy shoes and had the old duck tail hairdo from the 50’s. We all went out together.

Ana barely spoke a word. I didn’t think her English was much better than my German. But Kristina was her usual bubbly self. We drank a few biers and it was getting late so I gave them a ride to their pension.

Kristina invited us up.

I had no intentions of getting anything but a good night hug but Mike was a rather forward character, so typical of my California friends. I could tell Ana was not comfortable. When we got into their room and spoke for just a bit I started to make my good-byes known but Mike was on the bed with Ana rather uninvited. He acted like a puppy aroused with a female in heat and I was embarrassed and getting angry. He had Ana’s blouse open exploring her breasts and she looked as though she was going to pass out in shock. I had to be abrupt and kind of pull rank on him. We left.

I apologized for getting angry but Mike, oblivious, just went on about how he loved dark girls with nipples like hers. I just shook my head in disbelief how he could be so insensitive. Yet I knew I was the outlier in horny man-ville, as individuals go, with their aggressiveness toward the opposite sex.

Most of my friends were like Mike. With all the education in being drafted, trained, going by myself to Nurnberg, being alone at the base and then making friends with the other guys I was also introduced to the avid sex object attitude of overtly horny males set on fucking anybody who didn’t have a penis. One way or the other I was always somewhat in awe, not a snob - just too well trained by the women, including nuns, in my early development.