We had planned to settle in Munich so I could attend the University of Munich where I had been accepted. Just prior to our planned departure, the Communists sealed the East German border on 13 August and began building what became known as the Berlin Wall. Our families were horrified that we would still be going to Germany and especially with my wife pregnant. They, like many, thought that WWIII was a possibility and we would definitely be in harm's way, especially worrisome because we were traveling on a shoestring with only one-way tickets and a few hundred bucks in cash - no credit cards in those days. We prevailed and flew out on the last "prop" flight to London because it was the cheapest way to get there. In London, we caught the late summer student train to Germany, again the cheapest way.

Settling in Munich, we quickly discovered that working and going to college was not as easy as it was back in Boston where I had been studying. I did get a job working for American Express in their bank near McGraw Kaserne, Southern Area Command Headquarters. Problem is, the pay was very low and the work week - 6 days, allowed no time nor money for college and besides, a baby was on the way.

As an inactive reservist, I knew I had to report my change of address, especially since we were out of the country. Checking in at the McGraw gate, no one really knew what I was talking about until one of the MP's suggested that there was a Reserve Affairs Officer in a nearby building and let me sign in. I met a MAJ Bachman, the Reserve Affairs Officer who also was the Unit Administrator for the Munich USAR School. I left his office a new member of the staff with a new DMOS of 71L (clerk).

The unit met one night weekly for drill and I learned what the mission of the School was. The school taught the Intelligence officer basic and advanced course and Command and General Staff (C&GS) to reserve officers of the area. At first, the regular jobs and duty assignments of the reserve officers was pretty hush-hush. Several were regular army NCO's who held reserve commissions from WWII or Korea. There was even one Major who was an active duty Corporal. As I discovered, they were all casualties of the Post-Korea RIF (reduction in forces) but were given a chance to serve out their 20 years as enlisted soldiers while still maintaining the commissions for retirement at their highest rank. Thursday nights were their chance to swap an NCO uniform for an officer one.

The instructors were clearly very knowledgeable about intelligence matters and after a time, I figured out their "real" assignments. A number of them were civilian intelligence personnel but obviously got their start as Army Intelligence Officers. The remaining staff included a reserve S-3 Officer, two reserve SFC's and me, the S3 Clerk. The NCO's were interesting. They were actually two German guys who had immigrated to the States as young men, were immediately drafted as all immigrating young men were and after their terms were up, returned to the homes in Munich. They stayed in the reserves and had worked their way up to E7. By returning to CONUS periodically, they maintained their "green card" status. One was finishing up his PhD in Bierology at the University of Munich so he could take over the family's brewery, the other ran his family's company. They were both "real" characters and introduced my wife and me to some great local activities mostly involving beer. I have no doubt that they stayed there until the inactivation of the school.

As for me, I had no uniform and the unit couldn't get me one because they were waiting for my records and an official assignment to the unit from the Control Group. I found a used one at the McGraw Thrift Store that was a poor fit but passed minimal inspection. My first one was a brown Ike Jacket uniform that was still authorized for reserves although the regular army had gone to the Army Greens in 1959. I got such static from the gate guards, etc. that I was able to find a used Green Uniform so that I fit in. I was a soldier again after vowing in 1959 at my active duty REFRAD, NEVER to have anything to do with the military again. Besides, the real incentive was the money and the chance to get American products at the PX and associate with English speaking Americans. My wife spoke no German and being pregnant and insecure wanted the social connection. As it turned out, we were not authorized PX or commissary as reserves so having a Green Uniform was important.

We got a tiny apartment near McGraw so I could walk to work and Martha could walk to the Kaserne. She was an Army Brat - her father a retired Colonel, so she was very comfortable on base. In fact, she got us signed up with the Service Club's community theater group called the Munich Community Players Months went by with no assignment orders and were we counting that money! Our situation was quite desperate - we even had to move just prior to our baby's birth the 2nd day of the German Christmas, 26 Dec 1961 and ended up in a horrible place. If it weren't for an old friend, Frau Luise Schenck and her family, I don't know what we would have done.

With 1962, however, things got better for us. First of all, our association with the Munich Community Players gave us our social connection, plenty to eat as we toured our shows to various bases in the SACOM area and invitation to American homes. Also at that time, one of the School's senior instructors, a COL Bell (I believe) discovered that in addition to fluent German, he learned that I was a Russian linguist - PMOS - 98G. We had a private meeting and he gave me an introduction to a "friend" of his. In a clandestine meeting in a private home, I was interviewed for one of several local hire jobs and was offered a security job with the American Committee for Liberation (of the Soviet Union from Bolshevism, Inc.), a supposed private American organization funded by Jack Heinz that operated Radio Liberty. RL broadcast western "news" to the Soviet Union in some 20-30 languages spoken within the USSR. The pay was much better than American Express and shorter work hours - we got US and German holidays off. Munich being very Catholic had many religious holidays so we had lots of days off. We were able to rent a better place to live for our new baby daughter. Besides, that with Munich Community Theater tours, we really got around with baby sleeping in the costume trunk back stage and always plenty of food to eat and leftovers to take home. One scary place we performed was at the Dachau Concentration Camp Base. The theater was the SS Guards Club, now a US NCO Club - lots of ghosts there. We were told that prisoners entertained the guards on that very stage to stay alive - I was glad to hear later that the US Army moved out of Dachau as it became clear their presence was not in keeping with the horrible war crimes perpetrated there.

Thursday evenings at the USAR School, I worked on training schedules, correspondence, setting up classrooms, preparing training aids and running the film projector for training films. I helped plan for the unit Annual Training (AT) to be held at the Intelligence School in Oberammergau. The big stress, however, was still no orders assigning me to the unit. Finally, the CO called me in and said that the IG was coming and I could not continue to train with the School due to lack of orders. Several TWIXes (cables) produced only my original enlistment record. I was very upset at being excluded and especially since we were counting on several months of pay plus two weeks of active duty pay for the AT.

Working for the "Committee", I got to hear the latest and hottest news as it came over the "wire". There were confrontations in Berlin that made us nervous. In September 1962, President Kennedy was authorized to call up reservists and 1000's were activated. October 1962, we came very close to war over the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was right there reading the classified wire as it unfolded - scary stuff!

In the year that I worked at Radio Liberty, we were plagued by threats to our émigré staff, all representing the national "republics" of the USSR. The Ukrainians were most despised by KGB as they were the most nationalist and, of course, had seriously collaborated with the Germans during WWII. A Ukrainian staffer had been assassinated by a KGB agent coming to work with a cyanide pen. Others had threatening phone calls or were threatened by mail and on the street including threats to their families. We had to brief them on OPSEC and how to keep themselves and their families safe.

A number of times, East Bloc agents tried to infiltrate the Station with fake stories and ID's. We had one German staffer (the Germans made up most of the technical staff operating the recording and broadcasting equipment) defect to the East and we were to read his expose in a DDR Newspaper about the American Spy Radio in Munich. The Russian and other Soviet nationalities made up the broadcast staff organized by national "desks" and the few Americans made up the administration. The Russians served as senior leadership for the émigré staff and were mostly older - some refugees from the Bolshevik Revolution but could they play volleyball - it was like a national sport with them. Lunch time if the weather was good, there would be a serious volleyball game out in the compound yard.

The compound, by the way, was the terminal building of the old Munich Riem Airport out on the Oberwiesenfeld with security fences surrounding it. My desk was in the former lobby where Hitler met Mussolini in his first State Visit. The War knocked out the airport and a new airport was built. Due to the large area involved, it became a dumping ground for demolition debris from the war damaged city and there were huge "trash" mountains in the area around the RL Headquarters a few with walking paths on them. The story was that the "Freiheits Sender" as the Germans called Radio Liberty had hired former Nazi propagandists as expert broadcast programmers in the early days?

Since I was in security, I was privy to information regarding security "threats". We knew where the various East Bloc "operatives" hung out and checked out the Hungarians at their favorite rendezvous in the P1 "Pay-eins" restaurant next to Hitler's favorite Haus der Kunst, art museum. These guys were dressed in ill-fitting suits and did not fit in the sophisticated café at the modern art museum - what a joke they were. The KGB were much more secretive and I never saw them, only their low level operatives trying to gain entrance to the Committee Compound at Oberwiesenfeld.

In February 1963, the Committee offered me a job at the transmitter site on the southern coast of Spain. From there, the powerful transmitters had a clear shot up the Mediterranean into the Soviet Union and at the time, RL's transmitter was considered the most powerful short-wave transmitter in the world. From all reports, life at the transmitter site was idyllic - a Mediterranean beach. We were tempted but I knew I had to finish my degree and it wasn't to happen in Munich. We returned to the States and I was transferred from the Munich USAR School to the Control Group, Ft. Devens, MA. Within a few months, I had found the 1030th USAR School at the Boston Army Base and served there for a number of years while working and studying Slavic Studies at Boston University - my dream was always to get back to Munich.

In 1970, I was attached to the 10th Special Forces Group as a reservist teaching them survival Russian and working as Assistant Director of Admissions at Boston University. Taking a leave of absence and with my contacts back in Munich, I pulled off an Annual Training with my old Munich USAR School at the Oberammergau Intelligence School. With my advance travel pay for a first class ticket, I managed to get a family fare for my wife and three children to accompany me. We rented a VW Bug and drove to O'gau where I signed in at the Kaserne. My family was staying with old friends in town - the Seeboeck family had been friends since my active duty days in 1958-60. They were sweet people and gave up their own bedroom for my family.

1970 was the summer of the world-famous Passion Play held every ten years and the town was over-flowing with visitors. I was in the barracks for the duration. The Unit conducted two week AD phases of the usual Intelligence Branch and C&GS courses as well for active and reserve officers mostly with ASA (Army Security Agency) and Army Intelligence (AI) MOS's as I recall. The big excitement was torrential rains that created a flash flood of the Ammer River through the town and valley. The River came up at least 9 feet very quickly. I got back to my family with the VW and waded out of the house carrying my children. The VW, able to float like the commercials showed drove out with water a foot above the running boards. We had put as much furniture up in the house as possible and we had the 90 year old grandmother up on a dresser. I waded in with two German soldiers with a rubber raft and we managed to get the "Oma" down off the dresser into the boat and float her to safety. The USAR School and Intelligence School Personnel were all over town rescuing stranded residents and visitors. Some of the Seeboeck family lived on higher ground but with the power out, it was cold. I managed to get some blankets from the base for them. The Kaserne was up the mountain so was on dry land. Dozens and dozens of refugees were transported up the mountain for several nights shelter in the base gym. It was quite a sight with literally hundreds of nuns and priests wrapped in US Army blankets.

The Passion Play attracts a huge following of Catholics from around the world as an act of pilgrimage. I got rooms at the nearby Army hotel in Garmisch for my family where they stayed until after my AT was finished. The Army had and still has today recreational facilities in Garmisch although most have been turned back to the Germans. A new resort has been built there called Edelweiss where my wife and I have taken our grandchildren on vacation a couple of years ago. Again, our AT that summer gave us access to a book of cheap gas coupons for our VW. We spent the rest of the summer in Germany and on the island of Majorca all thanks to my connections with the Munich USAR School.

So the summer of 1970 was my last connection with the Munich (3745) USAR School. Subsequently, I served with the Boston (1030) USAR and the Portland (1034) (ME) USAR Schools while a reservist years later. I resigned my MI reserve commission in 1974 in Boston , disillusioned by the military at the end of the Vietnam War and went off to Maine with the back-to-the-land movement. In 1985 while teaching in NH, I was recruited by the Army Reserve into an infantry training company with the 76th Division as an E5 SGT teaching weapons and combat skills in basic training. Later I was an instructor with ROTC cadet summer camp and finally retired at age 60 as a MSG and reserve senior instructor at West Point where I was, among other duties, the "Top" for cadet basic training.

When my retirement orders came down, I was retired as a 1LT, my highest rank, however, E8's make more than O2's so it took me two years to get the higher pay. I am retired as a 1LT but paid as an MSG so my friends on the Honor Guard I continue to serve with call me the only Master First Lieutenant in the whole US Army.

I wear my Blues on a regular basis now at age 73 serving as a bugler with the Air Force's Honor Guard of the 101st Air Refueling Wing, Bangor, ME. Last week, I did three funerals, folding and Taps at one, Taps at another and firing at the third for a retiree service. Because I have both MSG and 1LT uniforms, I wear my light weight NCO uniform in the summer and my old 100% wool LT uniform in the winter for warmth - standing in the snow in a cemetery in Maine is no laughing matter. They all get a big kick out of my persona changes. Moreover, I have a great photo of me wearing a Soviet uniform as Major Pavlov, a military exchange officer presenting "Threat" briefings to basic training soldiers during the late 80's and early 90's at Ft. Campbell and Ft. Benning. It must be the uniform that has kept me in the military! Hehehhehe!