In two earlier tours in Germany I served in the 9th Engineer Battalion. The first time as a Lieutenant and Captain from 1962 to 1965, in both Company A and Headquarters Company.

The second from 1971 to 1973 I commanded the 9th Engineer Battalion. Hence my interest and attachment to the 7th Engineer Brigade.

Here are some excerpts of my recollections from a book which I am writing for my sons.

9th Engineer Battalion, 1962-65

Every Company of the Battalion had an ADM team. And I was the Battalion training Officer for all the ADM teams even though each Company had an ADM Officer. The Battalion had ADM missions that required it to have a Platoon always at Wildflecken on a rotating basis for a month at a time. When it was my turn to go, I would illegally take your Mother and Rick with me. I would sneak them into the BOQ, and we would sleep in two bunks. There I would have to stoke the room furnace with coal bricks all night to stay warm, and to stand watch while your mother went to the communal bathroom in the BOQ. We would drive around the Post, and walk in the fields. I took many photographs of your Mother and Rick there.

Once a year the Battalion would go to Wildflecken for training, and all the wives went to Wildflecken to visit on Sundays. We would go to a Monastery across the road from Wildflecken to eat and drink Beer, and to tour the fields of the Monastery. We all had a good time.

Then late in 1960, A Company was designated to support another Battalion and deploy to Bad Hersfeld for a month to assume their ADM missions on the German border in that area. All the wives went. We had a good time even though we had a lot to do with the Platoons taking turns inspecting the targets, updating the target folders, and training. We had a nice apartment there. We went to see a Circus that came around to town. We suspect that it was in Bad Hersfeld that Jim was conceived.

In the Battalion we had to make frequent river crossing exercises, because if we went to war, we would have to bridge the Rhine to evacuate family members who would have to go to both the Ramstein Air Base by Kaiserslautern, and to the Frankfurt airport (for which the bridge was not needed).

The crossing of the Rhine was a big deal. It required building the bridge from ends, assembling and ferrying the completed rafts to the segments of bridge that would be joined from both ends. Since we had only a limited time period for the actual closing of the river to river traffic, the bridge segments were held from washing downstream with bridge boats allowing the river barges to pass through the opening. Then at the time that we were granted permission to close the river, the barges would be held from continuing, the anchor cable and bridle lines were put in, the bridge would be closed, and traffic would be symbolically crossed over the bridge to the other side of he river.

We also had the Companies train in building bridges across the Main River, the Danube River by Ingolstadt and other places. The procedures were the same, but less elaborate since the bridges were shorter.

It was customary to celebrate the closing of one of these bridges by throwing the Officer into the River from the centerline of the bridge where the last raft had been joined. On one occasion the weather was already cold. I was thrown by my men, and came out wet and cold. I changed and climbed into my bed sack in the tent, but in spite of the pot belly stoves, I could not get warm. I had shivers in the morning and a high fever. The Battalion doctor made me go in for X-rays, and I entered the debriefing room in Smith Kaserne at the very moment that he was announcing that I had contracted primary atypical pneumonia. The Battalion Executive Officer joked about modern medicine getting me well fast, and I was not amused at all. I was put into the dispensary where I had to stay for about a week receiving penicillin shots until I could be released to go home.

We had practice alerts from time to time. My field gear was packed, and my driver and jeep would come to pick me up in case of one of these alerts. He would stow my gear in the trailer, and we would go off to report to the Kaserne, to then go to the field to disperse and camp out until the alert was called off and we were released. That usually happened after we had served at least one meal in the alert assembly area. This was rather routine in that time when we were facing off the Soviet Union across the West Germany international boundary.

At this time, we were immune from German laws, and for that reason were treated like royalty everywhere. I remember that in one convoy on an iced road, we were stopped on the side of the narrow road when a small German civilian automobile tried to pass the convoy. A Captain who was the Headquarters Company Commander stopped him, put his foot on the fender of the font wheel, and pushed him into the ditch on the other side of the road.

I was given a number of projects to execute with my Platoon.

One of these was the construction of a firing site for Hawk surface to air missiles on the outskirts of Hanau. We built a number of high earthen berms to separate the different firing positions and provide them a degree of protection from retaliatory fire. It was challenging to use the heavy equipment to build up the berms while retaining the slopes. I had another platoon attached to me, and the Lieutenant in charge of that Platoon created a morale problem by flying kites from the berms under construction. I had the Company Commander replace that Platoon on the project.

Another project assigned to me was to construct an exclusion area for the storage of nuclear weapons inside a military base in Darmstadt. This project was for the Directorate of Engineering of Darmstadt. It included building igloos with earth cover, a double fence around all the igloos which had challenging features, a failsafe electrical generator system, a lighting system that would turn the generator and the lights on if the normal electrical supply was interrupted or if the power feeding cables were cut. An interesting part of the design was that all the electrical cables had to be buried, and all connections had to be protected from water infiltration and rodents. Thus we had to encase them in rubber that we casted around them by filling a plastic casing with liquid rubber that had a hardening agent that we had to add. It was a very sophisticated project. When it was given the final acceptance inspection, we were commended for our flawless work. The commendation letter said that the completed project passed the inspection without a single deficiency.

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I was on ADM duty at Wildflecken in August of 1961. I had come home for the weekend as we were allowed to do from time to time. I received a phone call from the Battalion S3 Officer at about 9 am on Sunday the 13th of August and he asked me to surreptitiously report in civilian clothes to the Battalion Headquarters. There I was told to immediately go back to Wildflecken to review our ADM target folders and reconnoiter the targets. He said the Soviets were closing autobahn access to Berlin as they had done in 1948, and that President Kennedy was going to deploy a division force down the Autobahn to Berlin rather than have to establish an Airlift as had been done in 1948.

I was told to be ready for war, but not to alarm my family nor tell them what was happening. That they would be taken care of, and if necessary they would be evacuated following the NEO Plan for evacuation of family members in case of war. (I think NEO stands for Noncombatant Evacuation Operations.) The Plan required them to be prepared for evacuation and told them what they could take of their personal possessions, and what things they had to have packed and prepared to take with them, such as clothing and coats, medicines and limited amounts of food.

The convoy on the autobahn was successful and eventually our life returned to normality.

As a sideline I might add that because of my knowledge of ADMs and our plans, I was never allowed to travel to Berlin in any of my assignments by driving on the autobahn. When I was a Colonel, I was told that US agencies knew that the Soviets had my name as a "person of interest", and therefore if I really needed to go to Berlin, I would have to go in the duty train. Your Mother and I did go to Berlin once when I was a Colonel, and at that time I was required to avoid approaching any of the crossing points into East Berlin.

9th Engineer Battalion, 1971-73

I assumed Command of the 9th Engineer Battalion in a ceremony in the Gym at Smith Kaserne. I do not remember the name of the previous Battalion Commander from whom I assumed command. Major David Byrnes became my Executive Officer, and another Major was my S3.

We moved in a duplex apartment house in a housing area a block or two from Smith Kaserne. Rick commuted home on weekends from his High School in Frankfurt. Jim lived with us and went to a local school. I walked to the office from our house, although occasionally my driver would pick me up.

Across from us lived a Greek family by the name of Giallourakis. Lieutenant Colonel Giallourakis was the Commander of an Artillery Battalion which had its barracks in another Kaserne. His unit was part of the Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division that was housed in Graves Kaserne, another Kaserne beyond Smith Kaserne. The Commander of the Brigade was Colonel Price. He was a black officer who lived with his wife and a daughter in a single house in another housing area. Colonel Price had a sister in the US who was an opera singer.

The Headquarters of the 3rd Infantry Division was in Wuerzburg. The Commander was Major General Edward C. Meyer, who later became Chief of Staff of the Army. He liked me very much, and appreciated my contributions to the Division and to the Community in Aschaffenburg. After he retired we corresponded for a short while. My Battalion had nuclear munitions in an exclusion area in Aschaffenburg, and at times we were responsible for the security of the exclusion area. General Meyer visited the exclusion area off and on, and was very satisfied with my contributions to its security.

On one occasion the USAREUR Commander General Michael S. Davison came to inspect the exclusion area and our reaction to a simulated emergency requiring defense of the exclusion area. The security forces responded more than adequately. He questioned some of them, and he was very satisfied. On the way back to the heliport at Graves Kaserne, Colonel Price and General Davison were in the back seat of the sedan, and I was in the front passenger seat. We were about to pass a Sergeant who turned to look at the sedan, but did not salute the stars in the front bumper. So I yelled at him through the open window "Good afternoon soldier". Taken aback he stiffened and saluted. The General was obviously impressed and satisfied at this. He commended me as he got out of the sedan and into his helicopter. Later I heard from my Commander that the General had called him to commend him for my and my battalion's performance.

Battalion command was interesting. We had officer's baseball matches with other battalions, games that we played after hours at Smith Kaserne. The respective Battalion Commanders were the pitchers, and we usually won.

The Army in Europe was beset by drug abuse. We had our share of druggies and dealers in the Battalion. It was not an easy time from a discipline point of view. Yet we did OK compared to some of the other units. I had to go with my Sergeant Major to get soldiers off the street and back to the Kaserne. The Sergeant Major would grab the soldiers and forcibly push them into the back of the jeep to brig them in. The units in the Community were graded by Colonel Price according to the number of incident reports. Among these were the number of Article 15's handed out in the particular week. I suggested he not include the number of Article 15's since that was the way to discipline the soldiers, and if we inhibited Company Commanders from using Article 15's then the soldiers would graduate to more serious crimes. Eventually that made sense to him, and he agreed.

One of my soldiers became involved in a relationship with his daughter. And he was not a good soldier and was being disciplined. Moreover, he had a learning disability. Colonel Price complained that we were not handling him right. Major Byrnes was advising me to lower the boom on the young man, and ignore Colonel Price. Instead I had the education advisor meet with Colonel Price and give him all the information. Colonel Price agreed with my handling of the situation.

The heliport was on the other side of the Main River, however I frequently went to be picked up at Graves Kaserne to avoid the drive through the town and across the river.

We participated in parades held at Graves Kaserne. To get there, I marched the Battalion from Smith Kaserne down Wurzburger Strasse to Graves Kaserne. I led, with my staff behind, and the band behind them. Once, for a Change of Command parade, Colonel Price asked me to be sure to have maximum participation. I made sure I had every member of the Battalion that I could muster, and marched to Graves Kaserne. Once at Graves, I massed the Battalion at the Ready Line, and when we marched passing in review we dwarfed every other Battalion in the Community since ours was by far the largest Battalion in Aschaffenburg. This visually apparent at the Pass in Review.

We had hosted a dinner at our house for General Elvin R. Heiberg and his wife who came from Frankfurt, and Colonel Gerhard W. Schulz and his wife, and the Deputy Commander of the 7th Engineer Brigade whose name escapes me now and his wife. It was a wonderful evening. I had worked for General Heiberg in Frankfurt as the Frankfurt Facilities Engineer just before coming to command the 9th Engineers. The Baader Meinhoff Gang had bombed the Main Officer Club and I had distinguished myself for carrying out the reconstruction while keeping the Club open.

We attended the Engineer Ball at Heidelberg, and had a great time. We toured Germany, France the Low Countries, Spain, Austria, and Italy. One of our favorite places to go and relax was at Berchtesgaden. The Germans had a lot of Beer Fests, and we also attended gatherings at the small towns with which we had a partnership relationship.

The movie theater was at Jaeger Kaserne, and we went to the movies often, and had something to eat at the Snack Bar there. Also at Jaeger Kaserne was the PX, and they sold special sound equipment that they kept in the first floor of the same building that Company A was located. I bought a number of high fidelity items there including Sansui speakers, a quadraphonic tape player. (These are no longer made, and I have a number of tapes with quadraphonic tapes that can only be played with the front speakers playing and the rear speakers silent.)

Also at Jaeger Kaserne was a soldiers Recreation Center manned by USO female attendants. Across from the Rec Center were the barracks of the MP unit that provided security in Aschaffenburg, a library, and classrooms were we went to study German. Jim who was 10 years old at the time, got in there one day, and I was called that there was an emergency and he had been taken to the dispensary. I went to pick him up and was aghast at his extensive injury. He had run into a swinging door with glass panels, and had put his arm through the glass panel. The broken glass had cut the skin in his forearm which had separated from the underlying muscle and folded up in the forearm. Miraculously, he had no cut any muscles or tendons. They just laid the skin back in its place, and it healed rather well.

I held the parade to turn over command of the Battalion in Graves Kaserne in a grassy area that faced Wurtzburger Strasse. We had plenty of Germans who stopped by the fence to watch the Change of Command. The 82nd Army Band came from Stuttgart to play for us. I had a jeep take me and Colonel Gerhard W. Schulz, the Commander of the 7th Engineer Brigade, to review the troops. We had been provided a set of VIP quarters at Graves Kaserne since I had already turned over the Battalion Commander's quarters to the incoming Battalion commander. Right after the ceremony, my driver took us to Rhein Main to board our plane back to the US.