I was mostly TDY to Boeblingen and other points over Germany and Austria. The only time I spent in Knielingen was less than two weeks when I was clearing all paper work to go to Fort Benning, Ga.

We were a small group of about ten men and four vehicles. We had no officers, just a Buck Sgt. The detachment was attached to the 585 Signal Company (Support) at Boeblingen.

We lived in a sixteen man tent most of our time doing maintenance on phone lines. We lived in the forrest just like a hermit.

We were in the forest outside of Mannheim somewhere and stayed there on maneuvers for about three months before I got back to Karlsruhe. I remember how cold it was and we had, I think ,10 man tents with two pot belly stoves to keep up warm. You had to fuel them, but it seemed like no one got up at night long enough to keep them going. So in the morning you would wake up and look at the others in their sleeping bag blowing cold air and it was like a train around the tent with the cold air blowing up in the air.

To this day I am amazed how "comrade" (the Germans) knew we were in the forest. The first night I arrived at our bivouac area a couple of the guys said "come to town with us." I ask how the hell we going to town out here no one knows we are here, and they all laughed and told me, "just wait and comrade will show up in cabs to takes us." And sure enough, about 1800, here they came.

Well, being a rookie in country the guys told me we are going to town on a yak attack. I said "yak attack, what is that?" Cognac rookie, ouch, the next thing I remember I woke up in my sleeping bag being awakened to go to the field to lay spiral 4 cable for the maneuver. I asked how I got back to the camp and they told me -- they told comrade to bring me back because I was in no condition to continue the night." That we my first memory of the field in Germany.

Co. B, we also spent a lot of time at the cable yard or walking behind a deuce and a half reeling in cable on the cable machines. I remember how some guys had a talent for reeling in cable on the cable machine and never over lapping a row of cable over the next row of cable as they fed the cable by pulling it onto the reel. It took me about four months before I got to be a reeler and walk behind the truck picking up and a reeling in spiral 4 cable after the maneuver was completed.

The bar I remember the most close to Gerszewski Barrack was called "The Tracodero." We used to have a hole cut in the back fence where we could sneak back in after curfew and the MP's could never find the hole.

I have so many great memories of Gerszewski Barracks and my time traveling all over German laying cable. We would go to Graf and qualify or else go to Baumholder and fire our 50's. Now those were cold ass places. I still remember standing by the engines on trucks with our hands out over the manifold to get warm. I remember on maneuver, we were out in the country side, way out, and as we were laying the cable, the forest was really thick, and one of the guys yelled at us and said "come here and look at this." I will never forget it. It was like a movie. He said "peek through the bushes," and there was an ice rink on the outskirts of a town and all these young girls were ice skating in their ice skating shorts. Of course everyone from the platoon came running over and we couldn't go talk because we were in our fatigues and dirty as hell. But that night, again, here comes comrade in cabs to take us to town.

The people of Germany were just great, always treated us with a great welcome whenever we entered their town, and the food was super.

A few names I still remember: Lt. Williams (speedy Williams), Mahoney, French, Ettinger, Dyer, Ford, Freddie Leigh, Kawasaki (Ski), Sgt Major (MF) he hated if you said it. Returned home on the General Rose. We went to Fort Hamilton and had to wait about two weeks for our discharge papers before we was released, it seemed like a year.

When I started reading some of the stories it brought back a lot of memories. I saw one about football in Germany. I remember each division had a football team and they would play each other. It was a big deal in the 1960's who was the best. I remember when I got out and I was watching the Steelers play on TV and because I am a Raider fan and I was at a Raider game against the Steelers and there was Andy Russell, linebacker for the Steelers. I went to the sideline and yelled at Russell and ask him if he played football in Europe and he said yes he did and came over and talked to me and I told him I saw him play in Mannheim against 7th Army. He talked to me for a long time and had to go because the game was going to start, but you could see and listen to him talk about his football playing in the service and it meant a lot to him.

I went to high school with a friend who played linebacker for the 24th Infantry Division. I told other friends how I had seen Andy and many other pro players in Germany. SHAPE command, 7th Army, 24th infantry, and other divisions had football teams. It was such a big deal to go to Mannheim and watch division level football games. 7th Army played their home games in Mannheim. The players would get drafted and the Generals would learn who they were and away they would go to try out, if they made the team, you would not see them again. It didn't make any difference which sport, if you were a jock (and good) you had it made. They had their own barracks (all the jocks). They took care of the gyms at the dependents living areas, or they would take care of the soldiers gyms, baseball fields or track depending on when their sport was in season. They never went to the field, never..hehehe...

The best sham were the boxers, because they were TDY all the time and all they did was train. I remember they had the Olympic try outs and the military always sent many boxers to the try outs. We would be encouraged to attend the military try outs and it was a lot of fun for all the troops to go and support the guys from 7th Army against the other divisions. Some how I remember that SHAPE command had a lot of Navy guys involved in sports along with the other services.

My high school friend who played for the 24th Infantry Div. attends a 24th Infantry football team reunion every few years with the football players he served with.

I arrived in Bremerhaven by troop ship (USS Rose) in Sept, of 1962... took a train to Gerszewski Barracks in Knieligen, Germany (just west of Karlsruhe ). Two weeks later I was on top of a mountain looking down on Heidelberg walking guard duty in a foot of snow...

The 25th would go out in the field and build telephone communications for the war games and afterwards would clean-up and go back in barracks for inspections, training, and re-stocking our 2 1/2 ton trucks to do it all over again.

Our Battalion Commander was Col. Brock. Captain Jack Smith was our C/O among others (Company B).

Some of the names I remember are Sgt. Taylor (he was called "tree top" because of a song lyric at the time about tree top liver; he had a red 1961 Ford Convertible and in Germany at that time it was a chick magnet). Other names: Lt. Bazan, Sgt.OBrian, Sgt.Badura, 1st Sgt. Mac Finch (a fantastic leader), John Geisy, Ralph Coulson, Lt. McClelon, Ron Chordes, Hendrix Allen, George Yingling, Zotales, Burke, Kemp, Small, Walter Reed.

During the Cubin Crisis the M-60 tanks on our base were all fired up and ready to head East....we were issued live ammo and packed all our equipment and thought for sure we were going to war....was a heck of a time to be a 20 year old kid.

When President Kennedy was killed.....Germany stood still........they loved him as much as we did.......and again we packed up and thought we might be heading toward Russia.

Germany at that time was only 18 years out of World War Two and there was a generation of combat soldiers from both sides that were there looking into the retirement years of life. Some of the "lifers" I served under and a number of "locals" I was lucky enough to meet occasionally would talk about their experiences. Mostly I got the feeling that they looked back and discovered that the whole thing was useless and they felt like pawns, but yet they would do it all over again.

As an E-4 I made $64 a month and discovered that I was making more than the average German family man in Karlsruhe. Only very wealthy locals owned an automobile and all the women I saw were riding bicycles to and from work. It was normal to see a man in a suit with a briefcase on a bike in downtown Karlsruhe.