One winter day, the entire unit was transported to Oberammergau, south of Munich and deep in the Bavarian Alps. The area’s beautiful mountains, deep snow and quaint villages with expensive boutiques draw thousands of tourists every winter. The village was so beautiful, in fact, that the U.S. Army was forbidden from entering it except on direct orders. We were billeted at some sort of training base and began training for winter warfare. After we completed a small round of war games, we were told that we’d begin learning how to ski the following day. Some of us were excited to learn in this playground of the rich and the famous. But not everyone was so thrilled.
“Fuck that motherfucking shit. You won’t see my ass skiing down no goddamn mountain,” one of the men said.
We were driven to a resort with a bar, at the base of some very steep mountain slopes. After arguably the briefest class ever given in downhill skiing, we were taken to the mountaintop, and told to start.
A tough Chicano sergeant announced he would go first. “I ain’t scared of this fucking shit,” the sergeant announced as he pushed off on his ski poles.
The instructors had directed us to ski downhill in a series of turns to help keep our speed under control. But the sergeant ignored that concept and instead headed straight downhill, with his ski poles tucked firmly up into his armpits—much as one would see from world-class downhill skiers. His technique worked for a bit. Halfway down, he lost control and became airborne, his legs and arms flailing wildly before he hit the snow hard.
Others followed the sergeant, with similar results. My roommate, fearing that he, too, would crash on the way down, looked around for a trail that wasn’t as steep. He found one, and had a good run going until he realized that the trail ended in a ski jump. We watched with morbid curiosity as he flew off the end of the ski jump and landed somewhere out of our view. We worried briefly if he was still alive. But our first priority was finding our own, and safe, way down the mountain.
I found a suitable slope and pushed off. Much like the sergeant who had gone first, I aimed straight down the mountain, poles tucked. I tried to turn once, only to wipe out in the snow and draw laughter from some of the other men.
Pissed off, I stood up, ignored the instructor’s advice again, and headed straight down. As I rapidly gained speed, I started to rethink my decision—but it was too late. I was headed for the picture window at the lodge’s bar and could make out the faces of people sitting there enjoying an after-ski drink. I had a decision to make: continue straight and go through the window or wipe out in front of everyone.
I crashed right outside the bar, landing hard in the packed snow. I felt an intense pain on my outer right thigh, and wondered if I’d broken a bone or worse. Gently patting the area, I discovered a can of C-rations in the thigh pocket of my fatigue pants. I pulled the crushed can out of my pocket and stared at it: pork and lima beans.
CHAPTER NINE
ROCKIN’ ROBIN
After returning to base in Göppingen, we were told that new dormitory-type barracks would be ready in the spring. So we wintered in our old barracks amid battling boom boxes and Mandrax zombies. A lot of the men seemed anxious to move into the new quarters, but I had deep-seated concerns. Drawing a room with Big T, Kane or Brown would be a nightmare. These guys partied late all the time, and they were hooked up with some of the most violent and militant soldiers on the base.
There wasn’t much I could do about the matter, and so amid the din from the boom boxes and shouts from the men, I immersed myself in the books that I kept stashed in the bottom of my locker: The Dogs of War, by Frederick Forsyth; The Seven Minutes, by Irving Wallace; Uhuru and The Honey Badger, both by Robert Ruark; and Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan, by Carlos Castaneda.
Journey to Ixtlan was one of my favorites; it had been given to me by one of the guys I knew on the base, and it rocked me. Castaneda writes about his apprenticeship to a teacher named don Juan, whose age is impossible to know. Don Juan speaks of being a hunter and a warrior, and how a man’s only real reason for life is to hunt power—power to make him stronger inside. He teaches that life is a beautiful and mysterious thing, and that it can be taken from you in an instant. So rather than lament its risks and dangers, a hunter lives as a warrior, strategically maneuvering through each moment and living life to its fullest. Being a true spiritual warrior is the only task worthy of our manhood. Toltec wisdom, in short: the creator left us with two options, and only two—misery or strength. You choose.
When the barracks were completed the following spring, we learned who we would be paired up with. I drew Brown as my roommate. The good news was that he was being sent back home to tend to a family issue, so I would be alone for a while.
The dorm scene played out to a different tune. Now the boom boxes were replaced by state-of-the-art stereo systems, played at high volume behind closed doors in semi-private rooms.
The newfound privacy also meant that the men didn’t have to be inconvenienced any longer when shooting smack or smoking blocks of hash. Smoking hash was easy. All you needed to do was get a can of soda or beer from the dispenser, drink or pour out the liquid and then form the can into the shape of a canoe. Then you’d take the rank pin from your collar and poke holes in the can. Finally, you’d crumble a large chunk of morphine green or Turkish black hash onto the can, and begin your smoking pleasure. Spoons for cooking heroin were easily stolen from the mess hall during meal time.
We fell into a routine that blended field operations with hours upon hours of hanging around our barracks and almost invariably getting into trouble, either with drugs or fighting among ourselves. Our five-day work week of training was punctuated by guard duty stints and mini field exercises that would include two or three 10-mile walks and all-night patrols. Although I drank the hearty local beer, I was a very lean (for me) 195 pounds.
Full-scale field exercises were about a month in length and happened in May, October and February on sprawling American bases at Hohenfels and Grafenwöhr, which had large cement barracks where we could spend a couple of nights in before going back out into the woods. When we were out in our APCs, we used a sleeping bag along with an inflatable air mattress and our “shelter halves” to protect ourselves from the elements—if we were lucky enough to be able to sleep lying down. Other times, we grabbed a few hours’ sleep inside our vehicles.
One night, we were out practicing an assault on a steep hill covered in pine trees. My new lieutenant, Robin Bailey—whom we referred to as “Rockin’ Robin”—suddenly herded the entire platoon into APCs and roared off into the night, leaving me and a green new guy on the hilltop in pitch darkness.
“What now?” Private First Class Jerry Gormley asked as the sound of the rumbling APCs grew fainter.
The two of us pooled all our German marks and walked toward the nearest town, the lights barely visible in the distance. No one in our unit seemed interested in finding us, so we figured we would have to find our own way home.
After walking for an hour or so, we made it to a small Gasthaus serving beer to five or six local farmers in a bustling metropolis of about 30 residents. Though the inn’s proprietors weren’t particularly happy to have machine-gun-toting soldiers at their tables, the cash seemed to help, and we were soon being served an excellent local brew by our hostess. Gormley and I figured that our unit would realize they left us behind—and would eventually show up to collect us. But the two of us wound up sitting there drinking, and then eating, for hours, with no sign of our buddies.
Eventually the local farmers grew tired of my buddy and I chatting up our hostess, and one of them challenged me to arm wrestle. The farmer was both angry and lit after having a few beers, and I got the feeling that I needed to win this challenge—or face the group’s wrath.
Motivated primarily by fear, I slammed the stunned farmer’s wrist flat on the table. I had been told that twisting the wrist inward was the secret. It is. I then offer
ed to buy everyone a beer (with my buddy’s money, of course). All went well, and a short while later we all shook hands as the bar closed. But we had a problem—the sleeping gear was on the APC, and we had no means of communication with the unit and not much cash. Our newfound female friend agreed to let us sleep on the wood benches in the restaurant. The next morning, we awoke and were allowed to shower and shave in her personal bathroom. She refused to accept any money from us.
With no one showing up to rescue us, we decided to walk in the general direction that the APCs had headed in the previous night. We walked for hours down dirt roads through the forest. Then we saw a convoy of American vehicles heading toward us.
I flagged down a jeep with a captain in the passenger seat, staring down at some topographic map, and asked him where our unit was located. He said that they were at least 10 miles ahead of us. But when I asked him to make contact or otherwise assist us, he announced that he’d just received new orders and had to leave immediately. He and the rest of the convoy roared down the dirt road, abandoning Gormley and I once again.
What had started off as an amusing little adventure was slowly turning into a nightmare. We couldn’t understand why our unit wasn’t trying to track us down, and why the captain couldn’t have at least put in a call to headquarters about us. We walked for hours more, hoping to find a train or bus stop.
Eventually, we stumbled upon a German air force base, where we were promptly taken to the base commander, a squared-away-looking colonel and jet fighter pilot. After I explained our situation, including the brush-off from the American convoy, he became very agitated. He grabbed the phone and lit into every American military official he could find until he was able to take care of the problem. We were taken to a railhead and placed on a train to Cooke Barracks, where we hung out until the unit returned from maneuvers.
In a bizarre twist, the army actually accused Gormley and me of “desertion” and attempted to bring us up on formal charges. They refused to listen to what Gormley and I had to say about being left in the woods and our efforts to get reunited with our unit. I had no choice but to retain a criminal defense attorney, who successfully tracked down the German air force colonel, who was now in San Diego. The colonel was apoplectic and vowed to fly back to Germany to speak in our defense at any proceedings called by the army. My superiors said nothing to me but subsequently withdrew the charges. It was all as if nothing had happened.
A few weeks later, word came down that Brown would soon be returning to the company, and my solo time would be up. Because of a great deal of grumbling, the roommate structure was going to be rearranged across the board. In Brown’s absence, I made a strong case for rooming with another African-American soldier, with whom I got along well. That worked out, for me. But it was bad news for the new roommate Brown was paired with—and would sexually assault.
When that happened, the company was put on lockdown and an investigation was done. But witnesses said little and the investigation didn’t get very far. Both men were transferred out to different companies. The incident triggered animosity within the company, and a cold chill permeated the barracks. Though some saw this as a purely racial matter, it was far different to me. I had African-American friends, white friends and Latino friends. Hell, Brown and I were friends—though he probably wouldn’t have acknowledged that in public. This was about predators and prey, and the game continued 24/7.
As time slid by, Kane and I shared an uneasy but nonconfrontational existence. He was growing more vocally militant and aggressive, clearly unnerving a lot of white soldiers. One late morning in May, when I was walking alone in the huge motor pool in Hohenfels, he called me over and asked for a favor. He told me he wanted to have a private conversation with a white sergeant. He’d just been promoted to E-4, which was one rank below sergeant. Was he crazy enough to actually assault an NCO while we were on the base—and in the middle of the day? Kane’s face held a sly smile, and he asked if I could close the loading ramp on the APC he was working out of. I did so, and walked away thinking that there was no way he’d dare go that far.
But Kane did, indeed, assault the sergeant, leaving him with two black eyes. Not surprisingly, he was immediately charged with a court-martial offense. I was, of course, the last person to see the two of them before the incident—and the only witness other than Kane and the sergeant. When Kane’s case came to court, I was called upon to testify—and did so honestly. Kane was furious with me for testifying. He was found guilty as charged and taken away in handcuffs by military police—only to be given a second chance by superiors and allowed to return to the unit.
While Kane was locked up in a military stockade, I became acquainted with a white soldier from Cook County, Illinois, known simply as “Doc.” My new friend proudly carried around in his wallet the newspaper clippings describing his deeds of derring-do as a criminal prior to enlisting. Some three or four months later, the two of us wound up getting arrested by MPs on the base after a fight; both of us were charged with assault. I was found guilty and knocked down a pay grade, which I later recovered. Doc, who had a long rap sheet, was sentenced to do time in the army’s correctional facility in Mannheim, Germany.
After the verdict was handed down, Doc was sent back to the barracks with a police escort, to collect his belongings. He asked me to help him pack. Doc’s prison escort was the heavyset Sergeant Chesty, who had signed out a .45-caliber pistol and nine rounds of ammunition just in case things got out of hand with Doc. Chesty seemed bored watching Doc pack his few belongings and so was amusing himself by playing quick-draw with his loaded .45. What he had somehow failed to remember was that at some point before getting to the barracks, he had racked the gun—pulling back and releasing the slide mechanism on the pistol to load a round into the chamber. The .45 was ready to fire. Chesty had apparently missed the firearms safety course that every new recruit is required to take.
Me outside Cook Barracks in Göppingen, Germany. The second-floor window (over my left shoulder) is where the incident with the stray .45-caliber bullet took place.
Time and again, the sergeant acted like a modern-day Wyatt Earp, pulling the pistol from his holster and spinning it back into place. Then he pointed the pistol at me, loosely forming a grip and said, “Hey, Brad.” He pulled the trigger with the pistol pointed at my chest. The gun went off with a deafening explosion, and I felt a burn on my wrist. My eyes darted to both Doc and Chesty. All three of us were covered in white dust, but otherwise we were okay. The bullet had grazed my wrist, ricocheted off the rock-hard plaster wall, flown out an open window and disappeared. The company was away on a training exercise at the time, and we were the lone witnesses to the gun’s firing.
The unintended discharge of a .45-caliber pistol on the base was a serious offense, and we all knew that Sergeant Chesty could soon be joining Doc in jail if the incident was reported—or if he couldn’t return all nine .45-caliber rounds that he’d been given. I glanced at Doc, telegraphing my amazement at the sergeant’s stupidity. Neither one of us held any animosity toward Chesty, nor did we see any point in getting the guy in trouble. No one said anything, but we all went to work cleaning up the mess from the wall and moving a locker to cover the large hole left by the bullet. We then “found” a .45-caliber round to replace the spent one that was lost. Chesty babbled his undying thanks to Doc and me and proceeded to escort the prisoner to jail. It was the last time I ever saw or heard from Doc.
Life on the base increasingly fell into a rhythm for me—grueling days of training on our base or some other army facility in the German countryside, visits to assorted bars and nightclubs during weekend leave (and dealing with the inevitable hangover afterwards) and the occasional trip to a whorehouse like the House of Three Colors in Stuttgart.
There were also some memorable longer trips, including one that several of us made to Paris via bus. We took in some of the tourist sites—the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Palace of Versai
lles—and enjoyed some very nice (and relatively inexpensive) French wines. And we amused ourselves with a side-trip to Pigalle, where we found some women of the night at 1 p.m. But all of the activity seemed to take place against a never-ending stream of violence. At least, those are my most vivid memories, the ones that made the biggest impression on me during my tour of duty.
During one unforgettable training mission to Hohenfels, I caught the flu. It was the only time during my three-year tour of duty that I ever got that sick. Excused from the normal routine, I was allowed the privilege of just lying in my sleeping bag on a cot. My temperature was between 103 and 104 degrees, and the mess hall and bathrooms were a long walk down a dark pathway from my company’s sleeping area. At no time did I ever receive so much as a gesture of kindness from anyone in my squad. A couple of guys filled up my canteen, using a nearby faucet, but that was it.
Weak and with no appetite, I just lay in my cot, sweating profusely into my sleeping bag hour after hour. I tried to keep hydrated using the water in my canteen and periodically stumbled to the latrine to relieve myself.
I asked my squad leader if I could get sent back to the rear, as I was feeling very weak, but he said “Top”—the top sergeant—wouldn’t send anyone to the medical unit unless their temperature hit 105 degrees. That was apparently the way they did it in Vietnam, at least according to Top. My sergeant’s experience had apparently been different. During his two tours in ’Nam, soldiers were sent to the rear if their temperatures hit 102. One way or the other, there wasn’t anything he was willing to do about my plight.
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