January 31, 1971

Dear Mom and Dad,

Enclosed you will find my first roll of film from my new camera.  They're not that great but I was mostly just finding out how to use it at the time.  You might find some of them interesting, though.

 These are all shots of the front of the O'club from different angles.  as you can see, it looks kind of bad.  The plaster is falling off all over the place but sometime around May it is supposed to be fixed.

 The building is only 4 years old, but the Germans who were contracted to build it, did a lousy job.  the plaster is not the only thing that is falling apart, but it does look a little better inside.

 There is an interesting story behind the map of the US on the front of the club.  It seems as though one day a very large piece of plaster fell off the front wall after a particularly wild party.  Because there was no funds to fix it, something had to be done to cover it up...so someone had the bright idea of just chipping the blank space that the plaster left into the map you see in the picture!  But as you see it hasn't stopped the progress of the falling plaster If this trend keeps up we will have a map of the whole world up there.

 This is a shot of the office in the club.  those two people are my manager and secretary.  the manager is a Sargent, E-6

A small part of the combination dinning room, Ball Room, dance floor and meeting room inside the club.

 The Bar

Some beer mugs that belong to the officers in one of the Armored units here.  Each new officer in that unit is given one when he arrives and they are kept in the club.

Some our 6 infamous slot machines.  All of which are very old as slot machine go.  Some of the bigger clubs over here have rows of 20 or thirty of them but since they cost from $700 to $900, this is all we can afford to have.

The BOQ that I live in.  The bottom 4 windows belong to my room.  The BOQ is right next to the O'Club.  I couldn't quite get both buildings into the pictures..  At least here, I'm close to my work!

This is the inside of my room.  I have a bedroom and a living room, between which is a bathroom, so it is really a 3 room apartment.   the pictures make it look kind of bare.  Mainly this is because I don't have my things from the states yet.

I will write a more complete letter later on.

Post Cards from Illesheim and Bad Windsheim

This is the only post card I could find of this place.  Add about 4 inches of snow and that is what the front gate looks like now!  One thing I forgot to tell you in the letter:  the village is called Illesheim, but the post is called Storck Barracks.  All army posts are called barracks over here.  Naturally the officers club is called the "Stork club"

This is an aerial view of Bad Windsheim which is only about 2 miles from Illishiem.  If this picture had been taken from the other direction you could have seen Illishiem and Stork barracks.  This picture does show you nicely what the land close by looks like though.

This is a good picture of what Bad Windsheim, and most of the other towns around here look like.  I took several hours one day and walked all around these streets looking at everything.  that church in the center is empty and I don't think they use it for anything.  I guess it was damaged in the war.

Like I said in the letter, their are several interesting things to see in Bad Windsheim.  This is a picture of the court house or city hall or as they call it the Rathaus.

Jan 28, 1971

Dear mom & Dad
To begin with, I haven't yet got my car, mainly because the American Express has been extremely slow in processing my loan.  Also I have to take a drivers test (written only) and get a drivers license which is required of all military person in Europe.  Well anyway, I'm still expecting to get it soon, and maybe by the time you get this letter I will have it!.

Another thing I haven't gotten yet are all the things I shipped from the U.S.  I am still more or less living out of a suitcase, which is kind of bad but I'm still not too worried.  I understand that this long delay is fairly normal and sometimes they say it takes 2 or 3 months to get your stuff.

I have been surprised at the winter here.  It hasn't been near as bad as I thought it would be.  They had their first snow on the day I arrived in Frankfurt, and there were only one or two light snows after that.  Although it did get mighty cold at times, there was never more than two or three inches on the ground.,  For the last week or so, all the snow has melted and all we are having now is windy, rainy weather and a lot of mud.  Now that the snow is gone it is easier to tell what the land looks like.  I am in a river valley here so that means that this is mostly farming land, with wooded hills around it.  I have been trying to figure out what this area looks like compared to areas I've seen in the US, and finally came to the conclusion that it reminds me a lot of western Oregon in the area of the Willamette Valley.  There are a lot of open fields but always in the distance are pine covered hills and small mountains.

Since the last time I wrote, I have been around the country a little more and have got more of a feel for it.  I have discovered that only 3KM's from Illishiem is a bigger town, called Bad Winsheim, which has quite a few little stores and places to see.  When people here on post say they are going to town, they mean Bad Winsheim, not Illishiem!.

I should pause here for a moment and say that there is so much to tell you, that I just can't seem to ever get it all into one letter no matter how long I make it, so please forgive me if I seem to skip around or not cover any one area fully.  By the way in case I have never said so in so many words, I really like this place.  Everything is new to me over here and even the smallest details of this country and the people interest me.

I bought a camera a week or so ago, so I am going to start sending you all of my pictures if you will keep them for me in a safe place.  I want you to see everything I am seeing.  In this case I think a picture will be worth a 1000 words.  I didn't get a 35 mm camera like I thought I would, because after I get that Lotus, that will be enough luxuries for a while, and I will have to start living a little more thriftily.  It is a nice one, though, better than a Kodak at least.

As far as the "Dinning In" goes, everything went OK despite my nervousness about it.  I never did get any dress Blues, but to my great relief, I wasn't the only one in Greens.  As I think I told you I had to make two toasts, one to the President of the US and one to the dead soldiers of the Division.  I have always had a hard time speaking loudly enough to be heard in a group, but this time I concentrated every bit of energy in me to be loud!  I had to do this good because there were 300 officers there, plus two generals (1 three star and 1 two star) plus one German colonel.  Also all my immediate superiors were there.   Well I guess I did OK, at least no one complained and on the toast to the dead of the Division, everyone stood up and cheered, but I can write that off to patriotism or too much wine, but at least they heard me!  I also passed out cigars and wine to the head table with the Generals at it, but that was easy compared to the toast.    Well anyway I am mighty glad it is over with and I just hope some Lieutenant, junior to me comes in before we have another one!

I've got a lot to say about the club, but I don't think I will get to it in this letter.  I should take over officially some time in February, in the meantime I am learning quite a bit about it, and I am thankful for this period of "on the job training".  I am going to mail another envelope along with this letter with some post cards and odds and ends in it that you may be interested in ..

Auf Weiedersehen