May 12, 1971

Dear Mom & Dad,

Here are some more pictures for you.  These were all taken here in my new home away from home, Bamburg.  I took a chance and tried some cheap Japanese film for these pictures and I'm afraid you can tell the difference in the quality of them.  Very shortly I will try to get out another letter with more details, but now for these pictures.

 On the highest hill overlooking Bamburg is a very old castle.  This is a picture of the watch-tower inside the courtyard of the castle.

 This was taken from the castle; that's the city of Bamburg down below.  You will notice that the U.S. isn't the only country with pollution problems.  If you look closely through the haze you will be able to see two imposing structures.  These are both very large church's which you will see closer views of later.

 I climbed up the tower in the first picture (for a small fee of 10 pfennigs, or about 2 1/2 cents) and took this picture.  This was taken in the opposite direction of the city.

 Inside the walls of this castle is a pit, where in the old days, they kept bears or other wild animals for the amusement of the castle residents.  As you can see, the city of Bamburg still keeps this one lone bear in the same pit for the amusement of the tourists.

 Here's the same bear trying in vain to throw a little fear into the hearts of the onlookers.

 This is one of the churches that could been seen in the picture above.  It's called, simply, The Dom.  the church and a cluster of very old buildings around it are called collectively, Domberg.  This church was built between 1215 to 1237!  Inside are the tombs of Heinrich II and Pope Clement II.  At the present time, Bamburg is doing some major renovation work on this very old building to keep it from collapsing to the ground.  It is somewhat of a disappointment inside because of the extensive work going on there.

 These are two more of the four towers of the Dom.

 Here is one of the massive front doors of the Dom.

Across the square from the Dom is this building which in some past time was some type of church headquarters.  This whole area is very interesting especially if one is interested in architecture.  I quote form an English guide book I picked up.  "Here a square (Domburg) of really solemn greatness and impressiveness has emerged in the course of time.  In seven hundred years, from the heroic 12th until the end of the princely 18th century, the edifices, surrounding this square, have gradually come into existence.  Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque have united here exhaling a stream of German individualism, a world of pain and joy of battle and prayer.  The drama of this situation should appeal even to the least imaginative." Note that you can see my car parked in front.

There is another envelope on it's way with 10 more pictures.

April 22, 1971

Dear Mom & Dad,
Well, I'm now in Bamburg, Germany, where my new club is.  I really like it here, so far a lot better than Illishiem.  It's really quite a big city with around 70,000 people in it.  The city itself is very beautiful.  There are two rivers that run through the middle of the city which gives the town it's nick name of the "Venice of Germany".  I have also heard it called the "Rome of Germany" because it is built between 7 hills, like Rome.  On one of the hills overlooking the city is a very old castle. Another reason why Bamburg might be given these nick names of Italian cities is because about half of the population is Italian!  Most of the major stores and businesses in the city are owned by Italians and you hear almost as much Italian spoken on the streets as you do German.  Also in Bamburg, there are many very old medieval buildings and churches.  They say that it is one of the very few cities in Germany that had almost all of it's beautiful old buildings and churches saved from bomb damage during the second World War.  I've been going crazy taking pictures of everything to show you.

Also the Officer's Club here is much much better than Illishiem.  There are about 350 to 375 members here instead of the 135 at Illishiem.  The building itself is about four times bigger than my old one.  It is a rather old building and needs some remodeling work on the inside, but on the whole it is a palace compared to Illeshiem.

The financial condition of the club, which is the real important thing from my stand point, is also very good.  They have plenty of money in the bank and we are right now finishing up the annual audit, which has been going on for about a month.  They haven't finished the final report yet but it looks fairly good with no major problems.  This is really a great relief to be some place which isn't a hopeless situation to begin with.  Right now I am Assistant Custodian working under a 1st Lt. who is the full Custodian.  This Lt. has been here for over a year and sometime this summer he is scheduled to go to Vietnam, so it looks like I will be taking his place when he leaves which I think was the main idea of me being sent here.

By the way, I just found out that in March, which was the first month that I was official custodian of Illishiem, the club made money for the first time in about 6 months.  It may have been just luck, but at least it sounds good.

My Manger here at Bamburg is Italian, from the Bronx N.Y.  Also, about 75% of the other employees here are Italian, which makes the language problem a little worse.  If I get back to the states with an Italian-German accent, you'll know the reason why!  I get along with the Manager here pretty good, which is also helpful, since I couldn't stand the manager at Illishiem who was an old Drill Sgt before he became a club manager.  his main problem was that he hated officers, and especially 2nd Lt's.  By the way, just before I left Illishiem I came across some bills charged to the club that I knew we had never made.  It turned out that my Manager had charged some things to the club and kept them for himself.  We found the stuff in his room and he was relieved for misappropriation of government funds.

Yes I would say that on the whole I am very happy about my change here to Bamburg.  There is only one thing I have found her that I do't care for, and that is that a lot of the officers that come to the club are real A----'s.  This weekend, we had about 3 or 4 all-out fights in the club.  One. Lt. hit another Lt. so hard that he broke his jaw.  Blood is really hard to get out of carpets!  About a half hour after that happened two Captains and a Lt. got in a real bar room brawl over a slot machine.  They ripped out part of the slot machine and broke a glass case on a pinball machine.  Then my Manager got his Italian temper up and hit one of them over the head with a beer bottle.  We then called up the MP's and had every body in the club thrown out and closed up the club for the night.  Well at least I got to go to bed early that night!

I'm beginning to get writer's cramp, so I guess I will close for now.