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.
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