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

January 6, 1971

Dear Mom & Dad,
I was very happy today when I got your letters.  It was the first mail that I've received here so far.  I've got a lot of things to tell you and I hope I can get them all in this letter.  I will start out with what I consider my biggest news!  I've ordered a car!  Yes I didn't wast much time in ordering it, and guess what kind it is!   A LOTUS EUROPA!

I can hardly believe it my self, even though I've already paid 10% down on it and I should get it in a week or two.  The total price, including transportation and everything came to $3577.00.  That's about $800 less than the one I priced in Portland if I remember right!

I'm in the process of getting a $2599 loan from the American Express which gives fairly good deals to military personnel, and the balance of it I will pay with my own funds, (about $727.00).  So when I get it I will have $1077 paid on it, and I will have the loan paid in 24 months.  The only thing that will really kill me is the insurance which will be very high, although I don't know yet exactly how much.  But this car is so great, and I want it badly enough, that I am willing to pay the extra for the insurance!  The color will be what they call burnt sand.

Someone is going to drive it direct from Britain to a place called Kaiserslaten Germany, and the agent who sold it to me will drive me there so I can pick it up.  It's a brand new 1971 and the only miles on it will be what it takes to get it here from England.  Needless to say I am very excited about getting it!!  I went out a few days ago and bought a coat that was made in England, and it's a Harris Tweed which you probably have heard of...It really looks sharp and I thought it would be appropriate with the Lotus!    I will write later and tell you all about it when I get it.

Now I will go back in time a few weeks and tell you about my trip over here because I guess I neglected to do that in my last letter.

I was very nervous about making my flight to Germany from Ft. Dix, but as it turned out I didn't have anything to worry about.  I got to Ft. Dix at about 9:00 PM and if you remember, I had to be there no later than 1:00 AM.  Well it turned out that the flight wasn't supposed to leave until 3:00 AM.  That's a night I won't soon forget because the plane didn't really leave until 6:45 AM, so I spent the night  (about 9 1/2 hours) waiting in that terminal with about 300 other people.  But finally we did leave!  The plane wasn't the best I've flown but it was a regular commercial DC 8.  It was a charter outfit called universal Air Lines which I have never heard of and probably will never hear of again.  The pilot was a fat old man who looked like he just got off an all night drunk and the stewardesses were nothing to write home about...so I won't.  But I won't gripe too much, because they did get me here one way or the other.  The flight over was the shortest day I've ever seen.  the sun was just rising when we left, and since we were flying against it, 3 hours or so later it was already getting dark out the window.    I didn't see much on the way, except what the pilot said was Nova Scotia as we left, a patch of ocean here and there between clouds, the coast of England in the dark and the lights of Paris just before we landed.  It was about 7PM in Frankfurt when we landed.

I just found out a few days ago that I'm not where I thought I was!  That might sound funny, but it's true.  When I first got here the only clue I had as to where I was was to look for the city Neustadt on the map since that was the place I went to on the train.  Well it turns out that there are about a half dozen Neustadt's in Germany and I was looking at the wrong one.  So I'm not right on the East German border like I told you before, in fact I am only about 35 miles from Erlangen, where I was going to go in the first place, about the same distance west of Nurenburg.  It's not really a bad position to be in, except that there isn't any big city real close.

Now I'm going to try and tell you something about my job, or at least what I know about it so far.  The first two weeks I spent in Headquarters mostly waiting, which I am used to by now, but on the pretext of "processing in" to the unit.  During the holiday it was very hard because most everything was closed down, and when they were open they only worked half days.  But I finally finished going through all the red tape and got to see the Colonel.  Right now I am in a rather strange position in that I am not actually in charge of the club and won't be for another month or so.  They want me to just hang around the club and the manager and try to learn as much about it as possible before I am put officially in charge.  This is really good for me and I didn't really expect to get such a good deal.  The only thing is I feel kind of in the way and useless and I will be glad when I actually have some authority.  Although I am not officially in charge, I've been hanging around enough and bugging everybody that I was finally given a little responsibility today.  In fact tonight at 12:00 PM I am going to take in the money and lock up.  Right now its 9:30 PM and I'm writing this letter in the office of the club (trying to look busy)  The bar stays open till 12:00.  We serve 3 meals a day, but just about the only people who eat here , unless there is a banquet or something are the single officers and teachers (who teach at the school on post and also live in the BOQ)  One thing I would really like to start is getting more married people coming to dinner etc.  The food isn't too bad now that they got this new German cook, but everybody is still scared off from the last cooks who were enlisted men, and from what I understand smoked dope in the kitchen and I guess their food showed it.  Also along with the club I will be in charge of the BOQ's which are right next to the club.  I have already been given the job of finding furniture for quite a few of the rooms that are completely bare and also I have to find and hire some German cleaning lady to do the upkeep over there which they are also lacking.  I've got to get this done by the 15th.

Right now the Custodian of the club and the NCO club and the enlisted men's club is a SSG who was put in as an emergency measure after the 2nd LT. who had been custodian of the O cub was kicked out.  I will be taking the O club off his hands in a month or so.  He will be leaving about March and at that time if everything is OK at the O' club I will be given the NCO club and the enlisted men's club.   I don't know if I should look forward to that or not.

There are 135 members of the officers club, and it is fairly small as O'clubs go, but the building is only about 4 years old and is fairly nice inside although the plaster on the outside is falling off which gives one a bad impression at first.  It has a good size bar and a separate little room which has nothing but slot machines in it!  Also it has a fairly large room which is used for banquets, dances, etc. and of course an office which I don't really feel I can call mine yet!

My biggest worry doesn't have anything to do with my job at the club.  On Jan 16th the Brigade is going to have a real big formal dinner at somplace near Nurenburg.  They call it a "Dining In" for some reason.  There will be two generals invited to it and it is really a big deal.  Well anyway I am now the junior officer of Headquarters and Headquarters company of the 1st Bde, so this give me the dubious honor of being made what they call "Vice President of the Mess"  This doesn't have anything to do with the club.  What it means is that I have to make two toasts at this big dinner with the Generals.  One to the dead soldiers of the Brigade and one to the President of the mess, who is the Colonel.  Also along with a few other junior officers I have to recite the history of the 4th Armored Division.  My biggest worry about this whole thing besides the fact that I hate to speak in front of groups and the fact that I have never seen a formal toast and don't really know what to say, is the fact that I don't have and Dress Blues!  Mainly because the things I shipped from the states haven't got here yet, and it doesn't look like they will by then!  Well it's a problem, but I will get a pair one way or the other.  Probably will end up borrowing a set from soneone.  I will be glad when it's over with.

Well I've written enough for now......

December. 22, 1970

Dear Mom and Dad,
I hope you got the post cards I sent you along the way.  If you did, you will know that I made it to Germany OK.  It was a very long and involved trip, but I finally made it to my duty station, in fact I just arrived about an hour and a half ago.  I am now sitting in my BOQ room writing this letter. Guess what!  I'm not in Erlangen, but in a place called Illesheim.  Not only is the name unpronounceable, the town is so small you won't find it on most maps.  The Post is also very small, but about 10 times the size of the town, which consists of about a half dozen buildings and a Guest House.  Not only is it small, it is also a long way out in the country.  to get here I took a train from Frankfurt to a town called Neustadt which is big enough to be on the map, but probably won't be on the one I left home.  Neustadt is right on the East German border and as close as I can make out, about 65 miles due North from Nurnberg.

Anyway after I got off the train in Neustadt a Lieutenant from Illesheim picked me up and after about a 30 minute drive on winding country roads we got here.  So all I can tell you about where I am is that I am about a 30 minute drive from Neustadt in some direction which I don't know, and about 65 miles from Nurnberg.  Why my orders were changed like that at the last minute, I really don't know...that's just the Army's way of making you more confused I guess.

But I do have a club here, which I had my doubts about getting.  After hearing what little I did hear so far about it from this lieutenant who brought me here and after a brief inspection, myself over a beer, I'm not so sure that I should be too happy about it.  It appears as thought the club is in real bad shape financially.  The last club custodian was a 2nd Lt., like me and also "school trained" at Ft. Lee, like me, but I guess he had quite a hard time with it, and was put in some other job after a few months.  So I'm the one who is going to replace him.

Well tomorrow morning I have to report to the Colonel who is in charge of the post, so I think I will go to bed now and get some rest.  I will try to continue this letter tomorrow

Sat. Dec. 26

Well it's been about 3 days now since I started writing this letter.   I was very tired the night I started writing.  As I am writing now, I figure that it must be about 6:00 AM your time, the morning after Christmas.  I've had kind of a hard time adjusting to the drastic time change.    I really hope you had a good Christmas.

Really, at this time I can't say much about my impressions of Germany, because I haven't seen any of it yet, to speak of.  Right now my biggest job is to get into my job as Club Custodian and start doing as well as I can in it.  I don't really plan to start doing any real sight-seeing for a month or so, or until I get settled.  The only contact I've had with Germany so far was the train trip from Frankfurt to Neustadt which was really quite an experience in it's self, even though it was dark, which made it difficult to see outside.  The passenger cars are divided into little separate rooms with 6 seats in each.  The rooms are closed off with a glass door and windows that look onto a very narrow hallway that goes from one end of the car to the other.  I had one heck of a time trying to go through that narrow hall, with my 3 heavy pieces of luggage, looking in each glass enclosed room for an empty seat.  To make matters worse there were hundreds of people also in the hall walking around and I was clogging up the whole works with my suitcases!  I finally did find a seat and had an interesting conversation with a German girl who was anxious to try out her English - which wasn't too hot.

Well anyway, to get back to life here in Illesheim, things are really dragging along at a slow pace.  I haven't started working yet and have spent most of my time in my BOQ reading and writing.  This is a very bad time of the year to check into a military post.  On Wed. and Thurs., everybody was only working half days which made processing in difficult.  Friday was Christmas and everything was closed tight.  Today and tomorrow are also semi- holidays, so I won't be able to finish processing in until next week.

There is about a half inch of snow on the ground, and it is very cold here which makes going outside difficult in my yellow windbreaker.  Very soon I think I will buy a heavy coat.

I want to get this letter off as soon as possible.  Please drop me a note so I know that you got this OK.  My address is below:

2LT. M  L B  ss#  (we would put our SS# right in the address)
HHC 1st Bde, 4th Armored Division
Attention - Officers club
APO NY NY 09140

Post Cards On The Way to Germany

Dec 20, 1970

 Made it to Chicago OK - So far so good!  Must go to bed now so I can get up early to catch the flight to Philly.
Love,
Marty

                                                          Dec 20, 1970

I made it to Philadelphia without any difficulty.  I have plenty of time, so I am catching up on my sleep here before I get a bus to McGuire AFB.  should be leaving McGuire in 9 hours.
Love,
Marty

                                                           Dec. 21, 1970

It is now 4:00 AM , Monday Morning.  I've been waiting here for about 7 hours.  My plane should leave in about an hour.  There has been some delay.  I am very tired, but every thing is going OK.  Will write as soon as possible after I get in Germany

                                                         Dec. 22, 1970

I made it!  I am now in Frankfurt!  I spent the night here at the Rhein Main Aerial Port Hotel which is run by the Air Force and is completely American.  It is now 10:00 AM, Dec. 22.  I just had breakfast and I am about to try and arrange transport to my station.  I was told last night by the Replacement Battalion that my orders were changed from Erlangen to somewhere else.  I don't know where yet!  Will write when I get settled.

PS...It's snowing!!

October 6, 1970

Dear Mom and Dad,
Everything is going OK here.  Until about a week and a half ago it had been very hot, with almost every day reaching into the 90's, but finally there was a break in the heat and it is now a lot more pleasant.  In fact, in the mornings it is down right cold, but it does warm up during the day.  The leaves are beginning to turn and everything is looking very nice.

I'm really beginning to feel at home here - having a car has been a great help (I leased a Ford Maverick)  I really love to take off on a Sunday and just drive without being concerned as to where I am or where I am going.  This weekend I went to the Virginia State Fair in Richmond.  It really wasn't as good as the Oregon State Fair, but still it was interesting, and most of all I enjoyed seeing the great cross section of people who were there.

Last Friday I graduated from the basic QM course.  I'm enclosing a copy of the program from the Graduation.  The diploma that they gave us is more impressive looking than the one I got from college. Looking back I am slightly disappointed in the course.  There was much too much concentration on general military subjects, with no more than about two weeks devoted to actual Quartermaster functions.  this is especially bad because any commander I might be under in the future will expect me to know everything about all phases of logistics, just because I have the Key and Wheel on my coat.  the Supply and Service officers course, which I was going to go to, before I went V.I (Voluntary Indefinite) is where they get down to the real nitty gritty of supply.  Hopefully though, since I am going to the Open Mess management course, I will be put in a job where I just have to know about working in an Open Mess, but unfortunately they don't promise you that you will be working in your MOS.

Well the OMM course doesn't stat until Oct 18, so I am now on Interim duty which started yesterday.   I've got a fairly good job for the next two weeks.  I check Id's and OK checks for cashing in the commissary!  the best part about it is that I only have to work a half day, because there is another Lt. on the same job.  One of us works from 8:00 to 1:00 and the other from 1:00 to 6:00.  Also we can work out our own schedule so we are going to work it so one of us will work a full day on Thurs and Friday and the other will work a full day on Monday and Tuesday, so this way we can both have a 4 day weekend!  It's not bad at all for about $50 a day!!  It is also a good break from study and classes.  During the last week of the Basic course we had two days of on the job training which was one of the better things we did.  myself and 3 other Lieutenants were assigned to a company with 400 men in it, which was run by one 1st Lt. who had been in the Army for only about 8 months.  One of the days that we were with him happened to be pay day for the enlisted men, so we got to help him pay the troops.  The pay roll came to $39,000 in cash!  I've never seen so much money in my life.  We had two armed guards with us all the time, while we were counting it and paying.  This was a great experience, because it is one job that is almost always given to the Junior LT. in a company.

Well that's about all for now, Please write when you can.
Love
Marty