THE ARRIVAL
It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost exactly 40 years to the day since a small green US Army bus carried me through the towered gate of Pinder Barracks in Zirndorf, Germany. It was just a few weeks before Thanksgiving 1968, and I was filled with both excitement and trepidation. I was excited because the entrance to Pinder Barracks, for a skinny kid from Oklahoma, looked like a castle keep and inspired my over active imagination. I was filled with trepidation because I knew that more time in the Army and away from home lay inside.
As the little bus drove beside the parade field and delivered me and my buddy, Ron Hucke, from Nebraska to our new unit, I was struck by the architectural beauty of the buildings. To a kid from the Great Plains, they looked palatial. We were dropped off at the doors to the 2d Battalion, 16th Artillery. A big rocket stood outside the building, but neither of us knew anything about that. Soon we would learn that the 2d battalion, 16th Artillery was an Honest John Rocket Battalion and we would help fire those rockets. Hucke and I had gone all the way through basic training at Fort Bliss and artillery training at Fort Sill, and here we were still together – the last people we knew in a strange new place. The 16th, as we would come to call it, was in Grafenwoer, so we arrived to an empty building except for Sgt. Sockabeeson, the recruiting NCO for the Battalion. He radioed the unit in the field and we were ordered to join them for the rest of their stay.
It was my introduction to what I many years later would learn was the Thuringian Forest. While the trees were beautiful, the dusty-one-day muddy-the-next tank trails were a mess. On arrival, I was assigned to A Battery, and my buddy Hucke was assigned to B Battery. So we didn’t see each other again until we returned back to Pinder the day before Thanksgiving. Since I had to await security clearance to join my specialty, I was consigned to KP and field latrine digging and the like. But when not actually out in the field, we stayed at the base camp and my new buddies took me to the EM Club to drink German Beer and watch the go-go girls dance. The large, well appointed club was a gift from Elvis Presley who had served there some ten years before me. Thanks, Elvis.
When we returned to Pinder, the next big thing was Thanksgiving Dinner in the mess hall. It was a semi-formal occasion, and one was required to wear a coat and tie or dress greens to attend. Since I was still living out of my duffle bag, my dress greens were a wrinkled mess, and I didn’t own a coat and tie. So I couldn’t attend. I was saved by my new friends Jerry Walker from Pennsylvania and Van Dalson from California, who leant me some ill-fitting civvies and took me off post for my first trip to Mom’s. What a treat that turned out to be.
I still remember it like it was yesterday. There was the foosball table just inside the door of the ultra clean, ultra modern dining room. And then this amazing woman with a headful of beautiful white hair came out to the table and said, “So.” That’s all she said. The warm expression on her face, however, made that single word into an entire conversation. I knew she wanted our order. My friends ordered up a round of Das Gute Zirndorfer for all, and I found my first great love in Germany. After a few more minutes she returned to take our food orders. Once again, my friends helped me out with the “strange” menu and ordered Wiener schnitzel all around. When Mom brought the food and I had my first taste of her magnificent Wiener schnitzel, I found my second love in Germany. I had never tasted anything – including my own Mother’s Thanksgiving turkey – so delicious.
That was just the beginning of many, many trips to Mom’s. It was also just the beginning of the first great adventure of my life, an adventure that lasted for one and a half years.
I will be returning to your site periodically with your permission to share more stories of my great memories of Zirndorf and Pinder Barracks. I have led a very interesting life since those days, but my mind always returns to Zirndorf and my friends at Pinder Barracks. I was happy to return there with a friend in 1995 for a short visit. It was great to have lunch again at the Gulden Loew with a couple of glasses of Das Gute Zirndorfer Bier. It was still wonderful after all those years.
Thanks, again, for your site. It stirred up a lot of happy memories for me.
