With the US 1st Armored Division in Cold War West Germany (414)

35:56He was one of those guys in the armored cavalry assault vehicles, the beefed up 113s that were sent to not only find the enemy, but to engage and hold them in place with the 50 cal and two M60 machine guns on pintles so they could rotate around. Yeah, they mounted on the hull. It was a lot of firepower. A-calf. Yep. I think, Doug, you sent something through to me where there was a motto with the Cav, find the bastards and then pile on. That was the case in the Vietnam era, which became the doctrine that influenced the army in the post-Vietnam years that Mike and I were in. Because usually scouts want to be stealthy, go find the enemy and report back on their strength and intentions.

36:57But during the Vietnam era, as I mentioned, it was find them, hold them in place and keep them pinned down, pile on until the maneuver units get there to finish them off, which included air assets. So for that reason, in cavalry units, the Sheridans were replaced by M60 main battle tanks. That's hardly stealthy. And then even for the scouts, we were equipped with the new improved tow vehicle to improve our lethality and survivability. So the mission changed from armored reconnaissance to armored firepower, and that's a debate that still goes on today with the M2 Bradley, which is really an infantry fighting vehicle.

37:47A modified version is used for the scouts, the M3 cavalry fighting vehicle, but its silhouette is so high and it's big and bulky. It's hardly prototypical for a scout vehicle. Stealthy it is not. Although it seems like the Ukrainians seem to like it a lot. Yeah, probably because of its firepower and survivability. Yeah, it appears to be better than the BMPs. Yes, no doubt. In the 1991 Gulf War, I got to see what that 25-millimeter chain gun could do to a BMP. Made it look like Swiss cheese. Put these huge holes on it with armor-piercing rounds. Doug, you mentioned the TOW missile. That was an anti-tank wire-guided system.

38:47Yes, absolutely. And we received new improved 113s that had the tow missile in a turret that could slew 360 degrees. So we didn't have to expose ourselves shooting the tow. So it was very advanced for 1980. and I was deemed to be a responsible junior soldier and was made the battery charger. So I had to make sure those tow batteries were 100 % charged all the time. That meant checking on them physically every 9 or 12 hours and signing on a checklist fully charged, fully charged. and that became my job mundane as it was yeah i mean what what was a you know a normal week or a normal month like like for you well it was very cyclical so i have to expand that every month seemed to be just like any other month where at the big picture you trained to fight and you fight to win.

40:04At the medium level, you prepare to go to the field. And for us in a armor or cavalry unit that was either tank gunnery or the ARTEP, the Army Training and Evaluation Program, it's maneuvers that are graded by umpires. So when you move from place to place, you are graded on how well you do that. If you have a cavalry task like remove explosives from a bridge so the tanks can cross, you are evaluated on how you could do that. Now, I'm going to tell the story on Mike where that task came up, and it was probably March or April, still very cold. And Mike stripped down butt naked and jumped into the waters to remove the wire from the explosives that were rigged on this bridge.

41:14And I remember reading the evaluators comments that this particular group tackled the task very aggressively, but didn't mention that the squad leader went butt naked to accomplish the mission. And Mike told his driver, make sure that heater is on in the 113 because when I come back, I'm going to be chilled to the bone. That's a brilliant story. I mean, I've heard of the Purple Heart, but it was probably a purple something else by the time he came out. Well, the funny thing was I swam down the stream and they had the evaluators were standing there. They were up there on the bridge. I could hear them and I was up there and I took the explosives off and the guy was looking at his watch and he goes, well, I don't know where they're at, but they're late.

42:09And I was under the bridge and I yelled, I've been here the whole time. And they just about fell out. They just could not believe that I had gotten there and done it and they hadn't seen me at all. So that was, yeah, that was pretty funny. So to better answer your question, when we were in garrison, we would train on common tasks that are required of all soldiers, be it first aid, law of land warfare. and then we would do MOS specific tasks for being a cavalry scout, map reading, assemble and disassemble your crew serve weapons, the.50 caliber and the M60 light machine gun and prepare to go to the field.

42:59Go to the field for several weeks, be it tank gunnery or an RTEP. Come back and recover from the field. Get a few days off to catch your breath And then the cycle starts again. And then, of course, mixed in there, because we were the combat support company, don't forget that. We were like the stepchild in the battalion. We always had additional duties, things that we had to do. You had to pull gate guard. You had to pull motor pool guard. You were constantly getting selected to do special projects as far as area beautification and building things. And yeah, yeah. A beautification is a euphemism for picking up cigarette butts and banana peels.

43:47So, yeah. So there was always, you know, stuff going on. I will make this point. You know, we were talking about the morale and the army and that sort of thing. I spent five years, just about five years. I got there in 77, actually more than five years. I got there in 77, March 77. I left August of 82 and I went to Fort Hood. And the difference between the Army, the stateside Army and the Army in Europe, it was night and day. And I wasn't prepared for that. You know, when I showed up, I mean, I just ran my platoon the way, you know, I ran my platoon in Germany. And I got called into the first sergeant's office and he said, hatch it.

44:37you need to cool it out. This is a stateside army. It's different. And I said, well, first sergeant, I never knew there were two different armies. He said, son, if you're around long enough, you're going to find that there's many, many, many different kinds of armies. It's not all just one army. And I was like, well, that's not the way I was taught. So, and that's about the time I decided I was not going to stay courier. When I got to Fort Hood, I was like, I'm pretty much, I know I'm leaving. Yeah, and I left the Army that summer of 1982 as well, because I can see where that kind of career would be.

45:21It's cyclical. You just repeat. In 10, 20 years, I understood how the concept worked. That's enough for me. I want to move on. It wasn't challenging after doing it for two and a half years in 137 armor. I know how the Army works. It served me well for the subsequent 20 years in the Army Reserve. But that's not something I want to do as a career. I will tell you as an aside, something that Doug and I, we had approached this independently of one another and found out it was something that we both like to do. I was bound and determined to make the best of myself Regardless of what my situation was So I was, as Doug has mentioned I was always a big reader And while I was in Germany I discovered the Education Center And I discovered something called the CLEP test College level examination program Which you could basically come in Take a test If you passed it You got college credit for it So Doug and I I think we were the only ones that I knew of that actively pursued that.

46:31I ended up getting two years of college credit. And Doug had a mascot called the Big Mickey that he always took over with him to do his cleptest. Yeah, we both ended up earning college university degrees while we were there with the 1st Armored Division. So I must say I've come full circle after 45 years where I'm sometimes contracted to create questions for a similar exam in geography for a quarter million high school students. So I started out there in the Army Education Center at Katterbach as a soldier, and then I ended up working there as a contractor and worked my way through graduate school on evenings and weekends in Germany.

47:29So, yeah, it was very pivotal to further our university education independently in studying for college level exam. So, Ian, one of your questions is, what do we do for recreation? That took up a lot of time for preparing for university exams, challenge exams. Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times. Your to-do list may feel endless with new tasks, and lists can easily begin to overrun your life. So finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything as a built-in business partner can be a game changer. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify.

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49:46Rated PG-13. Were you often out on exercise and actually out in the field training there? Or was it generally on training grounds or exercise areas? Well, we called that going out on the economy. You know, sometimes we were out on the economy or sometimes we were in maneuver areas like, you know, Grafenwehr, Weillflicken, Hohenfels.

50:17That's the beauty of being assigned in Germany. Unlike a military reservation, bleak and bare like in Fort Hood, being out on the German economy or the countryside, in the winter months, if the ground froze, the battalion staff would approach the German authorities can we have unrestricted access to maneuver across agricultural fields and forests? Because when the ground's frozen, the track vehicles won't damage the crops. So it was very spontaneous. If the weather turned cold, we could assume, oh, I bet you we're going to the field next week to have an impromptu RTEP and practice maneuvers. So that was much more enjoyable than stateside.

51:09especially being a scout because you were out away from the main body and can get away with a lot of things. Like going to the bakery at 6 a.m. under the cover of darkness and getting German baked goods and fresh milk for breakfast. And then three hours later, our first sergeant would show up with cold rations and say, I had the hardest time finding you, but I brought you your meal. and we would say, thank you, First Sergeant. And he would leave in his Jeep and we would throw out that stuff. All right, break out the German baked goods and the lunch meats. And by the way, we haven't had a shower in four days.

51:53So we're going to go to the guest house and negotiate an off time for each of us to slip in individually and get a hot shower. Well, the tankers couldn't do that. and they would be out there for two weeks with no shower and mike and i might have had two or three and i tell you what after a shower i felt good enough to tackle any task it didn't matter how dirty i was gonna get i knew i could get a shower soon so that increased my morale i think it just shows a genius for improvisation and initiative to be honest you know if the opportunity comes up, you should take it. But I will tell you, you're talking about maneuvering on the economy and Doug talking about the wintertime.

52:41One time I got seriously hurt was during one of these exercises. We're out there driving around about 2 o 'clock in the morning, and my driver decides he's going to drive through this huge pile of snow. And I've already talked to him about not doing this kind of thing, but he just decided he wanted to try to do it. So we plowed into this huge pile of snow with the 113, and it turned out not to be a pile of snow. It was a pile of sugar beets, frozen sugar beets. And it just locked the track up. I mean, stopped it cold. And I bounced my face off the firing handle of a 50-cal machine gun, broke my nose, got about seven stitches in my face.

53:28and uh that's when all the neat training came in because everybody was on me doing the first aid stuff and the medics were able to find me and take me off to the hospital so everything went well but never assume that a pile of snow is a pile of snow that's a top tip mike thanks thanks for uh for that it's a lot of fun to drive the um m113 in the snow it is yeah i've i've driven a British armoured personnel carrier with the levers for steering, which I found quite a lot of fun. In fact, I got told off for going too fast. But yeah, it took a bit of getting used to, but it was quite fun to drive.

54:17One of the things I wanted to ask you was about your interactions with West German civilians. Were they generally keen on you being around, even though you might be chewing up their fields or or something like that it's a mixed bag some people were happy and some people weren't yeah the older generations who remembered the threat of soviet union were always glad to see us bavarians on the whole were glad to see american forces more so than in northern germany i i did an episode with a i think it was a british tanker and he was trying to set up a firing position in a german village and uh this old guy came up to him and said ah no you don't want to position it here there's a great position around the corner here and they went around the corner and it was indeed a great position and this old guy went on to say yeah I knocked out a Sherman here in 1945 from this position we ran into some people like that some older guys that had served in the Wehrmacht and they would come and talk to us about stuff and what would they what would they talk about oh well they would talk about they would say you know we kicked your ass but you won that's what they would say yeah they would always say where the um materiel was equal german army was better but americans had so much materiel um a panther tank was better than 10 shermans but you always had 11 yeah yeah they always made sure that they wanted it wanted us to know So, you know, you won the war, but we kicked your ass.

56:09Every time there was a chance, we kicked your ass. And I was like, all right, that's fine. That's fine. I mean, you have to respect what they did, you know, fighting for the wrong cause. But a lot of them fought as well as they could and did what they could. And then most of them accommodated themselves to the reality of what their situation was afterwards. What about children? Did you get bothered much by children wanting candy from you and stuff like that? Oh, yeah. They showed up all the time. And we always tried to make it a point to have stuff to give to kids. So you must have been involved in some of the Reforger exercises as well.

56:49Did you see the picture I sent you of Doug during the end of Reforger? The one with the three brand new ITVs in the snow. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was indexed for a reforger exercise. Yeah, there were huge reforgers, which is the acronym Return of Forces to Germany, 1979, 80, and 82. And nothing stayed in the motor pool. If there were vehicles that were not operable, they were towed out. because we were going to be out there for three weeks and other vehicles will break down and the ones that were towed would be cannibalized, parts taken out of them to keep the other ones running.

57:43So nothing stayed behind and it was full on. And Mike and I would be posted to an observation post, either mount it in the 113 or dismount it with some kind of a wire communication device. And I remember sitting out in the same place for two or three days, nothing happening on the flank. And then the next morning I look out and I see hundreds, hundreds of armored vehicles coming from the stateside unit our direction. We knew we were going to get overrun So our higher-ups, our commanders said Give as much information as you can On the number, nomenclature of these vehicles We have to figure out what units they are You're going to be overrun Just button up all your hatches And really sacrifice yourselves But report as much as you can For example, each scout platoon was equipped with three improved tow vehicles.

58:56If we would see a formation of four or more of these same vehicles, we knew that these were not scouts, that this would be a mechanized infantry anti-tank platoon. And we could identify that as mech infantry in our report. Very significant intelligence reporting. I will tell you my favorite 137 Reforger story. Somehow, we found out, our battalion found out, where the 82nd Airborne's landing zone was going to be. They were going to drop in. They were going to do an airborne operation. So we rang the LZ with tanks. And that night, they dropped in. And as they were coming down, the tanks started firing their searchlights like they were weapons at all the downcoming airborne troops.

59:58And all the airborne people that were on the ground were getting blinded by these searchlights. And they made us turn them off. But it was pretty hilarious. And it was hilarious seeing the airborne soldiers. The lights would come on and they would like start dancing in the searchlights. You could see them dancing around. It was pretty funny. That was one of my favorite reforger memories because I was like, well, there's an airborne unit that learned a lesson. Now, you both must have some other anecdotes as well. Just give us a flavor of some of your favorite stories during your service. Well, I'll have to credit Mike for coming up with creative ways to play pranks on the opposing forces.

1:00:43If you were buddies with the MBC NCO and could get some CS powder, which is like riot control gas in a powder form, Mike would have his guys go place that powder in the dips where the armored or wheel vehicles would come over a rise and then their wheels would crash into the dip. and that powder would come up in the unprotected faces of unsuspecting opposing forces. And of course, they would have to pull over and they'd be wiping the tears from their face and cursing and screaming, who did this? How can this happen? And then at night, taking cans of psychedelic spray paint with us on these maneuvers or arteps.

1:01:34And at night, when there was minimal security from the opposing forces, sneak in and spray paint their road wheels of their vehicles, purple and orange and yellow. And the next morning at dawn, you could hear their commanders chewing out the NCOs and the soldiers. Who was on guard duty last night? the rest of you mix some water with this dirt and make some mud and cover this up we got to move out in 30 minutes and we would laugh and laugh and we could hear their consternation from afar did they ever guess who who done it and retaliate if they could find us i mean you know the good thing about me mobile scout unit hit and run if we weren't going to sit there and wait around you know Yeah.

1:02:30But I guess. I guess one of my favorite memories was or worse memories was when we went to Ranger training. Doug just missed this one. I didn't you. You were in the back for something, weren't you, Doug? Did you? Yeah, I was. Yeah. Yeah. So we got sent up to we got sent up to battles to go through a two week Ranger course. my god that was miserable i mean we had a decent time but oh my gosh it was miserable and the rangers had us out there and they put us in something called the dying cockroach that's when you have to lay on your back and stick your arms and legs up in the air and wiggle them around and you have to shout out i'm a dying cockroach and um two of our ncos refused they just stood up and they said yeah i'm not doing that and uh that was bunker Yeah, he was my squad leader Yeah, Ricky Bunker And another guy who was from headquarters Stood up and they just So they gave him the boot out of the camp But they couldn't do anything about him Because that was a prohibited exercise They were not supposed to do They used to do it a long time ago But they outlawed that So that was fun And border duty I always enjoyed our times up at the border You're really doing a real mission people didn't bother you much the food was great the mess hall was open 24 hours you could go in and if you wanted a sandwich somebody would whip you up a sandwich it was just a lot of fun I would say those are probably the highlights times on the border some good tank gunnery exercises that we participated in and that ranger training that was all really good and that was the czech west german border yes the czech border yes there's always always stuff to do you know you're always i mean you're not just waiting you know you're going out you're observing you're writing reports you're trying to spot patterns you're uh trying to make sure your team is ready to move you know you try to do your own alerts because they would call alerts just to check your readiness level.

1:04:50So you try to ensure your readiness level is up there by doing your own things. No, I never found it monotonous at all. Now, again, as I said, it wasn't a regular thing for us. It was something special that we got to go up and do a few times. But there was a lot to learn and see there. And it was beautiful. There were beautiful areas up there on the border. So I never found it monotonous. I didn't get to participate in ranger training, not that I would have relished it, or the bulk augmentation. My highlight was once I was promoted to sergeant was to work in the battalion staff in the S3, the staff directorate three that does training, planning, and operations at the battalion level.

1:05:39So I was the one that was asked, how can we report to brigade and division headquarters what the scout platoon is doing during border augmentation? augmentation. Since I was a scout, everyone looked to me for the answer. Well, I had to go to the field manual and look at different kinds of reconnaissance, be it route reconnaissance or zone reconnaissance. And anything that was in the manual, I would say, this is what they're doing. And we're going to get credit for this, and we're going to get credit for that. And I could check a lot of boxes there while my former platoon was doing the border augmentation.

1:06:22and made us look real good at division. Did you have any encounters with the Soviet military liaison missions? We did a couple of times, but you would have people do crazy stuff like, let's block them in, all that kind of stuff. We would just take pictures of them, wave at them and send them on their way. We were not looking to create some kind of diplomatic incident or anything like that. But, you know, they had their guys running loose and we had our guys running loose somewhere. So, yeah, we saw them, but we never really actively engaged with them. I see you. Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+.

1:07:05It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. A true epic and completely jaw-dropping. This is the only purest thing in this world. Return to Pandora on Disney+. It will be an adventure for the whole family. And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home. This is sick! Avatar Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney +, rated PG-13. Mike, do you remember one time our unit police, the night guard patrol being attacked by unknown assailants? And it was never proven that it was Smell-Em agents trying to get it through the motor pool. but someone knocked our guards over the head and got into our motor pool briefly.

1:07:53Yeah. I do remember something about that, but I, I always thought it was. Yeah. Yeah. I always thought it was, I always thought it was the guys from the MI battalion being jerks, but you know, yeah, I think that was, that was pretty much it. We never really, uh, two or three times passing incidents. Yeah. sorry i don't have a better story and no no no no you've you've given me enough great stories and we were issued maps of where they could be and where they could not be so we knew if we saw one in a restricted area to report it and not engage them and create an international incident very similar to the one kilometer zone along the border don't create incidents don't allow just anyone to go in there you have to be authorized yeah yeah from what i understand is if uh if soviet military liaison mission was not treated well they would tend to retaliate against either the u.s the british or the french liaison missions in east germany in some shape or form yeah so it'd be reciprocal so there was no yeah no point in doing it i will tell you one weird story.

1:09:09I'll tell you one weird story, Ian. One time we got word that some faction of the Batter Meinhof gang might be moving through our area. And so they put us on a quick reaction thing where if there was any sort of incident that we might have to respond to it. So part of the training that we had to do was getting over the rear fence of the concern. And that involved using ladders and throwing carpets over the barbed wire and throwing ourselves over the fences to get over to the other side if need be yeah wow wow because yeah barter meinhof were quite active in the uh seven late 70s and early 80s yeah yeah my first summer in bavaria 1980 those terrorist planted bombs in the trash cans at the Oktoberfest in Munich.

1:10:04And moments later, innocent passerbyers were blown to bits. That was my first year in Bavaria. I've never been to Oktoberfest because of that. When you look back at your service with First Armour, are there any other comments you'd like to add? Well, I would say that, you know, the army at that time, it gets a bad name in a lot of ways, but there were still a lot of good units there and there were still a lot of people doing good work. And in the end, we accomplished the mission, which was to deter the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact. And I think we accomplished that. I had a cascading effect for my career.

1:10:55That four years of active duty, most of it with 137 armor, was very instrumental. The time in the battalion staff allowed me to compete for a position in the reserve with the division staff, the G3, where I was attached with my 24-person reserve unit during Operation Desert Storm. So all that training in West Germany against Warsaw Pact armor formations, we never thought we would perform it once the Berlin Wall came down. But lo and behold, just a year later, We did perform it in the desert against Soviet-made T-72s and BMPs. So that was the highlight of my quarter-century military career. But I also worked as a defense civilian.

1:11:52And my time at division level and at Army Major Command really helped me as a civilian. So I see just a cascading effect. Working at 137 Armor, I learned the concepts of battalion level operations. Coincidentally, a decade later, I was back with the 1st Armor Division at the division level. And later I worked for U.S. CENTCOM at the geographic command or combatant level. So I got to experience all different levels of warfare, combat support, combat service support, and work at all echelons over 25 years. And I got a good start there in an unlikely place, Ansbach, Germany, that no one's ever heard of in an unlikely time, the hollow post-Vietnam Army.

1:12:51But it served me in good stead for 25 years. Yeah, I don't have to say it definitely established the professional foundation for me militarily. I never found a unit as good as 137. And if I applied the standards that I learned there to whatever unit I was at, it was always head and shoulders above what they were doing at the time. so I always appreciated my time at 137 and I'm going to the reunion we're having a reunion in Gettysburg this October and Doug and I have gone to one of those reunions I wish he was going to me with me to this one but I'm going to this one in October and I'm really looking forward to it well no it's been great speaking with you both it's given me some real insight into that you know that as as you said mike that post vietnam war period and um you know the the the challenges there but also what the army sort of gave to you as a sort of leg up into civilian life in terms of education and uh experience as well and also you know you did you you both continued in the reserves or was it just you, Doug?

1:14:02Oh, no, I stayed in. Yeah, I did 30. Mike, you were in for 33 years. Three years, yeah. I deployed to Iraq when I was 50 years old. Wow. Yeah. I went with the 1st Cavalry Division. Yeah. Your alma mater. Alma mater. And they were much better this time than they were last time, believe you me. Yes. Yeah, I felt the same way about 1st Armored Division, 1991 compared to 1981. Right, right. That turned out to be the largest tank battle in American history, and I was a part of that. Listening to the colonels and generals on both the ops and the command net make decisions. It was something to be part of, I'll tell you.

1:14:53Wow. Yeah, I went in in 1976, 1976 and I got out in 2009. Wow. Wow. That's, that's, that's some service there. I mean, you, you must've never dreamed when, when you were in Germany that you'd be in places like Iraq. Oh no. And I've been to Egypt and all kinds of other, no, no. And, and I was like that close to getting out, but some guy, National Guard recruiter talked me into staying in. And again, one of those small things that happens. And, you know, I stayed in and I've always been glad I did. Yeah, I really enjoyed the 20 years in the reserve. That's where I got the education opportunities.

1:15:37I didn't have the GI Bill like Mike did, but I went to Defense Mapping School in Virginia and Defense Language Institute in California to learn Turkish, which also served me well in my defence civilian career. The episode extras such as videos, photos and other content are available via a link in the episode information. The podcast wouldn't exist without the generous efforts of our financial supporters and I'd like to thank one and all of them for keeping the podcast on the road. The Cold War conversation continues in our Facebook discussion group. just search for Cold War Conversations in Facebook.

1:16:20Thanks very much for listening and look forward to seeing you next week.

1:16:54I see you. Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. Go, go, go, go! A true epic and completely jaw-dropping. This is the only purest thing in this world. Return to Pandora on Disney+. It will be an adventure for the whole family. And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home. This is sick! Avatar Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney +, rated PG-13. Cozy season is ahead, and you'll be spending way more time inside. Is your home ready? Don't worry. With Wayfair, you can upgrade your space without breaking the bank. Score up to 70 % off during their Labor Day clearance on furniture, area rugs, mattresses, and more.

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