"Jim Wilkins" on Fri, 2 Aug 2013 09:29:38 -0400
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
"pyotr filipivich" wrote in message
.. .

I would also wonder how many of the troops were of the opinion "I
don't want to be here, I was drafted, I don't like it here" and
refuse
to exploit the generosity of their Uncle Sam who sent him someplace
for a year or two where other people will save up for years just to
drop in for a week?

The alternative was Vietnam. To my considerable surprise some people
preferred it there, mainly minorities who told me how much they
enjoyed being treated like rich mainstream Americans in Saigon.

I knew a guy who volunteered for Nam, from Germany. Figured
they'd send him eventually, so he went.

OTOH, I was in Turkey and Spain before the end of the draft,
Germany after the draftees should have finished their 2 years and got
out.

Though we didn't lack for bitter draftee truck drivers a lot of the
Signal Corps had enlisted to get into a school and learn a useful
skill before the draft sent them to the Infantry. Each base was a
relatively self-reliant closed commune with most of the needs of
civilian society.

That is a "problem". Coming from Turkey - Spain was the land of
the Big BX, coming from Spain, Germany was "Little America".

We could do everything but grow food, either in base
or when deployed to some isolated frozen mountaintop radio relay site.
That's where you learn what your real "needs" are, just food, water,
clothing and shelter. Heat isn't one of them.

Except for Heidelberg the Army bases weren't in cosmopolitan tourist
destinations. They were old German Kasernes, some dating from
Frederick the Great, with WW2 plumbing at best. The Germans there were
indifferent and not too accommodating to non German speakers.

Not unusual, regardless of the language. One has to remember as
well, the Kaserne had been there a long while, first with soldiers who
could speak the language, then with soldiers who couldn't. And they
all wanted the same things. At least the Deutscher Soldaten had some
cooths.

I'm far
from a fluent speaker but could understand it pretty well. I had taken
German classes aimed at reading chemical and mathematical texts and
was better at vocabulary than grammar.

When I was there, that was me. Understood it better than I spoke
it - which is still not saying a great deal.
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."