The memory of a gloomy December day could be from yesterday: 18 years old, jet lagged, and homesick, I climbed aboard a bus at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt. All day long I had heard that the one place I did not want to go was Wildflecken—or the 54th Engineers— and here I was boarding a bus for the the 54th Engineers in Wildflecken. I will never forget that bus ride. It was a snowy day, and we had to go into the mountains. You would look out the window of the bus and see a sheer drop, and there was no guardrail, or even a shoulder on the road.
When the bus approached the small town of Wildflecken I was shocked at the narrowness of the roads. If the bus windows opened I could have touched the walls of the buildings as we passed them. We approached the front gate of the post and still had to go up hill.
The bus dropped me off in front of the rec center in the heaviest fog I had ever seen. I still had to walk up the mountain to get to headquarters and the my final destination, Co. D 54th Engineer Battalion.
Because today the post is a German army base, I had to get permission to visit. I tried every avenue I could think of to get on post and see where I had once lived. I thought I had hit a dead end but as a last-ditch effort I contacted the Burgermeister of the town of Wildflecken—and they had an in for me. Mr. Kreuzpaintner, a retired German Army Master Sergeant, had a museum on post, and they would set up an appointment for me to tour the post and museum. Today, many of the buildings on Wildflecken are derelict and in disrepair. As the post is now a German Army base they do not need all of the buildings, and what they don’t need they do not maintain. Many of those buildings, like the 54th Engineers mess hall, are scheduled for demolition.
As a young soldier I was put to work, trained to drive the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier. I would drive bumper number D311 for two years, through training at Hohenfels, through multiple training exercises, and two Reforgers (Return of Forces to Germany). As the driver I spent the vast majority of my time in the motor pool doing what the Army called PMCS (Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services), and sometimes more, like pulling the pack (removing the engine).
Being in the Rhone mountains, the weather in Wildflecken, a.k.a. The Rock, was awful. In winter, it snowed—a lot. I live in Wisconsin and I can say I have never seen as much snow as I saw in Wildflecken. You would shovel a spot and by the time you turned around to take another shovelful, the spot you just cleared would be full again. In the winter, when the temps would dip below zero we had to maintain combat readiness. That meant that we would have go to the motor pool three or four times a night to start our vehicles, so the fuel would not gel.
At least once a month we would roll out on alert—the call of “Lariat Advance” would ring out through the hallway at O’-dark-thirty. As the driver of the APC, I was responsible for my personal weapon, and the .50 caliber machine gun. I would check out the .50 cal from the arms room and hump it, two barrels, my ruck sack, and my .45 to the motor pool, where I would also check out the keys to D311. My squad mates would bring my duffel bag up while I was opening up the track and was doing my pre-start checks.
We would normally be out of the motor pool and on the German “economy” within 30 to 45 minutes of being alerted and on our way to the rally point. Once we arrived at the rally point one of three things would happen: One, we would find out we were going to the field for a few days; two, we would be sent back on post to start our work day; or three, we would be handed ammo, and we would be going to war. Number three, as you all know, never happened.
Today, the motor pool stands empty. Gone are the American soldiers who manned it. In some ways the post looks the same. In others, it has changed in ways I cannot recognize. I purposely avoided taking photos of buildings that were in disrepair. That’s not how I wanted to remember “The Rock.”
In downtown Wildflecken, across from the pizza place that is still in business 30 years later, there’s a monument to the U.S. troops that were stationed there. It was a good feeling to see that we were remembered favorably.
Of course, I did not spend all of my time on post. We were in the Rhone mountains, a paradise in and of itself. One mountain over from Wildflecken was the Kloster Kreuzberg—home of the best beer in the western world back in 1986. It was brewed by monks, and drank by everyone. I may have tipped back a couple here back in the 80s, and most certainly tipped back a couple with my son while we were here.
From the Kreuzberg we went to the Wasserkuppe—a place aviation aficionados may be aware of. It’s where many of the designs of WWII German aircraft were tested as gliders. But we did not go there for the gliders. I took my son there to show him what I did on my off time.
Who could resist riding a roller coaster down the side of a mountain!
I want to take a moment to thank Mr. Kreuzpaintner for taking me on post and for giving me an East German Army helmet—the idea that I would ever even be able to touch one, let alone own one, is something that was unimaginable to me 30 years ago. I would also like to thank Monika Kleinhenz-Béke of the Wildflecken Burgermeister’s office for setting up the appointment with Mr. Kreuzpaintner. Without them, I would not have gotten back on post.