What can I say? Orders to Germany were the only thing I ever asked the Navy
for and, they came through for me. I flew directly from the Azores to
Frankfurt and took the train to Augsburg. I arrived around 0700 and took a cab
to my sponsor's house. He went to work and I stayed with his wife and kids
until I adjusted to the time.
I arrived in September, just in time for the fall fest season. I went to the
Augsburg fest the second night I was in town and I knew I liked Germany. Dave
showed up about a week later and when he got there, we went to the fest again.
He never drank beer but I talked him into having one. He loved the liter of
beer and changed his drinking habits.
I met Dennis and Sandy Gramkow here. They were pretty excited about my Apple
computer and would play Star Trek for hours. During November 1978, I gave them
an anniversary present of a trip to Vienna. I drove them there and paid for
their hotel room. Unfortunately, we could only get one room and I had to stay
with them. They were understanding and weren't too upset about the
arrangements.
Popeye Muller and I planned on taking a three-day holiday to Switzerland in
1979. The day before we were leaving, I was at the barracks and a lady asked
me if I knew where Popeye was. I told her that he should be arriving in a few
minutes. She said great and sat down to wait. I asked her who she was and she
said that she was his former wife. Popeye came in, saw her and was very
surprised. Needless to say, he didn't come to Switzerland with me. I went by
myself and had a great time. I had stopped at one small village to get
something to eat and met a couple who started talking to me. They invited me
to join them for lunch and when I accepted, they bought some cheese, wine, and
bread. We then climbed up the side of a mountain and had our lunch, watching
gliders and drinking some Swiss wine.
While on this trip, I stopped into a car dealer in Zurich. I had fallen in
love with the Fiat Spider and wanted to buy one. I sold my TR-6 in the Azores
because liability insurance alone for me in Germany was $1600 a year and,
because I was still paying for it, I would have to have full coverage (about
$3000 a year). The dealer was really helpful and even found a Swiss bank that
would loan me the money to buy the Spider. But I was looking at that insurance
rate and decided that I could live without the car.
There were some great people here. One in particular was Chip Letson. Chip was our SK and, in my humble opinion, kept Senior Chief Davies out of trouble! Chip was part of the Navy's woman football team (which I attempted to coach one year - could not seem to get some of the finer points of football across) and was a heck of a friend.
Of course, this is where I met Sharon. Our first meeting was the day she
arrived in town. I was doing laundry in the barracks, wearing a faded yellow
terry cloth robe, when she and her sponsor stopped me on the stairs to ask if I
wanted to go out for supper. I wanted to go but had no clothes to wear. They
went out and Sharon got a little bit drunk. I went to a school in Frankfurt
soon after that so I did not get to see Sharon until my advancement party.
I was selected for E-6 here. A group of us decided to have a party in our
lounge, the Crow's Nest. We bought plenty of booze and food and someone
volunteered to be the disk jockey. I had a great time and Sharon showed up
after her evening watch was over. I danced with her - she was the first girl I
danced with since my 8th grade dance in 1968. Things happened after that and
we started going to fests and volksmarches together. But more about that in
the Marriage section.
The Operations Building at Gablingen was incredibly huge. We had military and
civilian personnel from Germany, Canada, France, Belgium, Australia, New
Zealand and the US. Each of the doors to the different sections had a national
flag on it letting you know if you could go in there. Almost all had a US flag
but very few had French or Belgium flags. The intercept capabilities here were
almost unlimited. Over 200 Air Force linguists were stationed here and
eavesdropped on Soviet, East German, Polish, Czech and Yugoslavian fighters,
bombers and command and control centers. I think they recorded every word said
by any eastern pilot.
The Army's DF space contained at least 20 DF positions. At the Navy space, we
had two NCDFs and one WBDF system. We shared the AN/FLR-9 antenna system. It
was also a Wullenweber but the entire antenna was made of metal and the
building in the center of the array was where the 'Iron Cross' was contained.
The only other site like this was in Udorn, Thailand.
I transferred to Pensacola to attend a 42 week advanced maintenance school in
September 1980. Since Sharon stayed in Germany, I visited over the Christmas
break.
