Copyright (c) 2013 Phyllis Zimbler Miller
All rights reserved.
Five Nobel Prize laureates, in special U.N. ceremonies, call upon the U.S. and Soviet Union to halt the nuclear arms race. – September 21, 1970
“Toasting: Host may say a few words of greeting and good wishes. He may direct a greeting to the honored, who in turn will reply. One polite little custom that is fairly prevalent involves toasting among the guests themselves, either within earshot or by catching the eye of the one to be toasted. The toaster nods towards his object, extends a ‘Zum Wohle’ or ‘Prost,’ who smiles gratefully back, then sips his wine and receives a nod and a sip in reply. Both glasses are then raised again and finally lowered in unison.” Customs & Courtesies booklet
The taxi driver turned into what was apparently the American base – no MP or gate I noted – and dropped us and our suitcases off in front of a humongous gray cement building. The duty officer in the front entrance glanced at Mitch’s papers, me, and the eight suitcases. Then he spoke to Mitch.
“You’re assigned to the 18th Military Intelligence Battalion. This is the 66th Military Intelligence Group. We cover for the 18th on weekends as they have no duty officer then. We’ll drive you back downtown to the transit hotel and you can report to the 18th tomorrow. How did you end up here?”
“I asked the taxi driver to take us to the American base.”
The duty officer laughed. “You’re lucky McGraw Kaserne is the only U.S. Army base now in Munich. Before the preparations for the Olympics there were four.”
My nose dripped faster than I could wipe the mucus away. My head ached, my body ached, I was really sick.
I struggled into an army vehicle with Mitch, the suitcases, and a young enlisted man driver. Back through the night-time streets of Munich to a transit hotel.
This time there was no hassle for a room. I had run out of tissues and the clerk promised to find me another box. In the lobby Mitch called his parents for less than a minute for $2.50 – “We’re safely here. Call Phyllis’s parents.”
As we gathered up our suitcases, a tall blond man entered the lobby and asked the reception desk for us. When Mitch identified himself, the man announced his rank – captain – and his name and that he was our sponsor. I realized this was the military personnel who was supposed to contact us while we were still in the States and give us relevant information that would help with our move.
“The duty officer called me,” he said. “We all are lookin’ forward to havin’ ya’ll for dinner.”
His Southern accent produced an additional worry besides how sick I felt. What if his wife was cooking ham for dinner? (While at that time Mitch and I did not yet follow the Jewish laws of kashrut – kosher – we did not eat pork products.)
Yet as a good army officer wife I said nothing and got into the car with Mitch. The captain explained that we were heading back to right near where we first reported to the duty officer. “Did you know that the 66th headquarters building was the headquarters of the Luftwafte during World War II?” the captain said.
In spite of my fever I shivered. The Luftwafte – the Nazi German air force – was responsible for the blitz in London. This merciless bombing killed so many people and destroyed so many buildings. How creepy that the 66th had headquarters in such a tainted place.
In the dark as we entered the army housing area all I could make out were three-story grey cement rectangular apartment buildings set at various angles to each other with a few scraggly trees in between.
At the captain’s quarters we met his two young children and his plump wife, who thankfully served fried chicken.
Then the captain and his wife dropped a bomb of their own. They had known for several weeks that they were our sponsors. Had they written us – as they were supposed to – we would have known that I had concurrent orders even if the army hadn’t notified us. And we would have known we were going to Munich and to which unit.
All those times I had asked the appropriate office at Ft. Holabird whether my concurrent orders had come through and been told no! The money Mitch and I spent to both fly to Chicago, where I expected to remain for several months until my orders came through. Then our separate flights back to the East Coast when Mitch left for Germany and I followed after his call from the Baltimore airport. If these people had only written us, Mitch and I would have been saved all that money and confusion.
I looked around the living room filled with the army’s putrid blue upholstered furniture. Although we had been allowed to ship household goods and a car to Europe, the army did not spring for shipping personal furniture. The captain’s wife informed me that “there’s also upholstered furniture in a shade of yellow.” I could only imagine what color yellow that was.
I smiled at the captain and his wife.
Welcome to the U.S. Army in Europe I said to myself – ground zero in the Cold War.
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If you enjoy reading about the imaginative future as well as the historical past, see my dystopian thriller THE MOTHER SIEGE here on Wattpad at http://budurl.com/MSonWattpad
