Hey, Commie!

So, we walk over to the border, and Mr. V begins to tell us all about the border and the mission of what goes on during the border trace missions. Our job is basically what they call a "Show of Force"; we make sure that the Commie Horde across the fenceline knows we are there. We fly every day, along the exact same route, 1oo meters away from the border and report if there is anything untoward (unusual troop movements or formations, excessive troop formations, etc). If we do see anything, we report to the border camps, who then report it on up the chain of command (regiment to Corps, etc) until it reaches the Higher Brass. Otherwise, we just fly and check in every 15 minutes. For me, I was just in the back along for the ride...

After about 20 minutes on the ground, the East German soldiers that were looking at us with their high powered binos finally got their information (I am pretty sure that they took loads of pictures and recorded aircraft tail numbers so they can tell their Soviet masters how we were singlehandedly going to kill them and take over East Germany), they got back on their motorcycle and went back inside their tower, so they could keep vigil over their citizens.

Finally, we got back in our birds and flew off, continuing the trace.

About halfway through the trace we needed to stop for fuel. So we landed at the airport at Hof, which was in the area that was right at the borders of East Germany, West Germany, and Czechoslovakia, what we called the Tri-Border Area. It was a small airport, and from ther we could see part of the city proper (if you knew what to look for, you could actially see where the Allied forces had set markers to blow up bridges and buildings in case the Soviets and East Germans decided to come across). It was a tyoical German city, with old style buildings and cobblestone roads. I had the opportunity to visit it later in my tour, and really enjoyed it.

After we got fuel, the officers took me inside and we sat at the restaurant for lunch. I ordered some kind of schnitzel, and immediately fell in love with it. For only about 7 DM (about 4 dollars), I got two huge peices of the schnitzel and some fries.... and a coke. It was awesome (I would order that no less than 200 more times during my missions along the border).

Once full, and with full fuel tanks, we too off and flew for a couple more hours. About 15 minutes into this leg of the flight, we got company... in the form of what we called a "White Elephant" - also known as a Mi-24 Hind helicopter. I was pretty nervous, but Mr. V said that this was a common occurence and not to worry. We reported it in, telling them where we saw it and the other requisite information.

I just sat back and enjoyed the ride, and took it all in.

I could not believe that I was getting paid to do this...