Meeting the Commie Horde

It was still winter, 1989. I had been in Germany for about 7 months, and was getting into the routine of things. My wife had been with me since just before the previous Thanksgiving, and had started her new job at a day care center at the barracks nearest where we lived. We were getting into the routine of living in Germany and being comfortable.

I had just come from some Czech language refresher training down in the awesome city of Munich. Six weeks of intense training, and I was seriously spoiled while I was down there. Of course we had PT and the usual gamut of Army stuff, but for the most part it was a school and we were in class all day learning and re-learning our target languages.

After it was over, I returned to my unit, as began to perform duties that I had been training for over two years. But one day, I was asked if I wanted to fly and check out the border area. I jumped at the chance; how many people can say that they literally saw the Iron Curtain??

So I jumped in a OH-58 helicopter, and, along with another AH-1 Cobra helicopter, off we went to perform what was called a Border Trace. This was a mission where the helicopters simply flew 100 meters off the border of both East Germany and Czechslovakia. The heliccopters flew right along the border, and checked in with the border camps that were in the area at certain times to make sure that we were OK and not involved with any mishaps. Border Traces were the bread and butter of the 4th Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (2ACR). 2 ACR was the tripwire for NATO; if there was a war, we were the first line of defense for NATO, and we would give the Commies one hell of a fight before we got annihilated...

Once in the air, I was like a kid in a candy store, I was so happy. I had never seen Germany like this, as my primary duties kept me from looking out the windows (we flew higher than the border trace missions). I was in a helicopter I had never flown in before (the '58 was much smaller than the Blackhawk - which was the bird I normally flew in; almost claustrophobic until you got used to it), and here I was flying literally along Freedom's Frontier. To say that it was cool would be the Understatement of the Century.

All of a sudden I hear the pilot of the Cobra, Mr. V, tell the pilots of the '58 that we are going to land and check it out, as there were others besides me that had never flown this close to the border before. I immediately thought that this was in the realm of A Bad Idea... But, as I was literally the lowest ranking trooper there, I kept my mouth shut, as all good soldiers are supposed to. So we find a clear area and land the helicopters, and get out. We hang at the scout bird until Mr. V comes over and tells us to take our name tags off. As we were all wearing flight suits, our name tags were leather rectangles that were attached to the flight suit by velcro. So we just took them off and put them into our pockets. This was for security purposes, obviously....

So we walk over towards the border of East Germany, and Mr. V begins to tell us about how it is all set up.

A little background on Mr. V. He was a Chief Warrant Officer 2 at the time, and he had been in and out of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment several times. He literally knew the border areas like the back of his hand; he often admitted to dreaming he was flying it... a lot. So if there was anyone in the entire United States VII Corps (or West Germany) that knew what he was talking about when it came to the border, it was him (I was actually on another mission later in the year with him when we did a stop along the border and the West German Customs Police came up to us and told us we had committed a border violation. They argued with Mr. V for 10 minutes until he showed them exactly where they were wrong (the border stone that marked the border had overgrown with high grass, and he pointed it to the Border cops.... They sheepishly drove away)). Of course, I had no way of knowing any of this at the time, but I trusted my officers, and decided that everything would be OK...

So we go up to the border and he starts showing us all the different parts of the stuff the East Germans used to keep their citizens inside their Worker's Paradise - the minefields, the plowed ground that shows footprints if walked on, the guard tower, and the two different fences that kept everyone in.

As Mr. V was talking, the bottom of the guard tower opened, and 2 East German guards came out of the tower, jumped on a motorcycle, and drove to the other fence. They got off the bike, and used high powered binoculars to check us out.

Now, one thing that annoyed me whenever I flew Border missions (which I would do a lot over the next year), was that all of us were unarmed. The attack helcopters were also unarmed. This meant that if something were to happen, like, say, a war starting while we were in the middle of a mission, then we were all in Deep Shit. There is only one person I ever knew that flew a border mission armed, and he was an Air Cavalry Troop Commander, a Captain, and his shit did not stink. I was never sure if the Command knew about it, and I would say they probably did, but they probably turned the other cheek to it (the captain was also flying with a personal, and not a US Government issued, sidearm, and I knew that was a big NO NO... but what the hell, it was a weekend at the time, and as I always say when it comes to weapons: It Is Better To Have It And Not Need It Than To Need It And Not Have It. So I do not blame him; if anything, I envied him (both that he had the balls to do it and he had a kick ass pistol that I wanted.

But I digress...(to be continued)