Chapter 9

[The Mars Station high in the reaches of the old S.S. training facility where my linemen would hide, stash their hash, crash and make love]

1968 - 69

The drug problem in the American service personnel population abroad was monumental. The number of persons not using drugs in some form was outweighed easily by those who did. I was one of the did nots pretty much only because I didn’t come from that kind of environment. I didn’t know anybody in Hawaii who was using drugs, smoking pot, anything like that and surely I didn’t in my youth in the remote Pacific Northwest. And as time passed I felt more and more the odd one out in our regiment.

The deterioration of morale that took place during my time was significant and eventually it was known the company C.O. was using drugs as well.

The general condition of the barracks was filth, disarray and sanitation not only non existent but just repulsive. I distinctly remember the running water sound created cascading over and down from the urinals full of vomit, left to go for long periods of time. It’s hard to put in words just how bad it was, toilets always plugged and habit of users competing for displaying, smeared on, the largest of nose booger all over the insides of the toilet stalls.

Filth was as bad as it could be imagined. And it wasn’t just drugs at fault but also the alcohol abuse. I remember having to use the latrines far away from the densest population of sleeping quarters to avoid the most appalling conditions. This perhaps makes me sound like a prude but I was hardly that.

When they made me sergeant I was given a charge of linemen to supervise who did the low voltage wiring needed for communication, hard wired teletype. These guys were all users, heavy users. Mostly theirs was hashish and pills. The band members down the hall were into heroine and guys from the American south were drunks. It was quite a mix from the occasional light weight hash smokers, like the clerks in the C.O.’s office, all the way to the heavier users like I was in charge of. It could have been frustrating to deal with but as sergeant E-5, called “Hard Five”, I chose not to mess with them even if it was considered part of my job.

The other lifer sergeants enjoyed chasing the dope users around and it was like trying to herd cats. My guys knew I didn’t care to get involved with them that way and I wasn’t going to supervise them. Their favorite reply to the constant badgering by lifers was, “What are you gonna do, draft me?”

Some of us had arrived in Germany about the same time and we progressed through the draftee ranks together. So they took me aside and said they would show me what they did to avoid work each and every day. Maybe they trusted me because of my reputation with Hanna, maybe other reasons, but whatever, they were kind of clever even if they were high.

I had set myself up as a pitch hitter for the teletype operators both land line and radio to keep my separate rations pay doing just enough shift work to avoid being part of the cadre falling out to stand inspection mornings in the quadrant, stuff like that. I had no use for that Army drill after I’d had a taste of the semi-civilian like status and I wanted to get the work done doing the needed maintenance on generators and trucks.

The fleet kept communications up and ready for field operations when necessary, called upon by the top command. Someone needed to take the responsibility. When Sgt. Cieslak complained because I, not like his other E-5 sergeants, spent no time chasing the linemen around I asked if he wanted me to do that or keep the equipment in shape. He already had a couple of lifer E-5’s waisting their time trying to control those guys. They actually achieved nothing at all except a level of hatred.

Prior to me the E-5’s had let the equipment fall into disrepair. They didn’t like working on it. It got their spit shined boots dirty. They hardly dared to complain about me because I did all their dirty jobs including burning the classified documents outdoors in a giant rotisserie burner which took hours to do with a 45 strapped to my hip.

They thought it was funny telling me that it was tradition, the most recent sarge to get his stripes was required to do that boring job. They were full of crap but I saw it as more opportunity to stay the heck away from headquarters where all the officious lifers coagulated like dried boogers.

So one morning the guys told me to come along with them because they wanted to show me the drill that kept them out of sight. They went to the little donut shop, got coffee and a couple of pastries to take along. They had a latrine pretty much unused in the basement of one of least used areas of the kaserne near the steam boiler array that heated the entire operation. There they each took a stall with their current reading material, ate donuts, drank coffee and hung out until lunch time at the mess hall, about two and half hours. After lunch they wound their way up to the top, the attic of the largest complex over the grand entrance where there was a Mars radio station, long distance communications, and it was nice and warm in the winter. There were piles of old mattresses to lay on and they dozed and read, smoked hash, had a better time than they would have being chased by lifers below and they maintained their stash in the secret hideout only I was privy to know about.

I swore I would never out them or their hiding places. I was glad to see some of the hidey holes for future reference. I thought about Hanna and maybe Mary, rendezvous possibilities.

Just prior to my time at Merrell there had been a drug bust spearheaded by the European police, Metropol, in cooperation with the Army. The results seemed kind of legendary as guys who were on duty at the time talked of it in quiet tones.

My own eventual room mate and friend Paul had been a friend to the guy who was busted for having developed a drug trafficking ring in Nurnberg and beyond. Paul was interrogated by the police, scrutinized and frankly quite frightened by the whole experience. I never knew Paul to be a user at all but I always wondered about his involvement with the fellow soldier who was sent to prison, German prison. In general it seemed the imprisoned ring leader was somewhat held in high esteem kind of like a legend for some reason.

But after the bust the whole situation with drugs in general relaxed for what reasons I’ll never know. Maybe it was the atmosphere of ease once the conflict in Czechoslovakia was reduced, things settled down and the border was quiet, incredibly boring quiet.

While on the subject: http://www.nbg-mil-com.de/Merrell/me-1945-ric-1.jpg Note the archway entrance somewhat in the middle, different colored stone.

My drug user linemen introduced me to the old German gentleman who lived in the bowels of the complex where he maintained the huge steam boiler array centered deep in a complex of tunnels, chase ways to allow the steam pipes travel throughout the entire kaserne. It was a world away, huge and very spooky but fascinating probably because the kaserne was built on ancient structures.

The old, old guy was a treasure trove of stories about Germany before and during the war. His candor and great sense of humor, good command of English, made him a favorite and he seemed to love company because he actually lived down there, no family, seemed a kind of slave to the work he loved.

He considered his boilers to be like living creatures and always wanted to explain the workings. He did what he did, same complex, during the reign of Hitler which brought mystery and intrigue to his past and made my imagination sore.

He was somewhat an admitted lecher of sorts. He joked about it. “How could I not be, stuck down here with my big girls,” which were his boilers. He said he dreamed of beautiful ladies constantly but of course was too old to do anything about it. It was constantly hot in his environment with all that steam being produced. “Regardless, I’m happy,” he professed. “I have places to go when I really need to.”

And on top of everything else the far reaches of the underground were actually the coolest place to be in the heat of summer, not dank but rather just pleasant, a good hiding place for lovers. And that’s how I start my ongoing re telling of Hanna, myself and others.

Now that I’d established myself as a worker versus a lifer E-5, do-nothing- character, I spent my days in the motor pool when I wasn’t pitch hitting for a teletype operator. I let my fatigues get good and greasy and I started with a new habit chewing on cheap cigars while I worked.

My dad was a chain smoker, never letting the fire burn out from one cig to the next. We kids endured that second hand smoke and only my eldest sister took up the habit which eventually killed her. I never did but I liked the smell of a cigarette noting it after smoking became more and more banned. The less frequent occasional smoke from someone was like an attract ant. So I liked the flavor of the tobacco somewhat and my ego liked the appearance the cigars made, Sgt. dirty greasy guy. Plus I always liked to work on equipment and the guys in the motor pool became good friends.

In a moment of privacy I told Hanna about my methods as a sergeant, my discoveries about the hidden worlds above and below the kaserne most didn’t know about, about the secret society of guys who were in my charge.

We were in my room after she sneaked into the barracks at night and I was entertaining her on my bed. I wasn’t surprised she was quite enthusiastically noisy. Even as I played with her to make her climax woozy she kept her interest level up as I teased her with stimulations to try to tease-interrupt her train of thought. She said she was going get even with me and I stuck my tongue into her vagina, then quickly into her mouth so she could taste herself. “I’m going to bite your weenie, you,” she threatened and I stuck my finger where it really made her jump. “You damned virgin. I’m going to fuck you good.” That was one of her favorite threats. Imagine having to threaten a guy to take away his virginity which was anymore only a figment of imagination but the concept kind of gave her a turn on.

She told me she had played as a kid in some of the buildings like the one housing our favorite bath tub. She was too young to have any of the animosities regarding the war and was anxious to go spelunking as my “undercover cunnilingus partner” down in the depth where the boilers lurked.

That made me laugh. She loved to use the word “cunnilingus” which her German had an exact translation for only with a capital C. I could certainly guess why she joined the comparison with, “‘Cunnilingus’ ist fur alles”.

First, with their permission, I introduced her to my linemen for a tour of their lair, their hideouts. They were like the 7 dwarfs with Snow White going off to work in the mine, or their version of it. It was entirely funny. They already knew her from the snack bar and she noted that fact because they were always bragging their fatigue pants pockets stuffed bulging with bricks of hash, their pride and joy.

And as I mentioned, that is how lax it had become.

They called me Sarge and Hanna picked up on that as well calling me “Sarge verantwortlich für die Fotzen”, Sarge In Charge Of The Pussies” winking at me to try to get a rise out of them. She explained how she was referring to herding cats which I had mentioned before but she also said she was talking, “in ihrem Schritt spelnd,” spelunking in her crotch. “Get it?” What a tease.

The 7 dwarfs, although they were always aroused by her beauty, luckily were too stoned to be very harmful, the norm.

It was common for public rest rooms in Europe to be occupied by either sex, both genders whether they were ladies or mens rooms. It was a strange norm for Americans to experience. Odd, yes, but common place so Hanna went into the latrine with us after the guys got their donuts and coffee. She walked in and sat on the lap of one of them sharing a donut while he read her a story. She caught another guy actually taking a dump embarrassing him completely with her presence while she tried to sit in his lap. She was funny, always a complete tease, had her arm around his neck in a kind of headlock.