Chapter 9: Railload

As usual it was snowing, cold drafts blew through the buildings surrounding the rail yard, swirling around the vehicles and personnel there. The temperature was hanging in the low twenties, and threatening to go lower. Gloved hands fumbled with cables and chains, clumsy and awkward, trying to avoid any skin touching the frigid metal. To touch was to bond, getting free would mean leaving an offering of flesh to the cold gods, and cuts healed slowly in the cold and dirt of the field. No one wants to start a field problem with a pre existing disadvantage. Though to be truthful, just being a Scout was a disadvantage most times.

Shivering in our parkas, our hands and feet numb, ears burning as if on fire, we waited our turn to load, and it usually proved to be a long wait. It takes a lot of time to load out a battalion of armored vehicles, what with five line companies and the headquarters company which was larger than two line companies. It is a long process that cannot be safely hurried; driving a thirteen-ton vehicle onto and down a long line of railcars is a delicate process fraught with danger. The width of the rail cars exceeded the width of the vehicles by only scant inches, and each turn had to be made with surgical precision, or disaster would strike. Due to the weight of the vehicles, only one at a time could be moving on any given rail car at the time. Our rail loading facility left much to be desired anyway, we had to drive the full length of the train and slowly fill it up from the rear. Often there would be twenty cars in each train, and it would take almost a half hour to move one vehicle to the front of the train.

Once you reached your designated spot on the car, you would begin the long and aggravating process of tying it down. Chock blocks made from good solid German oak had to be spiked down to the deck, and then you rolled up on them and sat holding the brakes while your crew nailed down more of the same in the back. Then you rolled back into them and wedged your vehicle between them. At this point if you were lucky, you had chain binders, and could quickly cross them on the front and back and hook up to the car. Chains were both highly desired, and often stolen from company to company and battalion to battalion. Many a fistfight took place in the dark motor pools of the kaserne and in the field areas over chains. I almost believe there were more fights over chains than women, especially prior to a rail load.

If you were not among the fortunate few who possessed chains, you had to deal with large, stiff, and unwieldy cables and turnbuckles. These had to be unclamped and adjusted to fit every time you rail loaded, never in countless rail loads, did I see anyone using cables that didn't have to adjust them to fit. To make this even worse, the bolt ends of the clamps were always damaged by the banging and beating around, and would have to be filed down to allow you to remove the nuts. Swearing and cussing, you would get them loose; connect them to the rail car and your vehicle, and finally tightened. At which point you sought out your platoon sergeant and informed him you were ready for inspection. Nine times out of ten, this would result in you being assigned to assist another crew with their vehicle, but it wasn't really any worse than having to stand around waiting for your vehicle to be inspected, at least you kept moving and didn't freeze quite as fast.

After what seemed to be hours, your friendly Bundesbahn inspector, sipping a cup of coffee, would amble by, look briefly at the tie downs, and announce they were too loose. No matter that you could play a tune on them, no matter that they were threatening to pull the eyes out of your hull, they would have to be tightened again. We bitched about it constantly, but in truth, no matter how tight you got them, when you arrived at Grafenwohr or Hohenfels, or where ever you had been sent, they would be loose and floppy. The constant surging and swaying would work them loose no matter how tight. We would jump back up on the train and strain and pull until we met his standards, then, if lucky head for the barracks or the PX to warm up. Somehow, the Scouts always seemed to draw the privilege of guarding the trains until they pulled out. We would have gladly given them to anyone foolish enough to want them, but dutifully we walked up and down the length of the train, stomping through the snow, night and day, until at long last, it would roll out the gate and into the darkness.

Phase One was complete, now came a brief week of final prep for the field. Since we had no vehicles to tend, we swept the motor pool, cleaned our spotless weapons, and held classes on every subject imaginable to fill the time. Duty details were drafted from amongst us, to load trucks for the mess hall, load out weapons from the arms room, and any other duty required to outfit and support a large force in the field for a month. Any free moment was given over to scrounging munchies, packing away some item that might make life in the field a little more comfortable. The PX and commissary were ransacked, crackers, canned meats and sausages, any item that could be stashed away in a duffle bag or rucksack quickly disappeared from the shelves. Wives were busy baking and cooking, with detailed instructions on mailing care packages for their husbands. Some of us even made our own packages, and waited till the last moment to mail them to ourselves. This required careful timing to avoid the package arriving at the barracks before the company mail room left for the field. Carefully did one pack their boxes, making sure that nothing leaked, that nothing breakable, say like a bottle of Asbach, or bourbon, could be broken in handling, not that any of us would dream of packing such items. Care packages were the shiny spot in the darkness of the field, bringing a small measure of comfort to a decidedly uncomfortable situation, but they were sadly subject to much plundering. More than once, you would get your package only to find someone had pilfered it in transit. Mail clerks were the usually suspects, and often the culprit as well, but others in the chain were guilty as well. It was always a sore point among us that those in the field trains, who had a life of relative comfort compared to us, would steal from us. We could only take what we could carry or stash in our vehicles, and with the amount of gear and weaponry we carried on them, there was little room for anything else, while they had trucks and trailers capable of carrying any amount they could afford.