slooowhand
Male
Sure enough, the new duty station did not have quarters available (I don't know how it is today but in the late 60s early 70s quarters were hard to come by), but like they promised, we were assigned to temporary quarters. The plan was that I would go to the new duty station and sign for the new quarters, we would then set up an appt with transportation to pack us out of the old living quarters and then move us into the temp. quarters at the new duty station the next day. This would take place in about two weeks after I had cleared my present duty station and was ready to sign out.
When I came to Germany I had approval for concurrent travel, which means my family traveled with me and we had quarters at the German duty station upon arrival. It called for us to stay in a hotel a couple days while we signed for housing and then to move into our quarters. Therefore, I didn't know anything about temp housing. Let me tell you about temp housing:
Most military housing sections are made up of large 4 story brick apartment buildings. Each building has a stairwell on each end, each stairwell had two apartments on each landing to make a total of 16 families in each building. The apartments range from 2 to 4 bedroom units so they can fit different size families. In the one we had in the old duty station we had three bedrooms and were on the first floor.
Some units could have up to 5 bedrooms to fit in large family units. In the very top of each stairwell was a temporary quarters unit. These units were in the eves of the building and was a "one size fits all" and intended to temporarily house families of any size until permanent quarters became available, they had EIGHT bedrooms, a living room, dining room and kitchen, they were HUGE! Most people did not want to be in them because you had to walk up 5 floors of stairs (10 flights), they had no regular windows (they had a skylight/window hybrid), and they were a pain in the ass to clean when you had to pass an inspection to get out of them, not to mention, you could get stuck in them for up to a year or more.
That's what I signed for. All I could think was "wait till Sharon sees this - Wow".
I drove back home and faced the music. Once again, I was surprised that Sharon took it so well. She was excited about the move and there was good reason. The new station held lots of promise. A much bigger base (actually, several kasernes, a large German town instead of a village, a lot more access to things of an American nature) It was going to be a definite step-up from the outpost we were stationed at now. Plus, I suspect she had other reasons to be ready to go.
Although I was in a "clearing-mode" (clearing being a process of "clearing" or finishing all of your accounts and business before moving on - using a checklist, of course), I still had to pull any duty I was previously scheduled for if I was still "in-station". The only thing I still had on my schedule was a weekend stint on "courtesy-patrol". Courtesy Patrol is kind of like a civilian ride-along where you ride with a cop to see what they deal with. On courtesy patrol a couple of NCO's (non commissioned officers) like me and a driver go downtown and make the bar and club circuit (complete with being in uniform and wearing courtesy patrol sleeves on their uniforms) looking for soldiers who are about to get in trouble or were already in some minor problems so that we can retrieve them back to their unit before the locals or MPs get tired of fucking with them and things get further out of hand.
While I was pulling this duty, Sharon decided to have a farewell hen party at our quarters with some of the friends she had made while at this station.
My patrol was uneventful except for one observation. I saw a girl in one of the clubs that really surprised me. She was a local 18 year old German girl who had been supposedly raped by three black soldiers about 6 months prior. She had initially filed a complaint but had eventually withdrawn it. A court martial had been scheduled and then canceled. When it was canceled the soldiers that had been accused were all transferred to other areas away from the "scene of the crime" and that was pretty much the end of that. The scuttlebutt was that the case was pretty open and shut so the girl must have just decided that the pressure was too much and she just wanted it to go away. Most of the bars and clubs in our area were a mix of people but a few were more or less segregated in that they were populated mostly by black soldiers and German girls, other races were sometimes seen in them but it was unusual. On courtesy patrol we went everywhere and in every bar and club. It was one of these "segregated" bar that I saw this German girl and she was pretty much all over a couple of black guys. We stayed there for about 20 minutes observing the goings on and at one point I saw the girl kissing one of the guys while groping the crotch of the other guy who was standing behind her- this kind of behavior is not that unusual to see when pulling CP duty. In fact, it's one of the reasons I never minded being sent on CP. It was a real opportunity for the voyeur in me to get the chance to see people in action; since the CP couldn't really do anything of a negative nature to you they were generally ignored unless they engaged you. Being "invisible" in these highly charged sexual environments was an ideal way to spend a Saturday evening to me. I think that a lot of the black soldiers enjoyed showing off and having an audience to see them use their power over the white female. I usually came off of CP duty pretty stoked and horny. None the less, based on the recent events in this girls life, I thought it was unusual behavior and definitely worth my attention and observation.
Before I went on duty I turned on my recorder at the house to find out what the hens talked about while I was gone - it was interesting, very interesting. I'll share that in the next installment . . .
When I came to Germany I had approval for concurrent travel, which means my family traveled with me and we had quarters at the German duty station upon arrival. It called for us to stay in a hotel a couple days while we signed for housing and then to move into our quarters. Therefore, I didn't know anything about temp housing. Let me tell you about temp housing:
Most military housing sections are made up of large 4 story brick apartment buildings. Each building has a stairwell on each end, each stairwell had two apartments on each landing to make a total of 16 families in each building. The apartments range from 2 to 4 bedroom units so they can fit different size families. In the one we had in the old duty station we had three bedrooms and were on the first floor.
Some units could have up to 5 bedrooms to fit in large family units. In the very top of each stairwell was a temporary quarters unit. These units were in the eves of the building and was a "one size fits all" and intended to temporarily house families of any size until permanent quarters became available, they had EIGHT bedrooms, a living room, dining room and kitchen, they were HUGE! Most people did not want to be in them because you had to walk up 5 floors of stairs (10 flights), they had no regular windows (they had a skylight/window hybrid), and they were a pain in the ass to clean when you had to pass an inspection to get out of them, not to mention, you could get stuck in them for up to a year or more.
That's what I signed for. All I could think was "wait till Sharon sees this - Wow".
I drove back home and faced the music. Once again, I was surprised that Sharon took it so well. She was excited about the move and there was good reason. The new station held lots of promise. A much bigger base (actually, several kasernes, a large German town instead of a village, a lot more access to things of an American nature) It was going to be a definite step-up from the outpost we were stationed at now. Plus, I suspect she had other reasons to be ready to go.
Although I was in a "clearing-mode" (clearing being a process of "clearing" or finishing all of your accounts and business before moving on - using a checklist, of course), I still had to pull any duty I was previously scheduled for if I was still "in-station". The only thing I still had on my schedule was a weekend stint on "courtesy-patrol". Courtesy Patrol is kind of like a civilian ride-along where you ride with a cop to see what they deal with. On courtesy patrol a couple of NCO's (non commissioned officers) like me and a driver go downtown and make the bar and club circuit (complete with being in uniform and wearing courtesy patrol sleeves on their uniforms) looking for soldiers who are about to get in trouble or were already in some minor problems so that we can retrieve them back to their unit before the locals or MPs get tired of fucking with them and things get further out of hand.
While I was pulling this duty, Sharon decided to have a farewell hen party at our quarters with some of the friends she had made while at this station.
My patrol was uneventful except for one observation. I saw a girl in one of the clubs that really surprised me. She was a local 18 year old German girl who had been supposedly raped by three black soldiers about 6 months prior. She had initially filed a complaint but had eventually withdrawn it. A court martial had been scheduled and then canceled. When it was canceled the soldiers that had been accused were all transferred to other areas away from the "scene of the crime" and that was pretty much the end of that. The scuttlebutt was that the case was pretty open and shut so the girl must have just decided that the pressure was too much and she just wanted it to go away. Most of the bars and clubs in our area were a mix of people but a few were more or less segregated in that they were populated mostly by black soldiers and German girls, other races were sometimes seen in them but it was unusual. On courtesy patrol we went everywhere and in every bar and club. It was one of these "segregated" bar that I saw this German girl and she was pretty much all over a couple of black guys. We stayed there for about 20 minutes observing the goings on and at one point I saw the girl kissing one of the guys while groping the crotch of the other guy who was standing behind her- this kind of behavior is not that unusual to see when pulling CP duty. In fact, it's one of the reasons I never minded being sent on CP. It was a real opportunity for the voyeur in me to get the chance to see people in action; since the CP couldn't really do anything of a negative nature to you they were generally ignored unless they engaged you. Being "invisible" in these highly charged sexual environments was an ideal way to spend a Saturday evening to me. I think that a lot of the black soldiers enjoyed showing off and having an audience to see them use their power over the white female. I usually came off of CP duty pretty stoked and horny. None the less, based on the recent events in this girls life, I thought it was unusual behavior and definitely worth my attention and observation.
Before I went on duty I turned on my recorder at the house to find out what the hens talked about while I was gone - it was interesting, very interesting. I'll share that in the next installment . . .
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