I want to keep this feature going, but I’m nearly out of stories. So, if you have a military story, e-mail me with the subject “Military”. Thanks.

Here’s a Marine’s praise for patriotic civilians in Iraq. A great story:

I was sent to do some work in Baghdad and billeted at the CPA headquarters in the Green Zone. The CPA headquarters was an eclectic collection of people from all over the world -from Ambassador Bremer to the Gurhka guarding the door it was a strange brew indeed. One day I sat down for chow with three civilians. I’m guessing they were 65, 45, and 30 year old men (not guessing about the men part). They were from different parts of the county, but all worked for the Army Corps of Engineers as hydro power gurus. We struck up a conversation and I asked them what brought them to Iraq. A standard question in the Green Zone and the 30 yr old’s was typical.
He said – “They came around the office and announced that the Corps of Engineers needed to send some people to Iraq. They asked if anyone wanted to volunteer. I thought it would be interesting, kind of an adventure – so I signed up.” That was pretty much what most of the civilians in Iraq would say – a few would also add, ” and the money is good.”
The 65 yr old said – “I am the boss back where I work. I have been employed by the U.S. government for over 30 years and have never really had to do ‘anything above and beyond’ my day to day duties. I thought this would be my opportunity to pay the country back.” I hadn’t heard that one before and was a little bit taken aback. The 45 yr old’s response only solidified the fact that there are Patriots in America, and there not all wearing a uniform.
He said – “Same here, they came around the office looking for volunteers and told us we had a couple of days to think it over. I wasn’t really sold on the idea, and went home and talked to my wife about it. I imagined that she would be adamantly opposed and I wasn’t going to push the issue. I mentally ran through the list of reasons she would come up with and sure enough she hit me with – ‘you’ll be gone for 6 months, isn’t this really dangerous, it will be hard to run the household without you, what are the kids going to think.’ We talked briefly about it, she thought for a few minutes and then said ‘all those things are true, but we owe this to the country’ so here I am.”
I just nodded, didn’t really know what to say – after twenty years in the Marine Corps I usually thought of civilians as lesser mortals that needed my protection (with only about 20% worthy of it ). Even after 9/11 I thought – sure, there are a lot of flags out these days, and people are inclined to be a little more patriotic, but talk is cheap and a flag and pole cost about 40 bucks. Now when I see some old lady waiving a flag, or hear some trucker talking about what he would do to UBL if he could get his hands on him, I think back to that conversation and conclude that the enemies of America have no idea what they are up against. If need be – the 65 year old men and engineer’s wives of American can take UBL and his ilk any day.
Semper Fi,
John

DNice has some stories of some fun in Germany:

When I was stationed in Germany (1986 – 1988) I was in a Lance Missile Battalion. I had heard that we were the “most forwardly deployed nuclear capable unit” in Europe. We were 60 kilometers from the Czech border. (I have no independent corroboration of that… whatever.)
Anyways, because we had nukes, we were stationed out in the middle of nowhere (which is pretty hard to do in Germany, but they did it). There were corn fields as far as the eye could see. And worst of all, we were in probably the only town in Germany that didn’t have a train station!
When we went out to the field for exercises, we didn’t go to Graf, where everyone else went (a big training area). OHHHHH nooooo! We went out into the German countryside and set up the woods between small towns.
We would regularly have German citizens walking their dogs through our areas.
My first time in the field I was guarding the entrance to the woods where our Battery was set up. We pulled a fallen tree across the dirt road, and I was sitting prone in the bushes with my M16. A car pulls up and stops at the log, I jump out of the bushes in my BDUs, kevlar, and M16 and the guy almost has a heart attack. He rolls down the window and asks in broken English if the woods are full of soldiers. I said yes, then he picks up a shotgun… I freak out and jump back about 10 ten feet (I don’t have any real ammo…). Suddenly I realize he’s trying to tell me he wanted to go hunting and would he be allowed?
Another time, in the middle of winter, we got a visit from some neighborhood kids while we were set up outside this small town. We bribed them with camo sticks (the camouflage makeup sticks) and MRE’s to get us some beer. They come back with a whole rack of beer from a nearby Gasthaus. Awesome!
Then we got the order to move out the next day, so we paid the kids with chem-lite glow sticks and some more MRE’s and they broken down all of our equipment and packed up our tents for us. We sat on the truck and drank the beer. God bless those kids!

Paul from Memphis, TN, has another story about dealing with the Germans… though from a quite different era:

This one is about 3rd hand, but it’s still pretty good. My dad worked as a law clerk for a federal judge down in Mobile, AL who had served as a P-38 pilot in WWII in Europe. The P-38 was an amazingly versatile and dangerous aircraft (to the Krauts, that is). One of the missions that got flown a lot was tank busting — German tanks were highly superior to American ones, but the USAAF ruled the skies. The worst nemesis of Allied armor was the King Tiger, the Panzerkampgwagon VI.4.c B — the frontal armor was 150mm thick, which, for reference, isn’t too shabby for today’s MBT. It was essentially invulnerable to frontal assault; a King Tiger with a clear field of fire could whipe out entire batallions of Shermans or T-34’s alone — the high power 88mm gun was a killer. But the King Tiger presented a quandry for the air force as well: the armor was so thick, even on top, that 500! pound bombs had a tendency to bounce off. So, what the pilots resorted to doing when out on bombing runs against King Tigers, was to drop bombs on either side of the tank, and the concussion from the blast would actually FLIP the vehicle over. Sounds weird, but it’s true.