****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
One reviewer states that 1986 or so was the height of the Cold War. Gee, I must have missed something, inasmuch as I was stationed in the 3d Armored Division at Gelnhausen from Sept 62-64, when there was the late Oct '62 Cuban Crisis, and followed a year later by the JFK assassination. Colin Powell was there (in the same infantry bn I reported to: 2d ARB, 48th Infantry, Combat Command B) from 4 to 2 years before me. At the beginning of Powell's tour Khrushchev announced a 6 month ultimatum for the Western Allies to withdraw from Berlin. Just to provide an historical perspective, which is sadly lacking in the book (I took lower & upper div Anthropology courses at Portland State University, so I kinda understand): a fellow First Term junior enlisted soldier had gone through the somewhat arbitrary "waiting period" in order to get approval to bring (pay for) his "Non-Command Sponsored" wife to Germany, and yes, their apartment was far, far away from the kaserne. It ended up that he was ordered to send his wife back to the U.S. (which he could afford, since in order to bring her over he had to show financial ability to send her back). Note: I will not divulge the "reason" he was obliged to send her back. BTW, I was in HHC, which also included the heavy mortar platoon. A "section" of that platoon was called the Davy Crockett Section -- so Davy Crockett was in the Fulda Gap when the Soviet Union's Army in the Soviet Zone aka "East Germany" went, per Moscow radio, to its "highest Alert Level" during the Cuban Crisis (you know, the time before the establishment of a hot line between DC & Moscow).
