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Close Station
Once we were settled in, with our battalion headquarters in a schoolhouse (the
Germans were not to reopen their schools until they had been checked out and de-
nazified), someone mentioned casually that we really should have a US flag flying out in
front. That jogged the memory of someone else, who recalled passing a flag factory in a
town along the border. M/Sgt Kennedy, our sergeant major, looked through the Army
Regulations and dug out the specifications for Old Glory, and a jeep laden with
occupation marks and cartons of cigarettes went back to find the factory and have a flag
made.
The factory did not have the exact shade of blue, but we settled for one a bit
lighter, and our flag became the pride and admiration of all Americans who saw it.
Envy, too. Someone from the 344th FA Bn, stationed at the town of
Burglengenfeld, saw it and wanted one like it. We told them where the factory was, and
they got their own.
Alas, hardly had they run it up with solemn ceremony when a gust of wind blew
the unsteady flagpole down. The battalion personnel officer took one look at the disaster
lying in the dust and turned to the Army Regulations, which said that when a flag had
touched the ground, it must not be moved, but be burned on the spot.
"I'll be damned!" roared Major Bob Lippard, executive officer of the 344th,
mindful of all the effort put into the project. "That flag never touched the ground! Now
put the pole up good and solid and run our new flag up again before I get mad!"
The Division Special Services Officer somehow found a number of European
variety shows and sent them on a circuit to wherever troops were stationed. We got them
fairly frequently: about once a week, I believe. I noticed an interesting fact. The soldiers
all whooped and whistled when the dancing girls appeared, but the people who got the
most rapt attention and applause were the magicians and, even more, the jugglers.
A group of us officers were walking home to Fronberg after an evening
performance when we passed a German house just as a feckless soldier staggered out the
door, brandishing his carbine. We stopped to ask questions, since he was obviously in
violation of the rules against not only entering a civilian home, but also carrying a
weapon. It soon became evident that he was also drunk, if not disorderly. He stood and
confronted us, waving the muzzle of his carbine so randomly that it might have wounded
someone had it gone off.
Thinking to keep the muzzle elevated, I reached out and caught the carbine by the
barrel. This was the routine move that an inspecting officer made before checking a
weapon for Cleanliness, so reflex action made the soldier let go of the carbine and snap
his hands to his sides, leaving me with the firearm. [I
gained an entirely undeserved
reputation for machismo for having "disarmed" a crazed soldier.]
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