Happy Days Part Three

      After basic training I was sent to Fort Monmouth to learn to operate and maintain microwave communication equipment. The classes were interesting, but the camp was very spit and polish. They had large consolidated mess halls, which meant that when I pulled KP, which was fairly often, I was there from before dawn until late at night, with few breaks. Every Saturday a big parade would be held that everyone had to march in. On the other hand, the base was only one hours ride on the bus to New York City. Hence, almost every weekend that I had off, I headed for The Big Apple.

      During the holidays, I was granted leave to go home to marry Alice, the love of my life. The wedding was small. We were married in a Baptist Church with mainly relatives and a few close friends in attendance. I wore my army dress uniform, and Alice wore a pink suit. The reception was held in a restaurant. But, we were in love and thought it was great.

A couple of days after the wedding, I had to report back to Fort Monmouth. Alice came with me to New Jersey. We rented a room in Long Branch, with cooking facilities in the basement. Two guys in my class at microwave school also lived there. We also became fast friends with another couple that lived there.

      On the night we arrived, we found that the window was broken. I covered the broken pane with cardboard. Also, we did not have sheets that first night. Some drunken friends from my class knocked on their door in the middle of the night giggling and making stupid remarks. However, they gave us a wedding present that included bed sheets.

      When my graduation from microwave school neared, I learned that I was going to be sent to Germany. Alice returned to Chicago, and I was sent overseas in a troop ship. The worst part of the troop ship was the fact that we were crowded into the hold of the ship which had little ventilation. As a result, there was always the stench of vomit from the seasick. Because of this I spent as much time as possible on deck. During that time, I wrote Alice long, long love letters each day that we were at sea. One Italian guy from Brooklyn was very funny. He used to go around saying, “Watta we, gaw-bage.”

      After ten days in the North Atlantic, the ship landed in Bremerhaven, Germany, where I awaited my assignment. During this time, I went bowling with another soldier. Not realizing how strong German beer was, I got drunk on a couple of beers. From Bremerhaven I was sent to Karlsruhl, Germany for more schooling specific to the type of microwave equipment that I would be working on. One funny thing that happened while I was there; a shepherd brought his herd of sheep onto the base leaving a real mess of sheep manure in the street between the barracks.

      When I finished my schooling, I was assigned to maneuvers, which meant my outfit took trailers full of microwave equipment out in the country and set it up there. The major in charge of this operation was an alcoholic whose hands trembled in the morning until he had his first drink. In one place they had set up, the sergeant had the latrines dug out in the open instead of in the woods. One day I was sitting there doing my business, and a German hiker came by and waved to me. Also, a glider club held their outings on this hill. One day the outfit was inundated with Germans with gliders. Also, whenever the major would arrive by helicopter, curious Germans appeared out of nowhere. When we was ready to move the equipment to another location, we were supposed to wait for an engineering outfit to take the microwave tower down, but the cocky major got impatient and decided that his outfit could do it by themselves. He had the tower hitched to jeeps by wires. Something happened when it was tipped at forty-five degree angle, a wire broke or the jeeps couldn’t hold it, and it came crashing down, breaking the microwave dish.

      About this time Alice was preparing to come to Germany to join me. I tried to get an apartment in Karlsruhl because I thought that was where I would be stationed. But I was sent back on maneuvers and wasn’t sure whether I could even get leave to meet Alice at the airport. Finally I received permission to meet her plane at Frankfort Airport, which at that time was quite small. When Alice disembarked, she and I fell into each other’s arms. I brought her back to Karlsruhl, and we stayed in a German hotel. Too soon I had to return to duty and another trip into the wilds, while poor Alice had to stay in a hotel where no one spoke English.

      The place that my outfit set up the microwave equipment was on a wooded mountain outside of an air base. Then disaster struck. One evening, I and four other guys decided to take a truck down to a Gasthaus (tavern) at the bottom of the hill. This was a real German place where they served potent beer in liter steins. As a result we all got plastered. It was a cold night, so we decided we could fit everybody in the cab rather than having people in the truck bed and freezing.  I sat on the right with the mess sergeant Peter on my lap, and we headed up the mountain.

I fell asleep. Suddenly my head snapped back and banged against metal. A sharp pain shot up my right arm. Then everything was peaceful; too peaceful. We should be moving, bumping along the mountain trail. Still groggy from beer, I tried to sit up, but something bulky was pressing me down. When i opened my eyes, he sobered instantly. That something pinning him to the seat was the inert body of Pete. His head and shoulders were stuck through the truck’s smashed windshield. At first he seemed lifeless. But then his back heaved slightly. With a rasping snort, his breath came slow and irregular. I sighed with relief that he was alive.

      The other two passengers were on Junior’s left in a twisted heap. Ray, the driver, however, was gone. “Ray,” I called. There was no answer. Dimly I saw that the door on the driver’s side was swinging. On my side, the exit was blocked by the rigid oak we had hit. I was trapped between the wreckage and the unconscious men. Although I was numb from cold, moisture formed on my forehead and palms. Don’t panic, I told himself. Ray will be back soon with help.

      Hours seemed to pass before I heard footsteps. Someone flashed a light in my face. “I’m stuck,” I said. “Get Pete, he’s hurt bad.”

      Working slowly the rescuers pried my buddies loose from the contorted steel. Once my exit was unobstructed, I slid sideways to escape, but my spine became jelly, and I collapsed. Carefully the medics lifted me onto the frozen ground. As I lay there with my shoulder hurting, I asked for a cigarette.

“Too much gas around,” replied the sympathetic Air Force sergeant bending over me.  “I’m afraid to light a match. The ambulance should be here any minute.”

      Ill from the smell of gasoline and desiring a cigarette, time dragged slowly. Soon, however, I found himself in the emergency ward of Landstuhl Army Hospital with an IV in my arm. Exhausted, but too uncomfortable to sleep, I waited for the dawn. As I lay there, I worried about Alice. Would they be able to find her to notify her what had happened? By morning, I drifted into a nightmare filled half sleep. I was awakened by resonant voice of my company executive officer. “How are you feeling, Vadalma?” he asked.

      I managed a feeble grin. “A little under the weather, Sir. Captain, how’s Pete?”

      “He’s in bad shape, but out of danger. The other men are doing well.” The deep lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. With a sly grin, he said, “I know you’d love to keep chatting, but you’ve got another visitor.”

      I turned my head and almost cried with pleasure. Standing by my bed was Alice, looking very beautiful although her chestnut hair was disheveled and her deep blue eyes red rimmed. She bent down and kissed me hard, took my hand and said, “Everything’s going to be fine, Honey.”

      I was in the broken bone ward, which meant that no one was really sick, only injured. My injuries included a dislocated shoulder and a hairline crack in his pelvis. The doctors put a body cast on me with a rod that held up my arm until my shoulder healed. Alice came to visit every day. She was billeted at the local BOQ (bachelor’s office quarters), which was really a hotel for people visiting patients. Around the second day, my back start hurting, and I had trouble breathing. The doctors discovered that I had a collapsed lung. Before they took me to the operating room to fix the problem, they gave me morphine. I was talking to Alice and then nothing. Suddenly I was back in my hospital bed, continuing the conversation as though nothing had happened.

      Alice and I made good friends in that hospital. One Air Force guy, Pat, had a crush on Alice. He asked me whether she was my sister and followed her around. He had a broken collar bone so that the cast that he had on made his arms stick out. Another Air Force guy, Jimmy, had a broken leg. He was also in an accident.

      After I had healed some and was in recovery, I could get passes to go into town. One of the guys said his girl friend worked in a certain bar. So a bunch of the recuperating men and Alice went to that bar. It turned out that his girl friend was a topless dancer. Also, the place was raided by the M.P.s (military police) after we left. Alice and I went out with some other guys too. One night Pat, Alice and I got a little smashed. Somehow a drink got spilled on Alice’s lap, and we rushed her out of that place and got the giggles about the incident.