SimonTemplar wrote:
Wow...C Co. 4/7 Infantry - early nineties...those were the days, man...four day weekends in Prague, Amsterdam, Brussels....Aschaffenburg was a hell of a place to be stationed. I was there from April 1991 to June 1992 (11M - was a grunt / Bradley crewman), when Fiori Kaserne was deactivated. Even the deactivation was a fun time. The Berlin wall came down - I have pieces of it in a jar on my desk that I chipped off with a hammer and chisel when I was in Berlin for a long weekend. The iron curtain had parted and Eastern Europe was open for business. Places like Czechoslovakia and Hungary became common weekend destinations. Yes, sir - it was an unforgettable time period for Europe; the Prague then was much different from the Prague we know today.
I wound up TDY for the final couple months of the drawdown at a furniture warehouse, wearing civilian clothes to work and working half days, just standing there with a clipboard directing traffic for incoming truckloads of barracks furniture for the furniture auction. Bunks and wall lockers were going for DM 10 a pop.
Had I not been sent to the NTC as permanent party OPFOR after Aschaffenburg was deactivated I probably would have reenlisted.
When I was there in Aschaffenburg I was under a 1SGT Harrold, then later in '92 one 1SGT Hinson (both great guys). The CO was a CPT. Buennemeyer; the XO was a 1LT Smith. My PLT SGT was a SFC Doctor, who was, unfortunately, replaced a few months before I was transferred to Ft. Irwin by some useless moron who's name wasn't even worth remembering.
The company armorer was a CPL Hauser, who I've maintained contact with over the last 20+ years and he was even my best man at my wedding in '98. The other guys who were memorable were PFC Bergstrom - that dude was HILARIOUS - for some reason he was always walking around and randomly rolling his eyes back into his head and shout "Aunt Stensen, babe??", among other bizarre verbal "Bergstroms". I would love to know what ever happened to him. Other great guys were also SGT Wetherington, PFC Bassinett, PFC Buskirk, CPL Gumbinger, SGT Bobian, PFC Buboltz, and many others who's names escape me at the moment.
There was a PFC Duffy - a Texan who married a German and he was also my room dog, along with a slimy smartass CPL called Huggins. I never met a bigger cheesedick than this back stabbling, kissass creep, even to this day. He had this weird, undeserved air of entitlement and I never knew anyone who could stand being around him. He is one of the few guys I met in the military that still inspires hatred just thinking about that paper tiger.
There was also one lunatic that most guys pretty much stayed away from - a golden gloves champion boxer with some very serious anger issues and a penchant for hard alcohol. I can't remember his name, but he would go downtown and get hammered and upon his return to the barracks in the early morning hours, he would randomly pick a floor of Charlie Company's barracks building. He would then start randomly knocking on doors and whichever poor sucker was the first one naive enough to answer the door at 2am would be beaten senseless by this drunken menace before he could even rub the sleep from his eyes. I was always amazed that this maniac was never locked up for that. Then again, that was the Infantry back in the day...
Anywho - anyone heard from any of the guys mentioned above? I would really like to hear from any of them and if they made a career out of the military, got out, went to college, etc.
Since the army I have lived and worked all over the world as a contractor for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and even the State Department. I recently took a position that will have me once again permanently based in Wiesbaden, Germany - my second job that will have me living and working in Germany (first time in DEC08 - AUG09 at Coleman Barracks, Mannheim) Next month I will be leaving for Germany and my wife and I can't wait to go back home again.
If any of the guys I mentioned or anyone from C Co. 4/7 that served there between April 1991 through May 1992 see this, give us a shout - always been curious about what happened to the guys I was there with.
Dude you're killing me. What's your name? This is Specialist Helfrich. I wasn't Charlie Company second platoon. And the drunk guys name was Gallagher. And he did serve time in Mannheim. He got in contact with me about seven years ago. Looking for somebody that we've knew. I refuse to give him any information even if I knew where the guy was. He's a real piece of work.
Contact me: helfrich40@gmail.com