Darmstadt winter, late 1960's

Pictures in this set (Military years) are from when I was in the military, from 1967-1970. All photos were originally slides, a friend spent very many hours restoring those slides to being viewable.

My first real assignment in the military was to Darmstadt, Germany – I was stationed there from November of ’68 through December of ’69. In Darmstadt I began “earning my pay” as part of Air Force intelligence where my assignment was to listen to, and transcribe, Russian air-to-ground radio communications. It is interesting that, at that point in time, much of what I did in the Air Force in terms of work became relatively inconsequential – I was, finally, just doing a job of collecting information. More important, to me, is what I learned in my travels about Europe at that time.

My work schedule throughout the rest of my Air Force career was always the same. We worked 4 days on an evening shift (4 PM to midnight), 24 hours off and then 4 days on a ‘night’ shift (midnight to 8 AM), 24 hours off and then 4 days on a day shift (8 AM to 4 PM), and then off for 96 hours. This allowed for a fair amount of exploration during the working period, and then a period of about 4 days off after the last day shift (if you could stay awake.) Much of my travel around Germany was day trips to the relatively nearby cities of Heidelberg and Koblenz (they were short train rides away), hiking in the woods near our base, and renting a car with some friends and touring the Mosel River valley.

Our barracks in Darmstadt were on the southern edge of the city, with a forest behind. The base itself (Cambrai-Fritsch Kaserne) had been built in the 30's and thus the barracks would have originally been German Army barracks before the U.S. Army took them over in 1945.